The Captain's Table

Childhood Memories 2 - "The Memorying"

It was my older sister Jane's Christmas present and I was not supposed to touch it.

MY SEESTER JANE TAKING AN X-MAS NAP

But I had to touch it.

An old school cassette recorder may not look like much to the eyes of a generation that can surf the internet - but it sure was hot spit in 1974. I mean damn - I had Tony Orlando&Dawn cassettes to listen to!

So I touched it...

...and it broke.

...and I knew I'd be in trouble. So I made plans.

My plan was simple - I was going to move into the bathroom...

...forever.

In preparation I took all my clothes and books into the can and wrote a long, soulful note explaining, among other things, that if my family really cared about me they'd feed me regularly by sliding slices of crisp bacon under the bathroom door. (This was sort of a bonus side to the whole thing cause I really liked bacon).

Then I locked the door.

I stayed in there for about 9 hours.

Nobody noticed. I realized I'd forgotten to leave the note on the other side of the door.

I came out and took my spanking.

And
I
didn't
get
any
bacon...

Bizzaro Childhood Memories #1

So, today as I sat waiting to hear if a show we produced a pilot for got picked up I was chatting with my friend and Birthday Girl Kim who lives in SF. We were talking about this thing called the Feelatorium - a sort of blind mole installation in the Bay Area - and the following chat ensued: Names have been changed to protect the innocent...

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

MyFriendKim: that thing definitely brings out my claustrophobic side
Me: really? I didn't know you had one
MyFriendKim: i had a bad experience when i was like 12 or 13 at yosemite
Me: fell into a geyser?
MyFriendKim: ...
Me: what happened?
MyFriendKim: we were going through this crawly rocky area (that one is allowed to go through) and i just remember panicking and like not being able to move or something, i had to be calmed down
Me: that kind of thing sticks with you
MyFriendKim: and i mean, dang, it was like boulders
Me: I remember once this friend of mine and I were playing and he put me in a box and then stood around with a canister of mace and blasted me every time I tried to get out
MyFriendKim: now my palms are getting clammy
MyFriendKim: what?
Me: no shit
Me: we had these little cans of mace in the house in case of robbery I guess
MyFriendKim: yeesh
Me: friend isn't really the right word
Me: a bully I was trying to pacify
MyFriendKim: i guess not!
Me: I ended up (seriously I think) plotting his murder
Me: we were digging holes in the back yard and I hit him in the head with a shovel
Me: He's now a fairly well known director
MyFriendKim: err
Me: He directed (REDACTED)
MyFriendKim: you hit him in the head with a shovel?
Me: yes - not hard enough, I guess
Me: I think I pulled it at the last second
Me: but I think he never picked on me again after that

Now I'm not advising that anyone use this as a way to deal with a bully - just found myself surprised that I had totally forgotten about it.

Ah the Halcyon days of youth.

Hard, Hot Dick

It's funny how words and images around a news story can often coalesce into some third thing - an abstraction that tells an entirely different tale. I bring this up specifically with reference to Dick Cheney's coming out from behind the skirts of the White House after four days and fessing up "like a man"... or maybe more like a "total bitch", I'll leave that up to you to decide.

But whatever your take - finally Dick is on the record as being "The guy who pulled the trigger" - demonstrating yet again that one thing you can count on from this administration is a commitment to taking credit for stating the beningly obvious.

But I digress, because what Cheney's sob-sister/mea-maxima-culpa turn on the dance floor with Britt Hume and the subsequent news stories have done is left an image in my mind.

An image of Dick Cheney, gun in hand kneeling over his wounded friend.

And why does that stick? Because it translates into an image of war... it an image *from* war that is repeated countless times by American troops in Iraq every day. I guess the irony is to have that notion come so clearly home through the spin-doctoring of a man I consider to be pretty much evil personified - at least insomuch as I understand "evil" to be in any concrete sense.

Of course I can also imagine that Dick would sort of dig that self image - having never been to war himself.

And now for the cheery bit!! With thanks to The Brookings Institute and US World&News Reports.

The update as of January 25th, 2006:

2,237 US Soldiers Killed
16,472 Seriously Wounded

--------------------
Spent & approved to spend in Iraq $350 billion of US taxpayers' money

Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors

Halliburton Overcharges and Questioned Costs Publicly Known to be Hidden by the Pentagon from Auditors $212 million

Troops Total 183,000, including 162,000 from the US, 8,000 from the UK, and 13,000 from all other nations (other than Iraq)

US Troop Casualities 2,237 US troops; 98% male. 89% non-officers; 75% active duty, 15% National Guard; 74% white, 10% African-American, 11% Latino. 22% killed by non-hostile causes. 52% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 69% were from the US Army.

Non-US Troop Casualties Total 201, with 98 from the UK.

US Troops Wounded 16,472, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries (total excludes psychological injuries)

US Troops with Serious Mental Health Problems 30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home

Iraqi Military and Police Casualties 4,013

Iraqi Civilians Killed, Estimated 39,200 to 79,400

Iraqi Insurgents Killed, Roughly Estimated 53,470

Non-Iraqi Contractors and Civilian Workers Killed 361

Non-Iraqi Kidnapped 266, including 44 killed, 135 released, 3 escaped, 3 rescued and 81 status unknown.

US Military Helicopters Downed in Iraq 47

Estimated insurgents, June 2003 5,000

Estimated insurgents, December 2005 15,000 - 20,000

Daily insurgent attacks, Feb 2004 14

Daily insurgent attacks, July 2005 70

Daily insurgent attacks, December 2005 75

Trained Iraqi Troops Needed by July 2006 272,566

Trained Iraqi Troops, Per General Richard Meyers in March 2005 40,000

Trained Iraqi Troops, Per US Senator Joseph Biden in March 2005 4,000

Trained Iraqi Troops, Per US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad in August 2005 "Not very large."

Iraqi Unemployment Rate 25 to 60%

Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity 10.0

Average Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity 3.0

Percentage of Iraqi HOme with Access to Piped Water 78%

Length of Gasoline Lines 1 mile

Hepatitis Outbreaks 2002, 100; 2003, 170; 2004, 200.

Car Traffic Change 500% from July 2003 to Jan 2005

Registered Cars Pre-war, 1.5 milliion; October 2005, 3.1 million

Inflation in 2005 20%

Children Enrolled in Primary School 2000, 3.6 million; 2004, 4.3 million

Telephone Subscribers pre-war, 833,000; September 2005, 4.6 million

World Bank Estimate of Iraq Reconstruction Costs $55.3 billion

Results of Poll Taken in Iraq in August 2005 by the British Ministry of Defense (Source: Brookings Institute)

Iraqis "strongly opposed to presence of coalition troops - 82%

Iraqis who believe Coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security - less than 1%

Iraqis who feel less ecure because of the occupation - 67%

Iraqis who do not have confidence in multi-national forces - 72%

Iraqis who rarely have safe, clean water - 71%

Iraqis who never have enough electricity - 47%

Fuck you Dick!

9 months later - the blog starts up again

Not much of a weekend, really. There was a big blizzard in Manhattan...

Oh yeah - and the Vice President shot a guy in the face.

At times like these, thank God we have Dilbert to make everything feel warm and fuzzy...

Oh that Dilbert!!

Don't feel sad USA we have them too!

As promised when we started the Great Canadian series we will, on occasion, put forth a Canadian who is great for being a complete and utter idiot - and today's Canadian is all that and more!!

It seems like only about 4 years ago (because it was) that Calgary West MP Rob Anders tried to put his best foot forward and, in so doing, planted it firmly in his mouth - so today, a recap of the magnificent boobery of one (in)famous canuck.

Lest we forget...

In 2001, the Federal Government decided to give Nelson Mandela honorary Canadian citizenship, making him only the second foreigner to receive such an honour.

This award - largely predicated on Mandela's work CHANGING THE WORLD AND PROMOTING PEACE - didn't, however, sit well with one fiery, idiotic, toady of the religious right from Calgary - and so enter our hero - Conservative MP Rob Anders.

Calling Mandela, "a communist and a terrorist," and decrying him as "the politically correct Left-lib
poster boy of today", the not-so-prescient Anders declared that Mandela would be forgotten in 5 years.
Fortunately time has and will prove Anders wrong - guaranteeing that Mandela's legacy will be remembered and that, in fact, it will be Anders who fades, all the while babbling nonsense, into the mists of time; fated to be remembered only in backhanded salutes like this one.

To be fair - Anders may not have been completely briefed and focused on the Mandela issue as he was, at the time, very busy with his personal political agenda of banning abortion and promoting western seperatism... and we all know how tiring THAT can be.

In an equally twitty addendum to the tale Mandela, noted for his willingness to reconcile with those who
disagree with him, attempted to phone Anders to smooth things out, but Anders refused to take the call.

So take a satisfied breath all you Yankees - because now you can feel safe in the knowledge that blinkered, Philistine, pig-ignorance is a world-wide phenomenon; you are not alone.

Evry Monday - Another Great Canadian

A new feature here at The Captain's Table in which we will feature an educational (sort of) profile of a great, not so great or really nasty Canadian each and every Monday until we run out.

So let's start with a favorite to canadians everywhere - Kim Mitchell

If words like Sarnia, Max Webster and Gowan seem like Greek to you - then you've never really met a
little person called the Canadian-you-within.

Sarnia 1967!!: A young, ambitious Kim Mitchell joins "ZOOOM". Soon, after debating with his bandmates which songs they should COVER (yeesh), Mitchell leaves "ZOOOM" and pursues a career doing studio sessions, beer commercials, and the airport lounge circuit.

Early 70's: Mitchell sets off to the Greek island of Rhodes backing up a "Greek Tom Jones". Six months
later Mitchell invites childhood buddy Pye Dubois to Greece to co-write some songs; they decided to make it a band project with some Sarnia friends and set off to launch MAX WEBSTER (a name they picked from a phonebook).

1975-1978: Max Webster signs with SRO Productions and record their first two albums, 'Max Webster' and 'High Class In Borrowed Shoes'., then during the recording of their third album - 'Mutiny Up My Sleeve' - (1978) their producer quits over the album's musical direction.

Damn - this is like Spinal Tap only real AND Canadian! What could happen next? Success? Pathos? Bathos? Well read on...

1979: Max Webster (7 years after forming) finally crack the charts with the single "Let Go The Line" in
1979. Then, almost right after, THE BAND SPLITS UP (!?!) - with some members forming an unfortunately-named offshoot called "Antlers" and, Kim Mitchell - our hero, of sorts, I guess - decides to
pursue a solo career.

Early 80's: It wasn't all beer and skittles for Kim though! Kim's first work mostly involved doing session
work and producing Scottish-Canadian-pop-superstar-and-uber-oddity Larry "Your a Strange Animal (that's what you are)" Gowan's self-titled debut "Goman".

Kim - now donning his trademark half-mullety-haircut, shades and ball cap - then went on to record his own albums; "Akimbo Alogo", and "Shaking Like a Human Being"; they were both very successful, and included hit songs "Patio Lanterns", and "Go for a Soda" - which became the unofficial anthem for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). "Shaking" went triple platinum, and earned Kim two Juno awards. His latest album "Kimosabe", was released in 1999, and featured vocals from Lisa Dalbello.

Kim Mitchell - a true canadian success story!

Back To The Ureftu

It's that time of year here at the Captain's Table when I find myself receiving floods of email from young minds seeking my counsel on what path to take with their educational futures. Really - if you could see the stacks of inquisitive emails, postcards and ham-fisted 2nd year philosophy theses that are stacked across my desk you'd be amazed! Most of these are easy to dispense with as I immediately trash the ones that start with "Deer Captun", are rife with split infinitives, over usage of the word "like" or that employ a hand-writing so spidery and discursive that they can only have been penned by a florid psychotic or drug addict - and we all know that THEY belong in community college.

That usually winnows the pile down to a half-dozen or so and, this year at least, one perfect and sparely-written gem rose to the surface and I felt compelled to respond:

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

In a message dated 4/8/05 12:16:38 AM, _______@hotmail.com writes:

Easy question: Yale or Princeton?

In a message dated 4/8/05 9:37:38 AM you replied to _______@hotmail.com:

Dear V,

Easy for some, maybe - but remember V that I am a high-school dropout and autodidact. So higher education - particularly the Ivy-garlanded kind - is a mystery to me. Are you thinking of Grad school?

I guess if I had to choose I'd say Yale - but that's only based on its value on a scrabble board - which is the same as Princeton's but uses much fewer letters (thank god for "y"). That sort of terse efficiency suggests a rigorous program with no post-modern nonsense - probably very Paper Chase with professors making speeches along the lines of a Houseman-esque: "You come in he-ah with a skull full of MUSH! But you will leave thinking like a (insert future networked job here)."

If you do choose Yale read "The Secret History" again - in whose shamelessly page-turning, guilty-pleasure narrative you'll find a cautionary tale about what can happen when all that terseness goes off the rails.

Princeton on the other hand is a more lissome creature; discursive and prone to flouncing into the room like a circus horse and making impassioned pronouncements on the nature of Love or Art. This fact evidenced again by the Scrabble rule of university which notes that Princeton - creative, albeit misguided, creature that she is - yields such words as cointer, entopic, intoner, nepotic, noticer, pointer, pontine, porcine, protein, ternion, tropine and entropic. But never a full use of all the tiles on her rack.

Thus, she is broken, probably myopic and, in the end, only partly realized... entropic indeed.

So that's my two cents worth - Yale for the rigour (that's canadian rigour, with a "U", by the way - 4 extra points), or Princeton for the more earthy, artistic experience - though one wonders if you didn't get enough of that 'crumpets-and-poetry-in-a-punt' stuff when you went to Vassar.

Let me know what you decide. Til then I'll be counting the tiles.

The Captain

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

Editorially I would only add that Yale's motto of "Lux et Veritas" (Light and Truth) doesn't do nearly so well on the Scrabble board as Princeton's pithy "Dei Sub Numine Viget" (Under God's Power She Flourishes). Although, I believe, Latin is still not in common usage in official Scrabble competition, the cautious student may want to consider this fact when declaring a Major.

Unflappable-Certainty-Heads Unite

And once you've all united, tie yourselves together, weight yourself with lead and go jump off a bridge - I promise I won't interfere.

In my previous post I said that I had no idea what the right answer might be when it comes to vegetative comas - and that still holds. What I DO know, however, is that it's time for everybody - the Pope, Congress, the President, the Vigil-Holders, the Right-to-Lifers, the Right-to-Deathers, the "Up with Down" movement and, of course, their mortal enemies the "Down with Up" militia - to please have a little decorum and shut the fuck up.

But of them all the one who most must start shutting the fuck up immediately is this guy, Rev. Frank Pavone, who said the following in reference to Michael Schiavo:

''And so his heartless cruelty continues until this very last moment,'' said the Rev. Frank Pavone. He added: ''This is not only a death, with all the sadness that brings, but this is a killing, and for that we not only grieve that Terri has passed but we grieve that our nation has allowed such an atrocity as this and we pray that it will never happen again.''

If I ever am in a coma - please keep this man far away from my bedside - because God knows that if he's around he'll be resuscitating the shit out of me with arrogant zeal; no thought to anything but the weird little janglings and whirrings of his insitinctive "love of life above all else".

When did Christians get so freakishly Pagan? I thought they were into the idea of the soul and the body as earthly vessel. But then of course they also really get off on that suffering thing. Perverts.

The woman is dead. It is sad by any standard. Have the decency to shut up, all of you.

That now includes me.

There is only one Lord and his name is...

Well snap my stays and give me a Hallelujah. In a staggering display of arrogance the keepers and spokesmen of the Religious Right have deemed that all who might question the wisdom of keeping a suffering coma victim alive are "anti religion liberals".

Now I take offense to that. I'm certainly a liberal, but that doesn't make me anti-religious. In fact I speak proudly of my faith, my commitment, my devotions and my love of my one true Lord on a daily basis.

My Lord Satan - whatta guy!

...Or Ba'al, or Beelzebub or call him what you will. I just love him to pieces.

And, if you take a good look around, you'll probably see I am not alone...

After all, what would the Old Ancient Trickster love more than to see so much foolish and bloviated do-gooder blather in the service of extending the suffering of a human being.

Now, really, I don't claim to have the foggiest notion of what the right answer is to the deeply personal, sad and protracted story of Terry Schiavo. And, I suppose, not having those absolutely unquestioning certainties makes me a very bad Satanist indeed. But thank - well, Satan I guess (!!) - that my brethren in Congress were around to pick up the ball and really bring the Dark Lord's agenda home.

Clearly most of the fawning Congressmen, who jumped on this issue with the same enthusiasm (and ham-fisted technique) with which an ex-con mounts a whore, were thinking that a coma is something sexy and dramatic - like in the movie of the same name starring Michael Douglas and Genevieve Bujold.

Who knows what they were thinking. Beyond a misguided sense of political expediency maybe they confusedly thought that they might get to actually meet Genevieve Bujold. Frankly, with this pack of slathering misfits, nothing would surprise me; sometimes it seems they just manage to stop talking long enough to get both feet in their mouths. Fuckers.

But Oh how our Ancient Evil Lord's sides must have ached with laughter as he watched the pompous buffoonery of a Congress that actually passed legislation to deal with this individual issue (no toilet paper handy? Use the Constitution boys), that had the temerity to ponder subpoenaing a coma victim and then - when they realized that the vast majority of American's were, well, kinda grossed out by it all - took a political and legislative flyer outta town.

Of course this was all brought about by that cowardly, lickspittle, politically-opportunistic, Sexy Succubus Jeb Bush who, in a rare moment of insight, actually chose to close up shop on his little crusade long before his big brother and Congress had finished 'saving' his dumb Floridian ass.

So now the sad joke is over, more or less. Congress silent as a mouse, Jeb Bush nowhere to be seen and somewhere, echoing distantly, the dying laughter of our Lord Satan - who loves a good joke as much as the next guy.

But don't worry - there's sure to be more...

Alright - I confess...

...for years I have been deliberately freaking out total strangers in hotel rooms. No - not like that, you perv - read on...

Being on the road producing and directing Insomniac for nearly three years I found myself in hotel rooms alot. I first struck upon my evil scheme while filming in Boise, Idaho when, after having a shower, I drew a smiley face in the steamy bathroom mirror.

It would have ended there except when I took another shower the next morning the smiley face came back in the steam on the mirror.

"Hmmm..." I thought - in a post-modernish kinda way. "What an interesting form of communication THAT could be."

I began to conduct tests - finding the optimum kind of steam (leave the door open, set the AC around 65 or lower and take a very hot shower - not too long or the water condenses and gets beady and hard to write in) and testing to see if images would still come back even after the hotel maid had cleaned the glass (it does, more faintly, but it comes back - though I have found that the more dilligent the cleaning the more it obscures the original image.)

If you can't see it coming, my plot was quite obvious: to leave messages for guests who would be in the room after I left.

My first message was a simple "You missed a spot." left on the mirror in Boise.

Over time, depending on my mood, other messages have included:
- "Redrum"
- "We're watching you - The Management."
- "Please return towels to the towel rack"
- "Hey Phil!" (A long shot - but imagine if it WAS a Phil!)
- "Bow down before Satan"
- "Checkout time is 1PM AND THIS MEANS YOU!"
- "Your wife called while you were in the shower."
- "Horny gay-male seeks playpal - ring room 406" (This one may have been too cruel as the subject would have to assume that this anonymous horny guy had actually been in their bathroom.)
- "Smile - you are on a new reality TV Show"

and

- "Thimk".

I've never, for obvious legal reasons, been able to be on the scene for the reaction to these messages and, in a way, that suits me fine. I like to imagine that people with a sense of humor get a laugh and that the humorless ones get a fright - which the humorless generally deserve.

So next time you're in a hotel - express yourself!