Don’t Laugh — This Could Actually Happen

There are still some small towns in northern Ontario, off the highway, down a dirt road, where this sort of thing happens. In fact, most people up there would tell you this is their favourite part of the wedding reception.

The Pen Is Mightier

I opened my mail the other day to find something spectacular: a Scott Redman pen. Hand-made in sunny Florida, hewn from exotic wood and fitted with the finest hardware, Redman pens are works of art. They’re smooth, a perfectly balanced writing tool … I can’t stop using mine. Everything feels right when I use this pen.

It made the rounds of the newsroom this week, and got a lot of attention from people who rely on pens for their livelihood. “Where did you get this?” I was asked more than once.

That’s an easy one. I got it from Scott, and it’s one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. He sent it to me — as he did to my fellow Starbase 66 hosts, and other Simply Syndicated presenters — as a big thanks. And there’s more, as I told my colleagues: you can own one of these pens, too.

And you should. I want everyone to have one of these pens. Scott deserves it, but so do you; the words just flow with one of these in your hand. Luckily, buying a Redman pen is a lot easier today.

Redman pens have been added to the Simply Syndicated store at Musical Mouse Mat. One of these will cost you less than you’d pay for a Cross or a Waterman, and you can use it knowing it was hand-made just for you. Take a peek.

Oh, I should mention that I’m not just a Redman pen fan. I’m also a former professional fine pen salesman and distributor, specializing in Mont Blanc writing implements. While that’s a short-lived corner of my life story, I learned to love a good pen then, and I still do now.

10 Things I Hate About Making Lists of 10 Things

10. The first item I think of is usually the only one that’s actually funny.

9. I then spend too much time trying to figure out where to place that item on the list.

8. This eats into how much time I put into thinking up more funny, clever items.

7. I usually forget No. 7 entirely, and have to go back and insert it. I’m not sure what I have against 7.

6. It’s easy to be tempted to make it a Top 8 list, or Five Facts, or something, but society demands Top 10, so I’m kind of stuck.

5. Here’s where I save this as a draft, only to be reminded of it every time I log in, until finally, after about a week, I finish the job.

4. I don’t put much effort into things.

3. You probably noticed that around the time I started putting up YouTube videos with one-sentence reviews under them.

2. Did you ever notice how the funniest item on David Letterman’s Top 10 list tends to be No. 2?

1. That’s because he likes to end it quickly with a short, sharp shock for No. 1, and so do I, fuckers.

Other Canadian Celebrities Who Aren’t Actually Dead

Gordon Lightfoot: Not Actually Dead. This is news in Canada. In fact, it was front-page news for some newspapers.  Forget the Olympics, folks — Our most legendary troubador is actually still alive.

Most of us heard Gord was dead because someone said so on Twitter. Now, as you know, 99.9999 percent of Twitter is either stupidity or bullshit, except for the two Twitter accounts I maintain (one for work, one for play) and, of course, yours. The best thing about Twitter is it allows people to share their thoughts quickly and easily and without a lot of effort. The problem with Twitter is it allows people to share their thoughts quickly and easily and without a lot of effort. Those of us who like to think before we speak also maintain blogs where we try to lower the level of stupidity and bullshit. I hope to have one of those someday.

In the meantime, here are some other Canadian celebrities who aren’t actually dead — in other words, people who are still alive.

• Sebastian Bach: The former lead singer of Skid Row put out a screechingly good, if not entirely original, solo album a couple of years ago called Angel Down. I play it a lot, as it proves Bach is still alive, and also that he passed out around 1987 and just woke up, which is good in a heavy metal way.
• Conrad Bain: TV’s Mr. Drummond is leading a pretty quiet life these days at age 87. A classically trained actor, he rocked the Shakespeare pretty fiercely before moving to the US and becoming known as a sitcom sort of guy on Maude and Diff’rent Strokes. He has a twin brother named Bonar Bain, who used to play his evil twin on SCTV. Bonar Bain, also still alive, has the best name ever issued to a Canadian.
• Pamela Anderson: The Baywatch Beauty is still alive, thanks to the wonder of plastic. Yeah, that was too easy. Sorry.
• Eric Lindros: Hockey’s Next Big Thing of 1991 (who turned out to be just a big thing, and not in the way you think), played for a lot of teams during his excellent (but not Most Excellent Ever, as promised) career, left the NHL in 2007 and is now the ombudsman for the league’s player union. This job involves investigating disputes, settling debates, and dropping gloves when necessary, or at least I like to think so. I suspect there’s a lot of work being done on the dental plan.
• Dini Petty: It’s okay if you don’t know who this is. You’re probably foreign. She’s still alive, and her guests stay at the lovely Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Toronto.
• Alan Thicke: Dad Seaver is still going strong, with a small role in last year’s The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, which was a pretty decent movie in a Jeremy Piven sort of way. Alan Thicke is from northern Ontario, like I am, and thus has that frozen-in-time youthful appearance. Thicke, known primarily as a talk-show host and sitcom star, also wrote the theme song to Diff’rent Strokes, which might be the most significant musical achievement of all time by a Canadian. Sorry, Gord.

"I sing, too!"

My Fellow Canadians

Yes, I am the president of Canada, or, as we refer to the job, The Main Guy, eh. And as your president, I promise a snowmachine in every driveway and a large poutine on every table. All your kids get free touques and Gordon Lightfoot will sing at your wedding, because I said so and also because he is not dead.

Go back to watching the O-Limp-Icks now, please. One of our skiers came in 39th and is about to cry. Meanwhile, I am going to issue my most important Executive Order to date: “Hey, Alex Trebek! Grow the damned moustache back, wouldja? My mom likes you better that way.”

Igor and the Banana, or “It’s Hard For Me To Not Barf”

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