Roxanne Tellier – Books, Music and Stuff!

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” – The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Since I’m effectively agoraphobic during winter, it seems like a good time to turn my attention to this mess around me that I’ve accumulated, and scan through the wee bits of paper on which I’ve written a germ of an idea, usually accompanied by an *asterisk* and several exclamation points!!! I just have to haul them out from under the weight of the newspaper clippings, flyers, magazines, library books and paper backs they’ve landed under, over and in between.

Doug Thompson – “MONEY, IT’S A GAS”

Anyone familiar with that Pink Floyd tune? (c’mon, who isn’t?  It’s from “Dark Side of The Moon” for crying out loud).  The album, released on March 1, 1973, made # 1 for only one week, but in total, spent 741 weeks on Billboard magazine’s album chart.  Let’s put that into years shall we?  “Dark Side of the Moon” remained on the charts from 1973 until 1988.  If you know the song, then you’ll know that the next lyrics to the title at the top of the page are:  “Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.  New car, caviar, four star daydream, think I’ll buy me a football team.”

JAIMIE VERNON – NINE LIVES

I find myself at the front end of yet another re-invention of myself. When last I spoke of my day job I was driving automobiles for a subcontractor to one of Canada’s only two railroads. It wasn’t CN. The job nearly killed me. It was so labour intensive and the hours were so long that I actually don’t remember getting to or from work some days.

Roxanne Tellier: 20 Feet from Stardom

I’d been longing to see the Academy Award winning documentary film “20 Feet from Stardom” since it first came out in 2013, but it was only recently that I actually had the chance.

Doug Thompson: THE BEATLES: FROM CANADA WITH LOVE!

Usually, any 50^th anniversary is a cause for celebration.  But the 50^th anniversary of The Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan TV Show in New York was especially fun.  And if you’re not tired of all The Beatles coverage, here’s a little more for you to digest.  As most of the world knows by now, these four Liverpool lads – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – along with manager Brian Epstein and record producer George Martin, revolutionized music, fashion and merchandising from 1964 through to the end of the decade.  And Canada played a major part in much of it.

Roxanne Tellier: A Victim of Fashion

After writing about fall’s wonders two weeks ago, it was odd to wake up that Monday to the beginning of a week of Indian summer. Sunny and mild, the weather was perfect for the celebrities and guests swarming Toronto’s streets for TIFF. The beautiful people and their entourages swanned in and out of event venues in their little black dresses, smart cocktail gowns, and Manolo Blahnik shoes.

JAIMIE VERNON: The Top 125 Most Influential Top 100 albums – Part 1

This week a meme went viral on Facebook of a poll asking readers to identify the number of albums they owned from a random list of 100 ‘Most Influential Albums of All Time’. In the end it was discovered that this was nothing but a front for an app that hijacked Facebook user personal info. However, the debate about the validity of the list itself remained. Music, like all artistic disciplines, is in the ears of the beholder. I expect that had I actually taken the quiz there would have been little commonality between the contents of my personal collection and the ones deemed ‘most influential’.

Darrell Vickers: Mr. John We Hardly Knew Ye

Most people have the misguided, almost laughable-if-it-weren’t-so-cryable, perception that being a TV comedy writer is a glamorous occupation.  Admittedly, if your definition of epic razzmatazz is living out your days staring at a computer screen and despising the entire universe then yes, by all means, we are up to our naughty parts in tinsel and glitter.

Oh sure, there have been a few fleeting nanoseconds that have come close to some sort of spellbinding glitz.  I’ve been nominated for four Emmys.  Lost each and every time.  I guess that makes me the Buffalo Bills of comedy.  There’s this marvelous moment when you get out of the stretch limo in front of the Shrine Auditorium.  At first, there’s an electrical surge of excitement that goes through the crowd which quickly turns to crestfallen bitterness when they realize that it’s only you.  In that instant, you become the turd in the entertainment world’s punchbowl.