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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

So Close, and Yet So Far - The Montreal Expos

When I agreed to do this all-request Wednesday feature, I knew that some of the topics that I would get, I wouldn't be necessarily familiar with. In the case of today's selected request, this is certainly the case.

I'll be the first one to admit that I don't really get into the whole idea of anything athletic. That's not to say that I don't go outside and get exercise every now and then. I do. Plus, I work in a job where I frequently do a lot of walking and lifting.

But when it comes to sports, I am absolutely useless. Half the sports that are out there in this world I have absolutely no idea how to play because the rules are sometimes so complex. I do know the difference between a field goal and a touchdown, but am sometimes confused as to how many points they are worth. I always thought it was six, but maybe it's seven. I have no clue. I can't throw a football to save my life, and I only tune in to the Super Bowl to watch the commercials (and maybe the halftime show if the main performer is decent).

Same deal with basketball. I know some of the major players associated with basketball are Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, and Kareem-Abdul Jabbar. Can I tell you what teams each of them belong to? With the exception of Johnson, Jordan, and Bryant, that would be a big fat no.

Hockey is a sport that I have more or less an indifference to. I certainly don't hate it (I would be giving up my Canadian citizenship if I admitted otherwise), but I wouldn't go out of the way to see one.

Unless it's to watch my nephew play. Then I will make an exception.

Actually, the only time I ever really watch sporting events on television is when the Olympics come. And, I only ever get interested in the Winter Olympics at that. Lucky for me, 2014 is the next Winter Olympic year, so not much longer to wait.

I will say this though. One sport that I kind of liked, and sort of got into in my youth was baseball. I liked playing it (even after my gym teacher almost broke my nose with a baseball in ninth grade), I have a small collection of baseball cards kicking around somewhere, and I didn't mind going to the occasional local game. Baseball was a game that a lot of people enjoyed, and whenever the World Series came around every autumn, fans all over the United States and Canada tuned in to watch their favourite teams play. Whether you were a fan of the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit Tigers, or the New York Yankees, every team had their fans...and some could be more vocal than others.

And certainly in the United States, Americans take their baseball very, VERY seriously.

In Canada...well, that's a different story.

As of 2013, the United States has at least twenty-nine teams representing the country from San Francisco, California to Miami, Florida.

In Canada...we have one. The Toronto Blue Jays.

However, this was not always the case. When I was a child, there was a time in which Canada had two teams.

Now, Toronto hasn't had much luck lately in the World Series department. They haven't won the title in exactly twenty years, their last victory being in 1993. But the early 1990s were a great time for the Jays, as they also won the World Series in 1992, making it one of the few teams to win the title two consecutive years running.

And if things had gone their way, the second Canadian team could have made sure that 1994 would also have been a year in which a Canadian baseball team would win the World Series. But a twist of fate would not only take that dream away, but it would tear a wound right into the heart of the team that would never recover.

And, that's where today's request comes in. I received a message from longtime reader Gregg M. of Nebraska, who asked me to do a blog entry on the life and demise of this Canadian team. And, never one to back away from a challenge, I decided to take Gregg up on his suggestion.



Just be warned...I had to do a TON of research for this one, as my knowledge of the Montreal Expos was limited. But reading everything that happened to this team, it almost seemed like an act of cruelty for a team to get so close to earning recognition, but always falling short of the goal due to circumstances that were not their fault.

First things first, let's take a look at how the team was founded.

We're going to have to go back in time to the year 1960, when Montreal ended up losing its only International League team, the Montreal Royals (a Dodgers affiliate) to Los Angeles. It would take a little over seven years before the consideration of possibly creating a new baseball team for Montreal would happen, courtesy of Gerry Snowden, a high-profile figure in Montreal. At the 1967 December meeting of Major League Baseball team owners which took place in Mexico City, Mexico, Snyder presented a bid to bring a baseball franchise back to Montreal. Five months later, in May 1968, Walter O'Malley announced that the cities of Montreal and San Diego would be awarded a new baseball team – both of whom would begin playing ball at the start of the 1969 season.

Now, initially, Montreal wanted to call the team the Montreal Royals (as a homage to the former International League team). Problem was that in the eight-year period that passed between 1960 and 1968, Kansas City had already called dibs on the name. Montreal residents were asked to submit names for their team, and although “Voyageurs” and “Nationals” were briefly considered, the name “Expos” was the clear winner, having been inspired by the event known as Expo 67. And, it also worked well on a language perspective, as Expo has the same meaning and pronunciation in both English and French.

TRIVIA: The Montreal Expos were actually the very first Canadian team to be added onto the roster of Major League Baseball teams, as Toronto didn't get their team until 1977.

The newly named Montreal Expos now had to find a place to hold their home games, as the Delorimier Stadium (which was used for Montreal Royals games) was too small to support a Major League Baseball team. The Autostade was originally considered, but when the costs to add a dome and 12,000 seats to the facility proved to be too much, the league threatened to pull the franchise altogether.

This would merely be the first of many frustrations the team would face over the next few years.



Eventually, the area known as Jarry Park was transformed into a makeshift temporary facility, capable of hosting over 28,000 fans, which saved the franchise in the nick of time. And, as a result of Montreal becoming the first Canadian city to host a Major League baseball team, the city began to get all sorts of notoriety, even winning the chance to host the 1976 Olympic Games...

...which ended up becoming a major financial disaster for the city, but I digress.

At any rate, by April 1969, the team was set to play their first game. It took place on April 8, 1969 at Shea Stadium against the New York Mets. It was a close game, but the Expos won their first game with a score of 11-10. Six days later, on April 14, the first home game was played at Jarry Park – again winning the game against the St. Louis Cardinals 8-7. It was a promising start for the new team, and almost thirty thousand people crammed into the Jarry Park facility to watch the first MLB game played outside of the United States. Early stars of the new team were Rusty Staub, Mack Jones, and Bill Stoneman (the latter of which pitched a no-hitter game just ten days into the team's first season!)

But the team was plagued with a whole bunch of problems almost early on in its run.

It was always intended for Jarry Park to be a temporary facility for the team. Because Jarry Park did not have adequate protection against the wind and cold, games could not be played at the facility at the very beginning and the very end of the baseball season. The facility was only supposed to remain open until 1972, which was supposed to be the year that the Olympic Stadium was set to be completed.



Well, 1972 came and went, and the Olympic Stadium still wasn't ready to open. The franchise was threatened yet again, but fortunately the Expos managed to get reprieves at all winter meetings for the next five years. Finally, in 1977, the Olympic Stadium was ready for the team to play in...which lead to more problems. Because Olympic Stadium was designed as a multi-purpose stadium in which the city's football team, the Montreal Allouettes played games there as well, it didn't make for the best location to host baseball games. In addition, there was supposed to be a retractable roof installed on top of the Olympic Stadium (to protect fans from rain and bad weather). It wasn't installed until 1987. And, the roof itself didn't become retractable until 1988. And, it was a moot point anyway because the roof was deemed useless in situations where the winds were greater than twenty-five miles per hour. The decision was made in the early 1990s to keep the roof permanently closed.

Another strike against the team.

The initial records of the Montreal Expos team were quite...shall we say...lousy. Their first ten seasons resulted in more losses than wins. By 1979, the tide began to turn. Under the leadership of Dick Williams, the team ended the 1979 baseball season with a 95-65 record – the team's best season yet. And, as the 1970s ended and the 1980s began, the team was a force to be reckoned with, having winning records between 1979 and 1983. And the team actually came close to a World Series win in the 1981 season, but a couple of factors lead to them not winning. First, the team had the misfortune of having one of their better seasons during a year in which a baseball strike split the season in two. And, secondly, in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series (a game which was postponed one day due to inclement weather), the team suffered a devastating loss when Los Angeles Dodger Rick Monday (aptly named since the game was held on Monday, October 19, 1981) scored a home run in the ninth inning of the game, leading to a heartbreaking 3-2 loss.



That day – October 19, 1981 – would come to be known as “Blue Monday”.

And, it wasn't the only time that the team would come so close to a victory...and have it slip away.



Remember the 1994 World Series? I don't either. It's because there wasn't one held that year. The baseball players walked off the diamond and went on strike on August 12, 1994, and the strike went on so long that it was impossible to continue the season. As a result, the 1994 season ended without a World Series.

Which was horrible for the Montreal Expos, as they had their best record yet going into the 1994 season.

The team was at its best shape ever. With star players like Larry Walker, Moises Alou, Wil Cordero, Pedro Martinez, John Wetteland, Tim Scott, Jeff Shaw, Gil Heredia, Jeff Fassero, Ken Hill, Marquis Grissom, and Rondell White, the team boasted an impressive 74-40 win/loss record prior to August 1994. At the time, the team was six games ahead of the second place Atlanta Braves, and if the season had continued as normal, they could have easily stayed on pace to win over one hundred games that season. But because of the players strike, the Expos were never given the chance to see if they could have won the World Series.

The player's strike proved to be very costly for the team as well. In 1994, the team was actively making the case for a brand new baseball stadium, and had they won the World Series that year, it likely would have made their case a lot stronger. But no Series meant no stadium. What was worse, the local ownership group at the time chose not to invest any more money to secure the team's best players for the upcoming 1995 season.

This lead to the team (under the orders of Claude Brochu) to conduct a “fire sale” to cut loose the team's major stars prior to the 1995 season opener, and several of the team's 1994 stars were either traded to other teams or left the team as free agents. The fire sale caused game attendance to plummet, never to recover. Several more players would leave the team between 1995 and 1997, including general manager Kevin Malone, who was heard to comment that he was in the “building business, not the dismantling business”. And with the exception of the 1996 season, the team continued to have straight losses since the 1994 fire sale...leading some to question whether Montreal should continue to have a baseball team at all. In fact, beginning with the 2002 season, some of the Montreal Expos games were played in San Juan, Puerto Rico in an effort to save the team.

However, by 2004, the decision was made to remove the Expos from Montreal and relocate them to Washington D.C., where beginning with the 2005 season, the team would be renamed the “Washington Nationals”. This news came after the devastating 2003 season, in which the Montreal Expos were part of a spirited seven-team Wild Card Hunt, in which the team found themselves in a five-way-tie with four other teams. But ultimately, MLB chairman Bud Selig made the decision that it could not pay the fifty thousand dollars to call up players from its minor leagues to take advantage of MLB's expanded roster during September. The teams had to make do with what they had.

This was the beginning of the end for the Montreal Expos.

The team played their final game in Montreal on September 29, 2004, in which a whopping 31,395 fans came to see the team off. The result of that final game was not very good. The Florida Marlins clobbered the Expos 9-1. Still, that final turnout must have made the team very proud.

Ironically enough, the team's last game ever was held in the same place where the team played their very first game way back in 1969. Shea Stadium. But whereas the Expos won their first game against the Mets some 35 years ago, this time around, the Mets would have the upper hand, with a final score of 8-1...a bitter ending to a once promising baseball team.





Tuesday, July 16, 2013

July 16, 1999

I can't believe that we are halfway through the middle of July already!

Oh, no, wait. The temperature for today is slated to be thirty-three Celsius. And, with the humidity, it will feel more like 42 Celsius!

Actually, yeah. I do believe it's the middle of July.

But you know, that's part and parcel of having the season known as summer. Granted, summer isn't exactly my most favourite season (I'm more of a spring/fall kind of guy), but I do admit that there are some nice things about it. It gives you an excuse to eat as much ice cream as possible, you can go swimming, or you can even sit in your apartment in air conditioned comfort if you are too hot to go outside.

And, believe me...when it feels like 42 Celsius outside, I wouldn't want to stay outside that long either.

So, why not spend part of your day reading the latest edition of the Tuesday Timeline? July 16 was a rather interesting date throughout history...and as you'll see in today's entry, the day isn't always linked to a happy moment.

For now, let's take a look at today's celebrity birthdays.

Happy birthday to Bess Myerson, Irwin Rose, Jimmy Johnson, Pierre Koffmann, Stewart Copeland, Jerry Doyle, Michael Flatley, Doug Herzog, Phoebe Cates, Claude Lemieux, Will Ferrell, Larry Sanger, Corey Feldman, Ed Kowalczyk (Live), Graham Robertson, Jamie Oliver, Jayma Mays, Nathan Rogers, and AnnaLynne McCord.

And, here are some of the incidents that happened on July 16 throughout history...

1661 – The first banknotes in Europe are issued by Stockholms Banco, a Swedish bank

1790 – The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States after signature of the Residence Act

1887 – Famed (and shamed) baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson is born in South Carolina

1907 – Popcorn king Orville Redenbacher is born in Brazil, Indiana, and actress Barbara Stanwyck is born in Brooklyn, New York

1935 – The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

1941 – Joe DiMaggio hits safely for 56 consecutive games, setting a record in Major League Baseball that as of 2013 remains

1942 – The mass arrest of over thirteen thousand people of Jewish descent is ordered by the government of Vichy, France

1945 – The United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon in New Mexico

1950 – American POW's were massacred by North Korean soldiers in the Chaplain-Medic massacre

1951 – J.D. Salinger's “The Catcher in the Rye” is first published

1965 – The Mont Blanc tunnel connecting France with Italy is opened

1969 – Apollo 11 is launched from Kennedy Space Center – will land on moon's surface just four days later

1979 – Saddam Hussein becomes President of Iraq

1981 - “Cat's In The Cradle” singer Harry Chapin is killed in a car accident at just 38 years old

1994 – Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collides with Jupiter

2003 – Cuban singer Celia Cruz passes away at the age of 77

2004 – Chicago's Millennium Park is opened to the public

2012 – Country singer Kitty Wells dies in Madison, Tennessee at the age of 92

That's quite a lot of history to digest, I know. A lot happened on July 16, didn't it?

Well, there was one incident that I remember very well that happened on July 16...and it was one incident that made quite a lot of people very sad. Especially those who knew of a supposed curse that struck a particular family that was heavily involved in American politics.



Perhaps the biggest tragedy of the events of July 16, 1999 wasn't the fact that the world lost three people in a plane crash. I don't even think that the biggest tragedy was the fact that one of the people who died was one of the most talked-about people in the world of politics and pop culture. I think the tragedy is that this person's death at just thirty-eight years of age prevented us from knowing just how much life he still had left to live.



This is the story of John F. Kennedy Jr. A man who was born into one of the most influential American families of the 20th century, and a man who along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette died on July 16, 1999 after their plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of Martha's Vineyard.

It was just one of those events where you knew exactly where you were when it happened, like when the Challenger exploded, or when the Berlin Wall was torn down, or when Princess Diana was killed, or when 9/11 happened. In my case, I remember John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crash very well. I had just turned eighteen two months earlier, and it was the transition year between grade twelve and OAC. It was all over the news and entertainment channels. We had heard all the details.



We knew all about how John F. Kennedy Jr. was set to fly down to Martha's Vineyard to witness the wedding of Kennedy's cousin Rory, and rather than take a commercial jet, John would charter a Piper Saratoga light aircraft himself. John had just received his pilot's license a little more than a year earlier in April 1998.



What John, Carolyn, and Lauren did not know at the time was that very decision would be the one that would cost them their lives. And, the truth of the matter is that there were several factors in play that lead up to the July 16, 1999 crash.

For one, the weather conditions on that night were reported to not be the greatest. Hazy skies reduced visibility, making it difficult to see anything within a certain distance.

For another, John F. Kennedy Jr. only had accumulated a little over three hundred hours of flight time (of which only about a quarter of which was done during the night). And, seventy-two hours of that flight time were done without a certified flight instructor present.

And there were also minor factors as well that could have contributed to the crash. Six weeks prior to the crash, John had fractured his left ankle in a paragliding accident, and had to walk with a cane until the day before the accident, which could have affected his ability to use the controls fully. The flight departed later than what was scheduled. The plane was supposed to depart from the airport at six o'clock, but it left two and a half hours late, when the sun had already set. Even the radio frequencies that John F. Kennedy Jr. had set were programmed incorrectly, although it still isn't known if that was a factor in the events leading up to the crash.

Whatever the case, it was a tragic end to a man's life. A man who grew up experiencing heartache from his early childhood. A man who spent his youth earning a reputation of being a player in the Hollywood scene. A man who by the end of his life had settled down and was looking forward to a future that would not come to be.

John F. Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960 – the only surviving son of John F. Kennedy – the 35th President of the United States of America – and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. He was the youngest of their two children (sister Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg was born in 1957). He also had a younger brother, Patrick, who sadly passed away two days after his birth in August 1963.

It wouldn't be the first death that young “John-John” would experience that year. Of course everyone knows of the day when John lost his father, assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Three days later, on John F. Kennedy's third birthday, John's father was buried, which lead to one of the most iconic photographs ever taken within the 20th century.



John F. Kennedy Jr. grew up in the Upper East Side of Manhattan and graduated from Brown University in 1983. From there, he spent some time at the University of Delhi, worked on a few of the Kennedy special interest projects (Reaching Up, The East Harlem School at Exodus House), and worked for the New York City Office of Business Development for two years. He also dabbled in a little bit of acting work, and he had hopes of making it a full-time career. But his mother didn't approve of that profession at all. Still, his presence in the world of pop culture earned him the title of People's Sexiest Man of 1988, and he was linked romantically (in some cases allegedly) to several high-profile women including Daryl Hannah, Madonna, and Cindy Crawford.



Ultimately, John F. Kennedy Jr. chose the career path of lawyer, earning his J.D. from the New York University School of Law in 1989. But, it wouldn't be until the summer of 1990 before he would earn the right to become a lawyer in New York state (he failed the bar exam twice). For the next four years, he would serve as a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney's office before starting up his own political magazine, “George” in 1995.



Right around that time, John F. Kennedy had met Calvin Klein publicist Carolyn Bessette, and the love connection between the two was almost instantaneous. The couple was one of the most well-known in all of New York, and their September 21, 1996 wedding was the press event of the year (even though the actual ceremony itself was performed in secret to prevent the paparazzi from gaining access to the event).

But reports of trouble in the marriage began to surface right around the time of the fatal plane crash that would take their lives and the life of Carolyn's sister, Lauren. It was reported that John F. Kennedy Jr. had spent the last three days of his life away from his wife prior to the plane crash. Model Michael Bergin (who had dated Bessette prior to her marriage to JFK Jr.) revealed in his 2004 memoir that he and Carolyn were still seeing each other even after she had gotten married. And, with the added stress of “George” beginning to plummet in sales, it must have been a very stressful situation for both. Nobody knew whether the couple would eventually weather the storm, stay together, and start up a family of their own. The question of whether John F. Kennedy Jr. would have followed in his father's footsteps and pursued a career in politics would remain unanswered.



The only thing that we did know was that John F. Kennedy was killed in a plane crash on July 16, 1999. And, it was a loss that the surviving members of the Kennedy family would feel for many years to come. In particular, it must have been tough on Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who became the lone surviving member of her whole family after the death of her brother (mother Jacqueline died in May 1994). It must have been rough on Rory, who should have been celebrating her wedding day...instead she would be mourning the loss of her cousin. And, for those of us outside of the Kennedy clan, many were shaking their heads in sorrow and remarking that the so-called “Kennedy curse” had struck again. But for people in the New York area, the whole city mourned the loss, leaving flowers and sympathy cards outside his former place of residence...wondering what could have been.




And, that's what happened on July 16, 1999.

Monday, July 15, 2013

An American Tail

I am so very happy to bring you this Monday Matinee, because the topic for today happens to be one of my all-time favourite animated movies. I love this movie so very much, and I will be the first one to sing its praises, and talk about how wonderful a story it was, and how deep the characterizations were, and how catchy the songs were. I refuse to say a bad thing about this movie.

And, if anyone else happens to tell me different, I will fight you to the death. And I will win. Always.

(Well, okay, I'm joking about fighting you to the death. I would never do anything like that. But I am very passionate about this movie, and am actually very surprised that it took me this long to talk about it.)

You see, the film is a movie that some would consider to be very...American. The word “American” even appears as one of the words in the title. There are historic American landmarks featured, the main storyline involves immigration to America, and I'm almost positive that the vast majority of the voice actors in the film were American-born.

So, you would think that I would post this entry on or around the fourth of July, right?

Well, normally that would be the case. But over the three 4th of July's that have passed since I began this blogging venture in May 2011, I always had other topics planned.

July 4, 2011 – Monday Matinee – INDEPENDENCE DAY
July 4, 2012 – Wednesday Gift Shop – FIREWORKS
July 4, 2013 – Thursday Diary – THE RACISM CONTROVERSY IN BIG BROTHER

So, I thought that since I had a Canadian movie planned for Canada Day week, I would give my American readers a Monday Matinee feature as well.

Before I get into discussing today's film, I want to tell you the reason why I fell in love with the movie in the first place.

For some reason, I want to say that I saw this movie when I was in kindergarten, but I could have been in grade one, given the date that the VHS version was released. I never got the chance to see this movie at the movie theatre. The film was released in November 1986, which was part of the period that my town was without a movie theatre (the Capitol had closed earlier in the year, I believe, and the Parkedale Cinemas – now closed as well – weren't built until 1987 or 1988...can't remember when now), so seeing in on the big screen was out of the question.

But when I was in elementary school, I have a vivid memory of watching this movie in one of my classes. Again, I don't know whether it was kindergarten or grade one, but the videocassette was released in 1987, which was the year I transitioned between kindergarten and first grade. At least my timeline is fairly accurate in that regard.

Now, keep in mind that at the time I watched this film, I was just six years old. The reason I loved the movie back then was because of the music, the visuals, the funny looking animated characters, and of course, the brave little mouse who was the star of the whole show.

It wasn't until I was a little older and had studied a little bit of history in my junior high and high school years that this movie began to make a lot of sense. The whole film depicted the struggles and triumphs of European and Asian immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in New York City to become full-fledged American citizens. After all, back in the late 1800s, America was widely considered to be the land of opportunities. Dreams came true in America. And, I suppose that in 2013, this feeling still holds true.

And circa 1885, one of the countries that saw a lot of its citizens desiring a better life in America was Russia.

Many families of Jewish origin fled to the United States due to feelings of growing anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia during the late 19th century. Riots were triggered, people were murdered, and entire settlements were wiped off the map. So, hearing about all of the tales of how America was the land of the free, and the streets were paved with gold, and how everyone was treated better in America, many families of Jewish-Russian origin decided to head over there for better opportunities...only to discover that the same prejudices that they faces in Russia were also present in the United States of America...at least in some areas of the country, they were.

Still, it was a chance that many immigrants took, and for many of them, it ended up being the right decision.

It was certainly the right decision for one family, whose village was completely destroyed by an army of Russian Cossacks. Their hopes and dreams of living a better life in the promised land known as America were about to come true...but then tragedy happens. When the youngest member of the family goes missing from the ferry and is presumed drowned, how will the family cope with the loss? And when the family member that is lost at sea miraculously survives and comes face to face with the grim reality of what America really has to offer, can he not only avoid danger, but reunite with his long-lost family?



That's the situation that Fievel Mousekewitz will be forced to confront in the movie “An American Tail”, a joint production by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Don Bluth's Sullivan Bluth Studios that hit theatres on November 21, 1986.

It was a movie that did extremely well at the box office. It earned over $84 million, making it the highest grossing animated feature film of all time that WASN'T produced by Disney. Mind you, that record was broken in 1988 by another Bluth production, “The Land Before Time”, which in turn was broken one year later by Disney's “The Little Mermaid”.

The movie also helped this song reach the #2 position on the charts.



That would be Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram performing “Somewhere Out There”, which was a huge hit for both of them in early 1987. And, it was a song that was also performed in the film between Fievel and his sister Tanya when both of them end up separated from each other in their journey to America.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The film is set in 1885, and the film begins as the Mousekewitz family is forced to flee their village after it is destroyed by an army of Cossacks and their cats.

(Oh yeah...that's one thing I forgot to mention. The Jewish-Russian families immigrating to America are represented by mice...which explains the cats being a major representation of evil...which explains songs such as the one below.)



Yes, there are no cats in America and the streets are paved with cheese. That was the dream that the Mousekewitz family held onto in hopes of having a better life. There was Papa (Nehemiah Persoff), Mama (Erica Yohn), Tanya (Amy Green), and little Fievel (Philip Glasser). And, had everything gone according to plan, the Mousekewitz family would have gotten to America without any problem.

TRIVIA:  Fievel is actually named after Steven Spielberg's maternal grandfather.

But then Fievel gets separated from his family, and ends up falling off the boat transporting them from Russia to America. Papa and Mama are devastated, and they think that Fievel is gone forever. Tanya is also upset, but for a different reason. She feels that Fievel is still alive, but whenever she tries to explain to her family her feelings, they brush them off – too grief-stricken to even entertain the possibility.



Hence the inclusion of “Somewhere Out There” in the movie.  And, I dare you to get through this musical number without your eyes tearing up.  I can't.



It turns out that Tanya had reason to still hold onto hope. Fievel not only survived his ordeal, but with help from a friendly French pigeon named Henri (Christopher Plummer) – who ironically enough is helping with the creation of a very important monument – Fievel arrives in America basically unharmed.

(TRIVIA: If you want to know what monument Henri was working on, take this into consideration. The monument was a gift to the United States from France, and it was completed in October 1886. That will give you enough information for you to find out what this monument is. It certainly has become a symbol for immigration, especially in modern times.)

Of course, once Fievel arrives in America, he discovers that the dreams and happy thoughts of there being no cats there was all an old wives tale. There are definitely cats, and lots of them. And, many of them want to do harm to them all.



Well, maybe all of them except the big orange cat who goes by the name of Tiger and is voiced by Dom DeLuise. But wait...I've said too much.



To make matters worse, Fievel crosses paths with Warren T. Rat (John P. Finnegan), a cruel, vicious, unsympathetic character who forces Fievel to work in a sweatshop. Luckily, with help from Tony (Pat Musick), a street-smart Italian born mouse, they manage to escape. On their journey, they team up with an Irish activist mouse named Bridget (Cathianne Blore), who becomes Tony's girlfriend.

As the movie progresses, Fievel, Bridget, and Tony bear witness to cats destroying a marketplace run by mice, and we later learn that the gang of cats go by the “Mott Street Maulers”. Little do the trio of mice know that the leader of the gang is someone that Fievel knows very well...and that the leader is someone who has been keeping a very big secret of their own.

Fievel also meets a mouse politician named Honest John (Neil Ross), a reliable enough man, who happens to have a little addiction to alcohol – not like that would ever stop anyone from getting elected into public office. Nevertheless, Honest John truly does live up to his name, and when Fievel asks him to see if he can help him reunite with his family, he does what he can to find out some information. Unfortunately, due to the Mousekwitz family not registering to vote, Honest John doesn't have that information.

But that meeting allows Fievel and his new friends to cross paths with the wealthy Gussie Mausheimer (Madeleine Kahn), who uses her wealth to gather up all of the mice to launch a protest against the cats in a real, good, old-fashioned mouse wowie!!!



Ahem...actually, I mean mouse RALLY. She just pronounces it like wowie.

But, wowie, what a rally it is. Not only is Gussie planning on standing up to the cats, but she also wants to implicate Warren T. Rat for failing to live up to his promise to protect the mice from the cats, even though they pay him for that very service. It's extortion, and she doesn't like it.

So, what happens when FIEVEL of all mice comes up with a plan to overthrow the cat population using the stories that his Papa told him? It ends up being the whole climax of the film in which danger is faced, secrets are revealed, and one fluffy orange cat named Tiger has a change of heart.

What you have at the very end is a movie with a fantastic story – one that is taken from the pages of history itself. Again, I can't say anything bad about this movie. Not only is it a movie with great heart and warmth...but I still get taken back to watching this movie in school, just staring at the whole thing, my eyes fixated on Fievel's quest to find his entire family and the fight against the army of cats who keep them down.

Seriously, go out and see this film if you haven't already. It's fantastic.


Sunday, July 14, 2013

Behind the "Bus Stop"

One thing that fascinates me about music history is looking up information about what happened on a specific date. I think that was one of the motivations behind why I decided to come up with a Tuesday Timeline every week.

I'm sure that most of you have tried to look up what song was #1 on the day you were born, the day you got married, the day you graduated high school, etc. And, yes, I have done this for my own personal dates as well.

Okay, so as of right now, I don't have a wedding anniversary as I have never been married. But I do have a bit of an obsession over knowing what happened in the world of music on my birthday.

Like, for instance, did you know that the #1 song the day that I was born was “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes? And that it was a #1 hit for nine weeks total? These days, it almost seems unheard of for a song to top the charts for so long!

Other artists who have had #1 hits on my birthday in subsequent years have been Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder (“Ebony & Ivory” - 1982), Simple Minds (“Don't You Forget About Me” – 1985), Paula Abdul (“Forever Your Girl” - 1989), Madonna (“Vogue” - 1990), Janet Jackson (“That's The Way Love Goes” - 1993), Mariah Carey (“My All” - 1998), Santana (“Maria Maria” - 2000), Gwen Stefani (“Hollaback Girl” - 2005), The Black Eyed Peas (“Boom Boom Pow” - 2009), and most recently, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (“Can't Hold Us” - 2013).

Mind you, I didn't list ALL the #1 hits that have charted since I was born. I would take up way too much space doing it that way.

Of course, it's not just chart history that fascinates me. I get interested in release date history as well. I may be the only one who has that much fascination with my birthdate and how it coincides with major music history.

Like, for instance, on my 18th birthday, the Backstreet Boys released their hit album “Millennium”, which included the hits “I Want It That Way”, “Larger Than Life”, and “Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely”. Not that I really enjoyed the Backstreet Boys growing up at all, but given that the album sold thirty million copies worldwide, it is a fact that should be noted.

Another interesting note is that on my 13th birthday, Lisa Marie Presley tied the knot with...Michael Jackson! Yes, the much lampooned marriage between Elvis' daughter and the youngest member of the Jackson 5 was much lauded and lampooned in the media, and by 1996, the couple had called it quits. Still, it was one of the most talked about news stories of 1994...well, at least it was until O.J. Simpson's white Bronco chase just a month later.

And, then there are all of those artists who decided to record music and release singles on my birthday. Just take a look at the list of songs that were recorded on my date of birth.

1963 - “Louie Louie” - The Kingsmen
1964 - “House of the Rising Sun” - The Animals
1966 - “Got To Get You Into My Life – The Beatles
1967 - “We Love You” - The Rolling Stones

Now, those are some classic bands and songs right there!

But, there's also one more song that was recorded on my date of birth...and this one happens to be the featured song of the day for the Sunday Jukebox – recorded on May 18, 1966.




ARTIST: The Hollies
SONG: Bus Stop
ALBUM: Bus Stop
DATE RELEASED: June 17, 1966
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #5

The reason why I've chosen this song to spotlight is because of all the songs that were featured on the above list (which I found on a website listing the trivia for Oldies Music), this one is my favourite of the bunch. It's a perfect song for the summer months, and it takes people back to a time in which the pop charts weren't dominated by guys rapping about their “honeys” with their pants so low you can see what colour boxer shorts they're wearing and people spelling song titles with internet acronyms and random numbers.

(In case you haven't figured it out yet, I've largely ignored the Top 40 charts for the last ten years or so. Either I'm getting too old to understand what kids like these days, or I have more refined tastes when it comes to music.)




Anyway, “Bus Stop” was initially released as a 7-inch 45 rpm single in June 1966, and by September 1966, reached its peak position at #5. The song charted at the same position in the United Kingdom, #3 in Norway, and in Canada, the song was a #1 hit for the British based band. And because the song became such a hit in Canada and the United States, a special compilation album was released in October 1966 entitled “Bus Stop”. That album contained the hit single, plus some unreleased and lesser-known singles that the band released between 1963 and 1965.




The Hollies were founded by childhood friends Graham Nash and Allan Clarke. They first began performing as a duo in the late 1950s and by 1962 – after recruiting other band members Eric Haydock, Don Rathbone, and Vic Steele – and began dubbing themselves as The Hollies following a gig at Manchester's Oasis Club.

TRIVIA: The inspiration behind the band's name? The late Buddy Holly, who had died three years prior, in February 1959.

By the time the band was signed onto Parlophone Records in 1963, Rathbone and Steele had decided to move on to other projects, but they were replaced by two former members of The Dolphins, Terry Hicks and Bobby Elliott. And after the band released their own version of the song “Stay” - originally performed by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs – their popularity in the UK began to rise.

It took a little bit longer though for The Hollies to land onto the American charts. And, it wasn't until the band released “Bus Stop” that the band earned their first Top 10 hit there.

The song itself was written by a man named Graham Gouldman (who would later go on to become a member of the band 10cc). Gouldman had already earned a reputation for being a proflic songwriter back in the mid 1960s, having penned singles for Herman's Hermits and The Yardbirds. As well, he wrote an earlier single for The Hollies back in 1964 entitled “Look Through Any Window”.

But when it came time to write the lyrics for “Bus Stop”, it wasn't until 2006 that Gouldman finally revealed where the inspiration came from.

Gouldman claimed that he was inspired to write the song while riding in the bus as a passenger. And, one thing that you might not realize was that the opening lines of the song were not written by Gouldman, but by Gouldman's father!

Yes, Hyme Gouldman was a prolific writer in his own right. He was, after all, a playwright. But when Graham had told Hyme that he had come up with a title for a song (“Bus Stop”), Hyme immediately came up with the opening lines “Bus stop wet day, she's there I say, please share my umbrella”. With Graham already coming up with a brilliant opening riff to the song, it seemed to flow flawlessly, and soon enough, the younger Gouldman had the song completely written.

Of course, as Graham Gouldman later explained, Hyme was always offering up some advice on the song compositions his son wrote. It was Hyme who came up with the Herman's Hermits title “No Milk Today”, and it was Hyme who thought up the title for a 10cc hit, “Art for Art's Sake”. So, it was only natural that the partnership between father and son would lead to one of the biggest hits of The Hollies' career.

And, that's our look back on the song “Bus Stop”. It's a shorter than normal entry for today...but that's only because I have a lengthy blog post planned for the Monday Matinee. Besides, I'm sure some of you will appreciate the shorter blog entry.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Mario Party!!!

Summer is in full swing, and I am sure that for most of you, your plans for the next three months include a lot of outdoor activities.

And, why wouldn't they? With the temperatures ranging between 20-35 C on any given day between the months of July and September (well, unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, where you're experiencing winter right now), it is the perfect time for outdoor activities.

How many of us have gone to the beach on a hot summer day and just lay on the beach watching the waves crashing along the shore? How many of us have grilled burgers, hot dogs, chicken, and steak on the barbecue because it is way too hot to cook anything indoors? How many of us have tried to beat the heat by walking to the local ice cream shop to eat a banana split or drink a frozen fruit slushie to cool off? I'm guessing that the answer is...well...all of you!

Yes, summer can be some of the best few months of the entire year, and because it is so short, it's important to make every minute of each summer count.

So, I'm sure that most of us can understand the frustration that we all have when the baby blue skies suddenly become black, and when we see flashes of lightning streaking across the sky followed by a torrential downpour. Nobody wants to have rain falling down at an outdoor wedding, a baseball game, or a camping trip.

And, I'm sure that the people of Calgary, Alberta and Toronto, Ontario certainly don't ever want to see another raindrop fall again. Both cities were hit hard by heavy rains which caused major flooding in both metropolitan areas, and in the case of Alberta, entire communities are still rebuilding. In fact, if you click HERE, you can find a website where if you want to, you can donate some money to help the people there who may have lost everything in the floods. No obligation, of course. Just posting the link here in case you want to help out.

Anyway, on a typical normal rainy day in which we get the standard average rainfall in a day, it can be a real bummer. I suppose that some people would go outside and play in the rain regardless of how much falls (and actually, I will be one to admit to running around in my backyard when it was raining, as I found it fun). But not all of us were willing to just get soaked outside just for the fun of it, especially if there were strong winds or the risk of a thunderstorm.

So we stayed inside and resigned ourselves to be bored for a few hours.

Of course there were always things that you could do inside. And I suppose that one of the most common ways to pass the time on a day with uncooperative weather was to play a board game like Monopoly, Clue, Twister, or Trivial Pursuit. For a while, these games could keep an entire family of four entertained. But the problem with board games was the fact that eventually people grew tired of them. I know that whenever I played board games, I would usually get incredibly bored and/or restless after the second or third time because each game went exactly the same way. There's only so many times that one person can pass go and collect two hundred bucks before wanting to throw hotels at your competitors. There are only so many times you can accuse Mrs. White of murdering someone with a lead pipe before you yourself wish someone would clobber you over the head with a wrench to put you out of your misery. And, don't even get me started on Trivial Pursuit. I have seen many games of Trivial Pursuit end in a brawl over a silly question about which Chicago Cubs baseball player scored the most home runs in 1984.

(And, no, I do not know the answer.)

So, how do you make board games fun again?

Well, provide that a thunderstorm didn't knock out your power, Nintendo came up with an ingenious way to take the boredom out of board games using some of their most popular and liked characters.

Hence the reason why we're going to have a party.



A MARIO PARTY!!!




Now, Mario games have almost always been universally well-received. And, there doesn't seem to be a Mario game that doesn't seem to have at least one sequel. There were three Super Mario games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, another two games for the Super Nintendo, and several more for the Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, WiiU, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS.

(WOW...that is a lot of Nintendo consoles!)

Would you believe that since the Mario Party game was first released on the Nintendo 64, it would still be considered a huge success? Including the versions released for Nintendo's hand-held consoles, there have been a total of TWELVE different Mario Party games made with a thirteenth version set to be released for the Nintendo 3DS later this year!!!

That's a lot of partying!

Of course, some Mario Party games performed better than others. The original name, the second sequel, and the DS version all scored very well, while the version released for the Game Boy Advance tanked. But I suppose that's true with all video game franchises. Loved Final Fantasy VI, VII, IX, and X, but despised anything after XI.

(I still have not yet played Final Fantasy VIII.)

But this isn't the Final Fantasy blog. It's the Mario Party blog.

It seems hard to believe, but it's been fifteen years since the first game of the Mario Party franchise came out. On December 14, 1998, Nintendo released the game for the Nintendo 64 system in Japan. North American gamers had to wait until February 1999.

Now, I know what some of you may be saying. For those of you who have played at least two or more of the Mario Party series, you may think to yourselves that all of the games are the same. And, in some ways this is true, as all of the games feature worlds designed like a standard board game complete with dice. But the plot of each Mario Party game is slightly different.




In the original Mario Party game, the plot of the game is to determine who out of Mario, Luigi, Wario, Yoshi, Princess Peach, and Donkey Kong will be the superstar of Mushroom Kingdom by playing a series of large board games complete with several minigame options. In the second game, Princess Daisy and Waluigi were added as characters. And, in the later installments of Mario Party, Bowser would cause all sorts of havoc, and the games would include boss battles between the player and Bowser's minions.

The objective of each game board of Mario Party was to go around the board to collect as many stars as possible. The player with the most amount of stars at the end of a series of turns (depending on the game you play, each board can have a minimum of ten rounds and a maximum of thirty) will win the entire game.

And, how do players earn stars? Well, there are several ways.

The most common way to earn stars is to go around the board and pass a star checkpoint. If you pass the checkpoint at exactly the right time, you will earn one star...provided that you have enough coins to purchase one.




That's right. In a lot of the Mario Party games, you will have to collect coins in order to earn a star. Coins have been a huge part of the Mario franchise since the first Super Mario Brothers game was released in 1985 so it's almost expected that you will have to get your hands on a whole bunch of them in the Mario Party series.

Now comes the next question. How do you earn coins in Mario Party?

Well, I'm glad you asked. And, to answer this question, I am going to use examples from the game Mario Party DS, one of the games in the series that I have played quite a bit.




Most of the times, you can get coins simply by landing on the right space. In this case, landing on a blue space will earn you three coins. But be careful...landing on a red square will cause three coins to be taken away.

In the case of Mario Party DS, you can also earn coins through other spaces as well. If a friend of yours lands on a golden space, the friend can share coins with you. But be careful, because if those squares turn purple, then the friend turns to foe, and you will have to fight them for coins.




In addition, there are green question mark spaces which are kind of similar to the Chance cards that one can find in Monopoly. Depending on what green space you land on, you can either win a bundle of coins, or lose everything.

Now, if you happen to get through the first round and you still have all of your coins, you still shouldn't get comfortable. Because at the end of every round, you will have to play one of the many minigames that are included in each version of Mario Party. Some minigames are as easy as pie, and others will prompt you to toss a controller out of a window. But if you succeed at the minigame, you could earn as much as thirty bonus coins each time depending on what the minigame was. As the game continues, sometimes you might even have to play a minigame to keep your hard earned stars in your possession.

Here are just a sample of a few of the minigames that can be found in various Mario Party titles. There are usually anywhere from fifty to eighty minigames found on each game.

Here is a sampling of minigames from the original Mario Party from 1998.



From Mario Party 4 from 2002.



From Mario Party 7 from 2005.



From Mario Party DS from 2007.



And, finally from Mario Party 9 from 2012.



So, you see...each minigame differs between game to game. And, the best part about it is that nine times out of ten, you have absolutely no control over what minigame you get to play as it is all controlled by the computer. You could be in the lead, and all it will take is epic failure in one minigame for you to lose that lead. It's very easy to do.

Now, at the end of each game, the stars are tallied, and you automatically think that the person with the most stars wins the game. But did you know that you can also earn bonus starts by meeting a set of criteria while you played the game? If you landed on more green squares than anyone else, you got a star. If you won more minigames than anyone else, you got a star. And, in this game, sharing your coins could earn you a star if you did it more than anyone else.

And, that's not all. Some Mario Party games have tournament options where you can challenge opponents to a series of minigames in random order where you can win bragging rights.

Seriously, with Mario Party, you always have a party as you will literally never play the same exact game twice. Seriously, pick up at least one of these Mario Party games. You may just be the best party host ever with it!

It sure beats Checkers and nursing war wounds caused by a Trivial Pursuit breakdown.