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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

October 15, 1888

Hello everybody! Are my Canadian friends recovering from a turkey and gravy hangover? Are my American friends feeling great this Tuesday morning? Are all of my other global friends waking up to greet another Tuesday (or Wednesday depending on what part of the world you live in)?

I hope you all are, because it is Tuesday Timeline time!

We are smack dab in the middle of October, and my mission statement for this month is to try and bring a little bit of spookiness and scary moments to the blog. I realize that I cannot do this with every blog entry (it's fairly hard for me to make a Thursday Diary entry scary), but I will certainly give it a try with all the other theme days of the week.

This means going back in time to a time period that I've never done before. It also means that I'll really be dusting off the old history textbooks, as today's date is the oldest date that I have ever done in a Tuesday Timeline feature. But when you see what the subject matter is, I think you'll agree that the date I chose was absolutely perfect...in a morbid sort of way.

Of course, before we get to the main course, we have to settle for some appetizers. But unfortunately, I've completely run out of boneless chicken wings and blooming onions, so you'll have to instead settle for historical memories of the past a la carte with celebrity birthdays drizzled on the side.

Now serving...

1783 – The Montgolfier brothers' hot-air balloon marks the first human ascent by Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier

1793 – Marie Antoinette is tried and sentenced to death – set to be carried out the following day

1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte begins his exile on Saint Helena

1878 – In a non-French piece of history, the Edison Electric Light Company begins operation

1894 – Alfred Dreyfus, a French artillery office, is arrested for spying

1910 – Airship America launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft

1917 – Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for the German Empire during World War I

1920 – Author Mario Puzo (d. 1999) is born in Manhattan, New York

1939 – The New York Municipal Airport is dedicated (later to be named LaGuardia Airport)

1945 – The former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, is shot by firing squad for treason

1951 - “I Love Lucy” debuts on CBS

1954 – Hurricane Hazel causes massive damage to the Eastern Seaboard, killing ninety-five people in total

1964 – American composer Cole Porter dies at the age of 73

1965 – The Catholic Worker Movement stages an anti-war rally in Manhattan, New York which includes the public burning of a draft card

1966 – The Black Panther Party is created by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton

1969 – The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam is held in Washington D.C.

1970 – The domestic Soviet Aeroflot Flight 244 is hijacked and diverted to Turkey

1987 – The Great Storm of 1987 devastates England and France

1989 – Wayne Gretzky becomes the all-time leading points scorer in the history of the NHL

1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions

2008 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 733.08 points – the second worst day in the Dow's history

Are you celebrating a birthday today? Take note, because you share your birthday with Lee Iacocca, Warren Miller, Freddy Cole, Richard McTaggert, Linda Lavin, Penny Marshall, Haim Saban, Jim Palmer, Richard Carpenter, John Getz, Chris de Burgh, Tito Jackson, Larry Miller, Jere Burns, Tanya Roberts, Stacy Peralta, Renee Jones, Sarah, Duchess of York, Emeril Lagasse, Vanessa Marcil, Paige Davis, Dominic West, Matt Keeslar, Ginuwune, Jaci Velasquez, Keyshia Cole, Paulini, Holly Montag, Jesse Levine, Chantal Strand, and Bailee Madison.

So, now we're off to our main topic. The part that ties the Tuesday Timeline all together. And this week, we're going back in time over one hundred years.



Today's date? October 15, 1888!

Yes, 125 years ago, a significant event took place in the UK that scared thousands of people, and made several worry if they would be next. If they would become the next victim of one of Britain's most feared serial killers.

A serial killer who to this day has never been identified.



Ever hear of a person known as Jack the Ripper? If you haven't, I'll give you a little history lesson. And to begin this lesson, we're going to go back even further in time to the beginning of the 1880s.

At the turn of the then-new decade known as the 1880s, the nation of England (the city of London in particular) experienced a huge increase in immigrants – particularly from the nation of Ireland. At the same time, Jewish refugees emigrated into London's East End. As a result, there were issues of overcrowding within the civil parish of Whitechapel. The living conditions within the area grew worse, and people found it difficult to find work or maintain their standard of living, and many residents turned to criminal acts in order to survive. By the end of the 1880s, robberies, domestic disputes, overindulging in alcohol and prostitution became all the rage in London's East End. It probably didn't help matters much that news reports coming out of Whitechapel were filled with tales of anti-semetic demonstrations, social disturbances, criminal acts, and racism.  Why, back in the 1880s, one might think that Whitechapel was as wholesome and carefree as the setting of a standard "Grand Theft Auto" video game.

However, if there was one thing that the civil parish of Whitechapel was good for...it apparently was good for murdering a whole bunch of people and covering up the evidence, as the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper murdered several women who were working as prostitutes in the area.

As if that weren't bad enough, many of Jack the Ripper's suspected victims were murdered in such a way that it was almost grotesque.  Their throats were slashed, and in cases of at least three of the victims, their organs were actually removed from their bodies!  Although it's not exactly known just how many people Jack the Ripper truly killed (at least eleven homicides were reported in the Whitechapel area between 1887 and 1891), it is widely believed that at least five of those homicides (maybe more) were orchestrated by Jack the Ripper.

The five victims that met their ends at the hands of Jack the Ripper were Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddows, and Mary Jane Kelly.  And all five victims were murdered during the autumn of 1888 - the period in which Jack the Ripper was most active.

I mean, think about it for a minute.  Imagine already living in a place that is riddled with crime, social deviation, and general unrest and having the added fear of getting murdered by a serial killer whom nobody knows the identity of.  It would be bad enough having to go through that situation in 2013, but with the inventions of security cameras, mobile phones, GPS units, and other technological wonders, I think that anyone who would have those fears might have a fighting chance to escape.  In 1888 on the other hand...I could only imagine that it would be quite frightening.

There was an investigation launched by the police while the murders were taking place, and certainly there were clues that could narrow down the suspect pool.  They suspected that the killer was male, as all of the victims were female.  They also suspected that whoever the killer was, they preferred to do their murders in the late night or early morning hours - and almost always near the weekend.  And because many of the victims had their organs removed, the police speculated that their killer was involved in the medical profession in some manner, be it a doctor, a surgeon, or an anesthesiologist.  

Suspects included Montague John Druitt, a former barrister who drowned himself in December 1888, Aaron Kosminski, who was admitted into a mental asylum in 1891, Michael Ostrog, a master of disguises who was in London during the time of the murders, Francis Tumblety, a doctor who was connected to the death of one of his patients, but was never convicted, and James Sadler, who had a personal connection to one of the homicide victims in the Whitechapel homicide files (but not one of the victims suspected of being killed by Jack the Ripper).  But nobody was ever publicly named as the definitive killer, and with it being over a century since the murders took place, I would hazard a guess that the real identity of Jack the Ripper will remain an unsolved case forever.

So, why have I highlighted October 15, 1888 as having major significance within the Jack the Ripper case?  

It has nothing to do with the date that he committed murder...more like it was a date in which he sent something to the public.

You see, right around the time that the murders were being committed, a series of letters were mailed out - allegedly by Jack the Ripper himself - to various buildings all over London.  At least four letters were sent out through the mail in September and October 1888, and at first, the police believed that the letters were all some big hoax.  The first letter was filled with horrible spelling and punctuation errors and made references to cutting a lady's earlobes off.  But when a second letter was delivered along with the earlobe of murder victim Catherine Eddowes, police began to take the badly written letters a lot more seriously.

And then came the events of October 15, 1888 - the date that Jack the Ripper's third letter was written.  A letter known as the "From Hell" letter.  Have a look at it.



Okay, so I know that the text is hard to make out.  I'll type it out for you - in what could be the most spelling mistakes that I EVER make in one of these blogs.


From hell

Mr Lusk
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise.  I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer.

signed
Catch me when you Can
Mishter Lusk

I should probably also mention that accompanying the letter was one of the kidneys of Catherine Eddowes.  Not exactly the nicest thing to send with a letter...but I guess you could say that our letter-writer kept his promise...as gruesome as it might be.

Now here's the unfortunate thing about the letter.  It, as well as Eddowes' kidney went missing along with other items from the Jack the Ripper police files.  But luckily, photocopies of the original letter were saved and have been analyzed by several handwriting experts over the course of the last 125 years.

At the time that the letter was written, several hundred letters were also mailed out (likely by imposters), and many believed that the "From Hell" letter was one of those imposters.  However, many researchers defend the letter as being the real deal.

There was also some questioning about the human kidney that was sent with the letter, as some believed that the kidney did not come from one of Jack the Ripper's victims, but from somewhere else.  Even George Lusk believed that the organ was not legit, and as a result, he did not report that he had received the letter until he was prompted by friends to do so.

As for the handwriting itself?  Well, again, people questioned the authenticity of the letter, as unlike the other two letters that Jack the Ripper had sent prior to the "From Hell" letter, this one was not signed "Jack the Ripper".

But interestingly enough, on the History Channel television series "Mysteryquest", a forensic handwriting expert deduced that the letter was real, and he pointed out that because of the linguistics and spelling of certain words, and the way that the letters themselves were written, he believed that the letter was written by someone who was Irish, or had Irish ancestry - which seemingly pointed to only one suspect.  

Francis Tumblety.

Perhaps we'll never really know just exactly who sent the letter, nor will we know just how legitimate the letter really is.  After all, the original copy has since gone missing, and all the suspects have long since passed away.  But it remains one of the biggest unsolved murder mysteries of all time.

And when the third letter was mailed out on October 15, 1888, it only added to the mystery.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Arachnophobia

So, before I go ahead and launch right into another spooky and scary edition of the Macabre Monday Matinee, I have something very important to wish all of my North American readers of this blog.

First things first, I want to take the time to shake myself out of my turkey induced haze to wish all of my fellow Canadians a very happy Thanksgiving Day. In Canada the harvest season is a full six weeks earlier than in the United States, so as a result of this phenomenon, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October. I hope that my Canadian friends spend the day with cherished loved ones, have all the turkey, pumpkin pie, and stuffing they can eat, and just have a wonderful holiday. Believe me, we all could use a day of rest and relaxation.

And for those of you who live south of the Canadian border in the United States, it happens to be Columbus Day weekend. I'm fairly sure that some of you will also have the day off (especially if you work in the government sector with the shutdown that is in effect as of right now), so I hope that those of you who have a holiday from work have a great day and that you all live it up.

So, why not celebrate your day off by taking just a few minutes out of your day by reading today's Monday Matinee? And in the spirit of all things spooky, I think that I've come up with a winning topic for today.

I think that it is a safe bet to say that some of us in this world don't particularly like insects.  I think it's also safe to say that there are some of us in this world who would cower in fear, run out of a room screaming like a banshee, or who would use up an entire can of Raid if they ever saw a bug crawling around their living spaces.

Believe me.  I understand you completely.  There are some bugs in this world that I absolutely can't stand.

When I was younger, I used to be freaked out by bees.  I think ever since I accidentally stepped on one and got stung between the toes by a great big bee, I used to hate them for years.  Now I consider bees to be cool.  Wasps and big black hornets on the other hand...they can disappear from this world forever as far as I am concerned.  Bees can stay.

I'm also not a fan of centipedes either.  Not that they are the most deadliest of creatures, mind you (most North American centipedes are harmless), but they sure do look really ugly! 

Weirdly enough though, I have little to no fear of the bugs that most average people despise.  I mean, almost everybody hates the sight of a cockroach, but considering that I have only ever really seen one or two in my lifetime, I've never really been exposed to them enough to actually develop a sort of fear to them.

Same deal with grasshoppers.  I know some people who find them gross and disgusting, but I don't mind them.  I actually find it cool when they leap and jump.  Though, if I were to ever come across a living version of those super enormous grasshoppers that we had to dissect in tenth grade biology class, I may change my tune.

And then there are those eight-legged creatures known as spiders.

Again, for the most part, I am okay with spiders.  Spiders don't really creep me out.  Of course, in Canada, I don't think we have too many deadly ones to worry about, nor do they grow excessively big.  I would imagine that if a tarantula were crawling on the floor of my bedroom, I might feel differently.  But spiders and I can co-exist.

But some people have a huge fear of spiders.  It's a phobia commonly known as arachnophobia.  And, with some of the hundreds of thousands of species of spiders crawling around our world, I can't say I blame you.

Take the "Black Widow Spider" for instance.  The female variety of the spider has a red hourglass shape on its underside.  If you ever see that marking on a spider, run as fast as you can.  One bite can kill you within minutes unless you seek immediate treatment from a hospital.

Huntsman spiders are not really all that dangerous to human beings, but their spider bites are supposedly quite painful.  Judging by the size of the spider, I can see why that might be the case.

And, then there's the Avondale spider, native to New Zealand and Australia.  These guys are absolutely harmless to human beings.  They certainly look quite scary, and they can become ferocious when other insect creatures try to invade their territory (even going so far as to eat them!), but in all actuality, they are intimidated by human beings and will very rarely bite people.  If you think about it, an Avondale spider would make a pretty good house pet...well, if you're into that sort of thing, that is.

But when 374 Avondale spiders were cast in a 1990 film, all 374 spiders had to break character and play something that they were not...deadly, vicious creatures from Venezuela who could kill off an entire community of people if they were left to their own devices.That film was the Steven Spielberg produced/Peter Marshall directed "Arachnophobia", which was released on July 18, 1990.  The movie starred Jeff Bridges and John Goodman, two men who have to work together to find a way from eradicating a deadly species of spider from a California town before the entire town succumbs to the spiders' deadly venom.




Between box office sales and rentals from video stores, the film generated a total of $88 million dollars.  A nice chunk of change, don't you think?  And for what it's worth, the film itself never made me frightened of spiders.  I wasn't even all that frightened by the movie, though there were a few scenes which sort of freaked me out as a young kid.  You'll likely see some of those scenes as we continue on with today's topic.  For now, why don't we take a look at how the small community of Canaima, California became the site of the deadliest spider infestation in the world?

The story begins in Venezuela within the Amazon where a group of scientists led by Dr. James Atherton (Julian Sands) are there to discover new species of insects and spiders for research purposes.  During their research, the scientists descend into a sinkhole where they discover a large tree within.  Blowing smoke up the tree's trunk, the scientists are excited to see several bugs raining down upon them.  As it so happens, one of these bugs is an extremely aggressive spider...a species that none of the scientists have ever seen before.  Dr. Atherton immediately immobilizes and captures the spider so that he can research it further.




Of course, the scientists have no idea just how deadly the spider really is.  But for poor ill-fated nature photographer Jerry Manley, he found out too late just how deadly the spiders were.  Already suffering from a fever, when one of the spiders bites Manley during the night he immediately has a huge seizure caused by the venom of the spider and dies almost immediately.  The other scientists pack up his body inside of a wooden crate and they fly back to the United States...unaware that the spider that killed Manley has stowed away inside of the makeshift coffin.

When Manley's body is brought to a funeral home in the town of Canaima, California, the mortician is mortified to discover that the body is completely drained of all fluids.  He is so baffled by the sight that he doesn't even realize that the spider that traveled with Manley has escaped and is now loose in the town of Canaima, looking for an eligible bachelorette spider to spend the rest of his short life with and have hundreds of little babies together.  The spider is picked up by a crow, but before the crow can fly back home, the spider bites it and it drops dead right in front of the property of physician Ross Jennings (Daniels), who has relocated to Canaima from San Francisco to set up a practice.  He lives in a farmhouse outside of the town with his wife Molly (Harley Jane Kozak), and two children Tommy (Garette Patrick Ratliff) and Shelly (Marlene Katz).  

What is interesting about the Jennings family is that Ross and Tommy have a mutual fear of arachnophobia.  They are both terrified of spiders, which makes for interesting irony as our spider bachelor has found love with a barn spider inside the Jennings' barn.  They plot the rest of their future together and set up a nest, which spawns hundreds of baby spiders which descend upon the residents of Canaima.  

Hundreds of little spiders who are unable to reproduce, yet have their father's deadly bite.  One by one, people of the community of Canaima drop dead - victims of spider bites.  A neighbour of the Jennings, a high school football player, a rival physician of Dr. Jennings...all dead of a spider bite.  And since all three victims were closely associated with Dr. Jennings (he either treated them as patients or worked alongside them), the community started giving Jennings the label of "Dr. Death".

But Jennings suspected that something else was responsible for the deaths of the citizens of Canaima.  When the coroner's reports came in and proved Jennings' hypothesis that the victims were killed by spiders was true, it became a race against time to try and find out where the spiders came from before they kill off more of the town's population, unaware that the source of the nests are in Jennings' own backyard.  Jennings teams up with Dr. Atherton, Sheriff Parsons (Stuart Pankin), coroner Milton Briggs (Handy), Atherton's assistant Chris Collins (Brian McNamara), and exterminator Delbert McClintock (Goodman) to try and eliminate the nests before the spiders can expand their territory and invade the whole world, putting humanity at risk.




Now, I won't go too much further into the plot because I don't want to spoil it for you.  But let's just say that one of the crew doesn't make it out alive.  Let's just say that the shower scene above will make the scene in "Psycho" seem less scary in comparison.




Let's just say that there's a reason why you should check your bowl before you put microwave popcorn inside of it.

How's that for a "bankrupt" moment?

And, let's just say that the ending of the movie has a lot of fire.  Lots and lots of fire.

That's all that I have to say about the movie "Arachnophobia"...now let's talk behind the scenes trivia.  Believe me, there's a lot to talk about.

1 - The Avondale spiders were chosen specifically for the movie because of their large size, social lifestyle, and the fact that they were mostly harmless to humans.  

2 - The spiders were "directed" in a way.  By controlling the temperature of the room, the spiders could be directed to crawl from room to room.

3 - The "general" spider and the "queen" spiders were not real spiders.  They were constructed models.

4 - The movie was released on DVD in 1999, making it one of the first titles to be offered in that format.

5 - The sound of a spider being squashed was simulated by Foley artists stepping on mustard packages and bags of squashed potato chips.

6 - Canaima, California is a factional city.  The city that posed as Canaima was the real-life city of Cambria, California.  The name Canaima came from the Venezuelian National Park where the film's first few minutes were shot.

7 - There's a scene in the film which has spiders crawling all over a television set.  The television set is playing "Family Ties" at the time - a television show which Chris Collins appeared on as a guest star in one episode.

8 - Apparently, the house that Dr. Jennings lives in was known as "the old Daniels place".  Dr. Jennings is played by Jeff Daniels.

9 - Cameo alert - The lady who dies after eating the spider laced popcorn is played by Kathy Kinney, who would achieve fame five years later on "The Drew Carey Show", playing the role of Mimi.


10 - The film was the first to be released under Disney's "Hollywood Picture" label.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Rock DJ

Before I go ahead with today's installment of the Sunday Jukebox, I should probably offer up a little bit of a warning to you.

Today's music spotlight features a music video that is quite...um...macabre and gory. You might not expect it to be a gory music video, given that the song itself is happy, lightweight, and has a great beat that you can dance to (forgive my “American Bandstand” throwback there), but some of the scenes aren't exactly suitable for young children. In fact, this video garnered a lot of controversy and was actually edited or banned in some countries.

For all of you reading this though, I managed to track down the unedited video. You're welcome.

So, here's the funny thing about this song. It was a massive #1 hit in the United Kingdom, and was a Top 30 hit in my home base of Canada...but it never charted in the United States (well, unless you count the club charts to be of some importance – in which case, the song stalled at #24).

In fact, I probably wouldn't have even known this song had ever existed had fate not played a role.

We're going back to the year 2000 for this story. It all began when I was an optimistic nineteen year old college student who happily worked for his school newspaper in hopes that the words he wrote would eventually get him noticed by a high profile media firm and that he would be making a living doing what he loved.

Well...I suppose that I am still writing...even though it's more of a hobby than a career right now.

Anyway, as part of my volunteer work with the student newspaper, I had to do a series of articles on a variety of subjects. I would sometimes do human interest stories, write opinion pieces, and a couple of times, I even had a front page article or two (I happened to attend school during a possible faculty strike – which thankfully was averted). But I have to admit that my favourite pieces to write about were within the entertainment pages. As a pop culture buff, writing articles about CD's, films, and other forms of entertainment was right up my alley. Heck, I've already written almost 900 articles on pop culture right here in this blog alone! But, of course, there was another incentive to writing articles for the school newspaper entertainment section.

Free swag.

Yeah, unbeknownst to me, when I started writing for the school newspaper, I wasn't aware that all of the compact discs that I reviewed for the paper were free to keep! I also managed to get free movie tickets so I could review films for the newspaper. I tell you, that job may have been voluntary, but the perks were definitely a bonus.

If only the organization that ran the newspaper didn't burn me by making me promises that they had no intention of keeping...oh well...I've already told that story. I've moved on from those dark days and am now seeing the experience at that newspaper as a mostly positive experience. And, for what it's worth, I still have the vast majority of the CD's I reviewed for the newspaper (even though many of my favourite songs have already been downloaded onto the iPod by now).



One of those CD's was the 2000 disc “Sing While You're Winning” by British born crooner Robbie Williams. And, I'll admit that when I agreed to review the album, I didn't really know that much about him. As someone who watched MuchMusic quite a bit in my teenage years, I knew that he had a couple of hit singles in 1999 with “Millennium” and “Angels”.



And, I also vaguely knew that he was one of the five original members of the British boy band “Take That”, known for the singles “Pray”, “Back For Good”, and their cover of Tavares hit “It Only Takes A Minute”. So when I put the disc into my CD Player and listened to it, I was going into it with an open mind.

Fortunately, the entire album was a winner, and I gave it a glowing review. In fact, I still happen to have the review that I wrote all the way back in November 2000! 

I just wish I remembered where I put the scrapbook that I kept all of them in. I have it in a box stashed in my closet, but I can't remember which box, and I don't have the motivation (or the spare time) to go searching for it today. I have a Skylanders display to set up at work early this morning that simply can't wait.

Some of my favourite songs from the disc were “Let Love Be Your Energy”, “Better Man”, “Knutsford City Limits”, and “Kids” (the last song being a duet that he did with Australian songbird Kylie Minogue). Really, the album may be thirteen years old, but I'd still recommend it. And, yeah, I know Robbie Williams has a somewhat questionable reputation in his native UK. It doesn't take away from the fact that when push comes to shove, he can churn out a wonderful song.

As it so happens, today's song selection comes from the “Sing When You're Winning” album. And, at first, it sounds like a rather decent club hit.

It's only when you watch the video that you understand why I've featured this video as part of the Halloween spotlight. Last warning, all.



ARTIST: Robbie Williams
SONG: Rock DJ
ALBUM: Sing When You're Winning
DATE RELEASED: July 31, 2000
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: N/A
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS: #1

Okay, so I'll give you a moment to take that in, get your jaws off the floor and finish throwing up in the bathroom if you feel disgusted. Believe me, I gave you several chances to turn back and not click the video and you should have heeded those warnings if you have a sensitive stomach.

Feeling better? Good. We'll continue.

So, as you can see, Robbie Williams does the ultimate strip tease. He takes off his shirt, pants, underpants, skin, muscles, blood vessels, and internal organs to become the waifest bloke in the entire club. All to impress some gal who pays him no attention. I mean, the cover of the CD single of the song provides a little taste of what you can expect to see in the video itself.



IMPORTANT NOTE: Never remove any part of your body in order to impress a girl. It's painful and it's messy. Trust me on this one.



(Not that I have any experience in severing off random body parts. I've just seen enough episodes of CSI to know that it appears to be painful and messy.)

But at least it's nice to know that “No Robbies were harmed in the making of this video”.

But let's take a look at the positives of this music video. The video did win the 2001 MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects. Regardless of how macabre the video appears, the make-up artists and CGI gurus did a fantastic job with the special effects. And, in 2006, the video was voted by viewers of MTV as the seventh most groundbreaking music video ever created.

But as a result of the graphic imagery of the video, it was edited in a few countries. Many European nations heavily censored the video. Some versions cut out the scenes where Robbie is removing his skin tissue and organs and replaced it with other footage. Some stations would air the edited version during the day and after midnight they would air the more gory version. Some stations would completely ignore the gory video and instead play a version which just has Williams singing in a recording studio. You can watch the second version with just the click of a mouse below this paragraph if you wish.



Perhaps the most extreme form of censorship regarding this particular song came from The Dominican Republic, where the video was banned because people felt that it encouraged Satanism.

Yeah, I can maybe see how Robbie Williams tearing his whole body apart piece by piece to impress random roller skating ice queens by showering them with his own blood could be seen as rather devilish behaviour. But then again, how many times are you ever going to go to a roller disco and see a man throw pieces of his own epidermis at you while you skate around to music that predates even you? Not very often, I bet.

Of course despite all of the controversy the song brought when it was released, it appeared as though Robbie Williams ended up with the last laugh and sang while he won the battle. The single became his third #1 UK solo single since departing “Take That” in the mid-1990s, and as of 2013 has sold a total of nearly seven hundred thousand copies worldwide. In 2000, the song was named “Best Song” at the MTV Europe Music Awards and in 2001, the single won the BRIT Awards for Best Single and Best Music Video.

You know, I think back of all the controversial music videos that I've seen over the past twenty-five years. I think the earliest music video that I recall getting pulled from music video television was Madonna's “Justify My Love”. Shortly after, a video by French-Canadian chanteuse Mitsou was yanked. In both cases, the videos were deemed too sexually provocative to air on television.



Robbie Williams' video for “Rock DJ” took on a different approach, and his video ended up getting banned for extreme gore and accusations that he advocated Satanic rituals. But ultimately it didn't harm Williams' career any. As of 2013, he is still making music and his latest album, “Swings Both Ways” is scheduled to be released on November 18.

So what if one of his videos was banned for content? If you listen to the song, it's admittedly pretty catchy...as most of Williams' songs are.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Luigi's Mansion

It's the second Saturday in October, and I certainly am pumped about this week's entry. Because it is the second Saturday in October, I'll be talking about a video game. And what is unique about today's video game selection is that it is a game that I am currently playing on my Nintendo 3DS.

And it's a game that could be best played right around Halloween. After all, it is filled with spiders, rats, dark mansions, and of course, ghosts. Though, I wouldn't really consider the game to be all that scary. It is made by Nintendo after all. If anything, it's more humourous and funny. Yet, there are some parts of the game that are absolutely difficult to get through and you really need to keep a calm demeanor when attempting to get through it.

I suppose that some of you are wondering why I have decided to turn this entry green for this Friday.  There's a very good reason for it.





In the world of Nintendo gaming, the year 2013 has often been called by Nintendo executives, developers, and gamers as "The Year of Luigi".





Now everyone knows that Luigi is the green-tinted taller brother of Mario.  And, Luigi is kind of more or less the "green sheep" of the Mario family.  I mean, even Wario has had more games with him in a starring role than Luigi has...and the games in which Luigi is the star still have Mario's name on them ("Mario Is Missing", for example).  Even in games in which Luigi is a playable character, my friends would never choose him.  I mean, yeah, in Super Mario Kart, he wasn't exactly the most useful character, but in Super Mario 2, his super-loaded jumping ability was an asset for levels that had a lot of high platforms.


But up until recently, Luigi has been largely ignored.  Mario, Princess Toadstool, Toad, Yoshi, heck, even Lakitu gets more respect than Luigi!  But as I said before, 2013 has been declared "The Year of Luigi", and there are a couple of games that are celebrating this achievement by making Luigi the star of the show.




Now, one game is for the Nintendo Wii U, and it is called "Super Luigi Brothers U", which is more or less a copy of Super Mario Brothers, but with less time and more obstacles.  But, I don't have the living space to set up a Nintendo Wii U, so I haven't actually played that game yet.




But I HAVE been playing "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon", which was released a little over six months ago.  That is a game that was released for the Nintendo 3DS (which I DO have the living space available to play on), and it is certainly a game that I have found challenging, but fun.




The whole premise of the game kind of combines Super Mario Brothers with the 1984 feature film "Ghostbusters".  In the game, Luigi is forced into a series of haunted mansions armed with a souped-up vacuum cleaner called the Poltergust 5000, and with assistance from a mad doctor named Professor E. Gadd, Luigi has to capture and exorcise evil demons from the interior of the mansion in hopes of putting together the pieces of the "Dark Moon Crystal" to save his brother and to restore peace and goodwill to both the land of the living and the spirit world.

Here...I'll post a video for you, just so you can see how the game is played.  




It looks fun, doesn't it?  Well, it is fun.  It's probably one of the most well-received video games released by Nintendo over the last twelve months.  I can attest to the popularity of this game just by my experiences working at my job.  It took me almost five months to purchase this game, as copies were hard to come by.  Whenever we got a new shipment of "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon" games into the store, we would always sell out of them before I had the chance to buy one myself.  I had to resort to shopping at the competition in order to snag my copy!  

(And, yeah...I could have cheated and used a Nintendo eShop card to download the game directly onto my 3DS...but I only download games that are not available in cartridge format.  Case in point, I'm waiting very patiently for the October 24 release of "Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies" - which I'll likely be reviewing for the November discussion.)

Whatever the case though, the effort to get the game was well worth it.  I have a great game to play on my free time, and it is what I believed to be one of the most creative Nintendo games ever released.

But...was it REALLY as creative as I thought it was?  Turns out that "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon" is actually a sequel!  And, would you believe that this sequel was released well over a decade after the first one came out?




To be fair though, the original "Luigi's Mansion" was released in September 2001 on the Nintendo GameCube console...a console that I never actually owned.  Back in the early 2000s, I was all about the Sony PlayStation, and I temporarily broke off my love affair with Nintendo.  In fact, it wasn't until the Nintendo DS came out at the end of the decade that the sparks began to fly again for all things Nintendo.

Okay, yeah...I get off track a lot when things come up.  I guess you can consider me diagnosed as having written ADD.

Anyway, back to "Luigi's Mansion".  Did you know that when the game was released in September 2001 that it was intended to be a launch title for the then brand new console (the console in between the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo Wii)?  It was an interesting choice, as all other previous consoles included a Mario game with purchase.  I still remember playing "Super Mario Brothers" and "Duck Hunt" for the NES, and absolutely getting excited over seeing "Super Mario World" included with my Super Nintendo.  But to include a Luigi game as one of the games that could be bought with the console?  It ended up being a good move by Nintendo.  Although some people might consider the Nintendo GameCube not as much of a financial success as other Nintendo consoles, the move to promote "Luigi's Mansion" along with the new console did help it become the fifth highest-selling Nintendo GameCube video game of all time.  The game managed to sell 2.5 million copies worldwide...making the game a huge success overall.

Now, the plot structure between the 2001 "Luigi's Mansion" and 2013's "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon" is more or less the same.  Luigi becomes a Ghostbuster and sucks up every spirit he can with his trusty Poltergust device.  But the games also have a lot of inner jokes and humour peppered throughout the game.

One example that I can think of right off the bat is with the communicator device that Luigi uses to contact Professor E. Gadd.  In the original 2001 game, Luigi uses a device that is called the "Game Boy Horror", which amusingly enough looks like a purple "Game Boy Color" console (the console that was released after the Nintendo Game Boy, but before the Game Boy Advance).  In the 2013 sequel, Luigi's communication device is updated accordingly.  Instead of a Game Boy Horror, his new device is a Nintendo DS shaped communicator affectionately named the Dual Scream!

(In case you didn't know, the DS in the Nintendo DS system stands for Dual Screen.  Dual Screen = Dual Scream?  Get it?  Heh...priceless.)

"Luigi's Mansion" was criticized for being too short, but the sequel is jam packed with lots of ghosts, sidequests, and a featured mode where a player can log on with three other players within the same Nintendo DS network to play in a mode known as the "ScareScraper" (which players can access after completing the first two levels).  




And, of course, there are all the classic Mario staples that are thrown into the games.  The main bad guy of the game is a ghost known as King Boo (a large form of the Boo ghosts that first began appearing in Super Mario Brothers 3).  One of the objections of the game is to collect shiny gold coins so that you could purchase upgrades for the Poltergust 5000, which will make it stronger and more durable.  As you well know, gold coins have been the currency of every single Mario game ever released.  There are paintings and jewels scattered all over the mansions that are shaped like mushrooms, flowers, and stars (the three main power-ups in a standard Mario game)...though I don't think that if you touch a star, you can become invincible and kill off all the ghosts.

Mainly because you can never really...kill...something that is already dead.  Well, unless you call a seance like that snobbish guy did in the 1988 film "Beetlejuice" when he tried to summon the spirits of Adam and Barbara Maitland who almost faded away into nothingness until Lydia called Beetlejuice and their spirits were saved.

And, yep...there I go off in a tangent again...dear me.

But you know something?  It didn't really dawn on me until after I started playing "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon", but "Luigi's Mansion" certainly had an influence on other Nintendo games.  There have been a couple of race tracks that have been styled after "Luigi's Mansion" rooms.  Course number five in "Super Mario 64" was clearly inspired by "Luigi's Mansion".  And, I'm almost guaranteed that "Luigi's Mansion" inspired several mini-games in the "Mario Party" series.

All in all, "Luigi's Mansion" is a great video game series that for once has Luigi as the hero.  And, it's been long overdue as far as I'm concerned.


Friday, October 11, 2013

The Heroes of Criminal Minds

I have to admit...I had a difficult time coming up with Friday topics for this month. After all, there aren't a lot of scary television series out there to talk about.

Actually, correction. There ARE a lot of scary television shows out there...I haven't watched a lot of them though, as I've never really been a huge fan of gory shows.

(Which probably explains why I have never seen one episode of “Dexter” or “American Horror Story”.)

But there are dozens of shows that air which I've seen at least a handful of episodes of. And for today's spooky television spotlight, I thought that I would feature a television show that is still going strong.

It's a show that depending on what the episode is about, I can either sit through it no problem, or I'd either find it so disgusting that I would need a sick bucket handy because I would throw up from the gore and subject matter.

Regardless, it is definitely a show that has stood the test of time, currently in its ninth season.  In a world where certain television shows don't even make it to episode thirteen, broadcasting a ninth season is something very special.  And it appears as though the show isn't going anywhere anytime soon if ratings are any indication.



Today we're going to be taking a look at the CBS television series "Criminal Minds".  It seems hard to believe, but the show debuted on September 22, 2005.  And even though the series survived the loss of a main character early in its run, and said farewell to a few others along the way, the show continues to garner huge ratings week after week.  And, I can verify that in the three months that I have been in electronics, I've sold quite a few sets of the eight seasons that are currently available on DVD.  It certainly is a very popular show.

And as it so happens, the show is the perfect one to watch right around this time of year.  After all, we see all sorts of brutal, gory, and unthinkable criminal acts performed on the show every episode.  Murder, kidnapping, robbery, arson, terrorism, and other crimes against humanity are featured each and every week (which is why it is probably not a good idea for your young children to watch the show).

Oh, heck.  I'll admit that there are some episodes of "Criminal Minds" that I still can't bring myself to sit through, just because of the fact that there is either too much gore, or because the criminals (known on the show as "unsubs") give me the heebie-jeebies.  Though, I suppose it is to the credit of the actors who are portraying them that they do such a convincing job.

But of course, these criminals can't stay loose of the streets forever.  After all, if they did, the world's population would decrease faster than the epidemic of "Captain Trips" did on "The Stand".  That's why the stars of the show - the unsung heroes if you will - are members of the FBI's Behavioural Analysis Unit (BAU), who send teams of people out to various cities and towns within the United States of America to investigate crimes and catch the unsubs before they destroy any more lives.



So, who are the heroes of "Criminal Minds"?  Well, just like the "unsubs" that appear on every single episode of the series, the group of detectives who appear on the show have a variety of different backgrounds and reasons behind why they joined the FBI.  You have a man who has a genius IQ and a schizophrenic mother, a woman who once faked her death before rejoining the BAU, and another woman who almost ended up dying of a gunshot wound after being tricked by an "unsub" after going out on a date with him.

Some of them only lasted a season or two...others have been on the show since the very beginning.  These are their summarized stories.  Which one is your favourite?



JASON GIDEON - Played by Mandy Patinkin, Gideon was a Senior Supervisory Special Agent of the BAU during the first two seasons of the show, and the team's de facto leader.  Once Patinkin left the series in 2007, his character was written out.  As of right now, his whereabouts are unknown, but Gideon left the series by taking off towards the state of Nevada after facing a series of setbacks - one of which was the murder of his dear friend Sarah at the hands of a serial killer.  But prior to Gideon's burnout, he was the best of the best, and took down several unsubs while he was in charge.  But with Gideon's departure, another person had to step into the role.  



DAVID ROSSI - Played by Joe Mantegna, Rossi has been on the show since 2007.  In his youth, he worked within the BAU, took some time off to teach lectures and go on book tours, and rejoined the current team.  And in some manner, his life seemingly parallels the life of his predecessor, as while he is on the show, he does the best job of profiling criminals, and he too loses someone very dear to him - in Rossi's case, he was in a relationship with Section Chief Erin Strauss, who was murdered by a serial killer who called themselves "The Replicator".  

As it so happens, Rossi and Gideon weren't the only ones to lose someone they loved while serving within the BAU.



AARON HOTCHNER - Played by Thomas Gibson, Unit Chief Hotchner's professional life is everything.  In fact, there are some cases in which his work overshadows his personal life, which ultimately lead to the break-up of his marriage.  Sadly, Hotchner's ex-wife, Haley, is murdered by a serial killer known by "The Reaper", and Hotchner ends up killing him with his bare hands in a show of revenge.  These days, Aaron Hotchner is trying to balance a new relationship, being a father to his son, and helping the team solve the cases they are working on.

So, who else is on the team?



DEREK MORGAN - Played by Shemar Moore, Morgan once took over as the Unit Chief while Hotchner was grieving the loss of Haley.  And Derek Morgan was very busy in his youth.  He attended college on a football scholarship, took judo classes (where he happens to hold a black belt in said martial art), teaches self-defense classes, and prior to joining the BAU worked as a police officer and a member of a bomb squad.  It makes him one of the more valuable members of the entire team. But Morgan also had his demons.  He was sexually abused by someone close to him, and as a result, he gave up on religion the church for almost twenty years because of it because of it.  But when the next person ended up getting shot and almost died, he prayed to God for the first time in several years, hoping that she would be all right.



PENELOPE GARCIA - Played by Kirsten Vangsness, Garcia is the team's Technical Analyst at the team's headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.  She kind of reminds me of Abby from NCIS in a way because she can log onto and invade entire computer networks to find information out about people but not actually have much human contact with the team themselves.  But when Garcia was shot by a man whom she arranged an Internet date with, the team worked overtime to bring him to justice.  Garcia would survive the ordeal, and has dated since (her most recent relationship being with David Lynch (Nicholas Brendon).  She is essentially the team's token nerd, as she loves technical gadgets, plays online games, and changes her look more times than Miley Cyrus, Madonna, and Cher combined.  But in the end, she is a valuable ally to the team...even though when she was drafted to work for the BAU, her only other choice was prison as she was caught hacking into a government website by the FBI!



DR. SPENCER REID - Played by Matthew Gray Gubler, Spencer Reid is certainly one interesting character.  Graduating from high school at the age of twelve with an IQ of 187, Dr. Reid is the youngest member of the BAU, and is often introduced by other agents as Dr. Reid so that people will take him seriously.  It can be fair to say that Reid is socially awkward (Matthew Gray Gubler has stated that Reid has Asperger's Syndrome), but his brilliant memory, high intelligence, and unique view on the world has helped him crack cases faster than anyone else.  However, Reid's mother (Jane Lynch) was also diagnosed as being paranoid schizophrenic, and Reid's biggest fear is that one day he will end up the same way.  But as of season nine, he has not shown any symptoms...yet.



JENNIFER "J.J." JAREAU - Played by A.J. Cook, J.J. is one of the few "Criminal Minds" cast members to leave the show and come back a season or two later (this was to accommodate the real life pregnancy of Cook).  Off-duty, J.J. is the loving wife to William LaMontagne Jr. (Josh Stewart), and mother to their son Henry.  But when she is on duty, she is the team's profiler.  Though she left for a spell to take on a job at The Pentagon (during which time she was replaced by cast member Rachel Nichols who played Ashley Seaver), she returned at the beginning of season seven.  J.J. was also one of the key players involved in faking the death of another BAU agent, who had no choice but to go into hiding to escape an old nemesis.



EMILY PRENTISS - Played by Paget Brewster, Prentiss was brought onto the BAU after the departure of Elle Greenaway (Lola Glaudini).  Although Gideon and Hotchner were taken aback by her arrival (neither one signed off on her transfer), she became a huge part of the team with her language skills and intelligence.  Prentiss had a rough childhood, getting pregnant when she was a teenager and having an abortion, as well as having a rough relationship with her mother.  And, Hotchner and J.J. helped her to fake her own death when someone was out to get her.  She came back from the "dead" for a little while, but left at the end of season seven to head London's Interpol division, being replaced by...



DR. ALEX BLAKE - Played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Blake took over Prentiss' role in the BAU, and initially the other members weren't sure how to work with her as their loyalty was with Prentiss.  Luckily for Blake, her charm and skills helped win the team over, even though she only joined the BAU to repair her damaged reputation after a case gone bad.  Still, the team most always have her back, and most recently helped Blake cope after she was threatened by a serial killer.

So, how do you like that?  A group of people with wildly different backgrounds, stories, and personality traits coming together to put criminals to justice.

How's that for teamwork?

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Leave "O Canada" Alone!

Okay. In this blog entry, I've turned this diary entry bright red as a sign of solidarity for my country and its anthem. But why would I do a post about the Canadian National Anthem now when our independence day was several months ago? Let's just say that a movement by a small group has me seeing bright red. Find out why as I pen this latest installment of the Thursday Diary.

October 10, 2013



I am a Canadian. I have been my entire life. My blood bleeds Canadian red. I know how to find Vancouver, Toronto, and Halifax on the map. I know what Ontario's provincial flower is (it's the Trillium). I can tell you Canada's birthdate (July 1, 1867).   I can tell you all about the deliciousness that is Canadian maple syrup, the poutine, and Canadian pizza (basically just pizza with bacon bits, mushrooms, and double cheese).



(I sure wish that pizza place next door didn't close up. A slice of Canadian pizza sure sounds delicious right about now.)

Yes, it's good to be a Canadian. Although an opportunity might arise in which I have to relocate to a different country (though I doubt it will be in this lifetime), I'll always keep my Canadian citizenship. I couldn't ever imagine not being a Canadian. I'm proud of my Canadian background, and couldn't imagine being from any other nation.

Even our Canadian national anthem is such that almost everyone living in this country feels a sense of pride. Here, I'll post a video of “O Canada”, as well as the lyrics down below, just so you can sing along. And, since Canada is a bilingual country, I'll post the lyrics in both English and French. And just keep an eye on the English lyrics though. We'll be talking about those a little bit later.



O Canada, our home and native land
True patriot love in all thy sons command
With glowing hearts we see thee rise
The true north strong and free
From far and wide, O Canada
We stand on guard for thee
God keep our land glorious and free
O Canada we stand on guard for thee
O Canada we stand on guard for thee

O Canada, Terre de nos aieux
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux
Car ton bras sait porter l'épée
Il sait porter la croix
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploix
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits

Okay, so you might be wondering why a certain portion of the English language version of Canada's national anthem has been bolded, italicized, and underlined. This was done on purpose because of recent events that have many Canadians on edge.



You see, there's something that you need to know about the national anthem before I continue with this entry. The version that you're seeing and hearing is the version that we've been used to for at least a century. But it's not the original version. Believe it or not, the song was actually composed by then Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Theodore Robitaille in 1880, and was originally written in French. The English version actually came sixteen years later in 1906, and where the Bold/Italic/Underline phrase appears, it originally read “in all thou dost command”. In 1908, that line was changed by Robert Stanley Weir to “all thy sons command”, which remains today some one hundred and five years later.

Yet, some people have criticized the phrase “all thy sons command”, and have taken action over changing the lyrics to try and make them “less exclusive” and more “inclusive”.



The campaign is lead by several high-profile Canadian women including Canadian author Margaret Atwood and former Prime Minister for all of four months, Kim Campbell, among others. You see, their argument is that the phrase “in all thy sons command” discriminates against fifty per cent of the Canadian population, as the lyric suggests that only men are represented. They want the lyrics changed so that they include everybody. The proposed change? They want to lobby to have the lyric changed from “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command”.

I mean, it's not a new phenomenon to change the words of our national anthem. Campaigns to reword the anthem have been set in place since 1990, and several groups have lobbied unsuccessfully to change parts of the anthem for two decades.

I mean, call me anti-feminist if you will (though I assure you all that I am anything but), but I see nothing wrong with “O Canada” the way that it is currently right now. It was how I and millions of other Canadians were taught it. Why fix something that isn't broken?

I mean, yes...the anthem was crafted in a different time where social rules were absolutely different, but the message remains the same. It's all about taking pride in our country and defending it from anyone who tries to take away our freedom. And, just based on public opinion from people I've spoken to about the subject and by watching news coverage on this news story, it seems that other people feel the same way.

I mean, just try singing the national anthem if the new changes are put into place. Where they replace “in all thy sons command” with “in all of us command”. Does it not sound like the most awkward phrasing ever? Even the original lyrics “in all thou dost command” sounds a lot better than “in all of us command”. I mean, with just the change of a few simple words, they've taken the stanzas of “O Canada” and instead of them being strong and bold, they've now made the song seem a bit...wimpy.

And considering that the campaign to change the lyrics is being championed by some of the most recognizable women in 20th century Canadian history, I would think the last thing that they wanted was to make our anthem “wimpy”.



And, I mean, just look at it through the perspectives of other countries in the world. Hypothetically speaking, what do you suppose might happen if a group of American lobbyists wanted to change the words of “The Star Spangled Banner” because they felt that the words “rocket's red glare” was a symbol of war and violence and they wanted to clean it up a bit? I bet I can name a hundred people who would tell that group where to go! And, I don't blame them. “The Star Spangled Banner” is one of the most iconic pieces of American music. To change the words because someone was offended by some of the words would be unthinkable.



Starting up a group to actually replace “The Star Spangled Banner” with Miley Cyrus' “Party In The U.S.A.” was also an unthinkable action...though to be fair, I had heard that it was all in jest. At least, I certainly hope so.


So why mess with “O Canada”? Why mess with a good thing?