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Sunday, June 05, 2016

Not Hip To Be Scalped - It's Tragic

As somebody who was born, raised, and currently living in Canada, I happen to have a lot of pride in my nation.

When it comes down to it - in my unapologetic and biased opinion - I believe that Canada is one of the greatest nations on the entire planet because of its very unique features.  We are the nation that created the dish known as the poutine that despite its tendency to give you a heart attack is the ultimate Canadian comfort food.  We are the nation that invented the great sport of basketball - and yet we only have one team in the NBA.  What's up with that?  And, we are also the nation that abolished the penny from our currency - which in turn has made things more expensive - but hey, at least we also have some cool looking currency in both coin and bill form!

Another thing that Canada has is some really fantastic musical talent.

From The Guess Who and Chilliwack to Hedley and Carly Rae Jepsen, there are a number of Canadian artists who have contributed to the soundtracks of our lives.  I imagine most of us have probably owned at least one album of Bryan Adams, Alanis Morissette, Barenaked Ladies, and Celine Dion in our lives.  Well, okay, maybe most of us only have one Celine Dion song in our collections.  And for 95% of us, it's probably that song from "Titanic".  The point is that Canadian music is fantastic for the most part.

(And yes, we know that we gave you all Justin Bieber.  Save your stones and lit torches.  Besides, I kind of sort of like the song "Sorry".)



One of the bands that almost every Canadian knows and loves is The Tragically Hip.  And, the band - which was founded in Kingston, Ontario in the early 1980s - has been rocking out the provinces and territories of this great nation ever since.  I'll be the first to admit that I do enjoy quite a few of their singles, and while I will not claim to be the band's biggest fan (mainly because I know quite a few who have me beat!), I will state that any time I have heard them in television interviews, they have always seemed very gracious and honoured by the support given to them by their fans, which is refreshing to see.  And while they have attracted fans all over the world, it is Canada where the band is most loved.



And honestly how can anybody hate The Tragically Hip?  Their music is fantastic.  Have a listen to "Ahead By a Century" from 1996!



Or, how about "Bobcaygeon" from 1998?



Or even perhaps my favourite Hip song, "Courage" from 1992?

I seriously could list their entire discography here on this blog post and it still wouldn't do this band justice. 

Of course, it's fitting that I post the song "Courage".  Because the lead singer of the band, Gord Downie, is probably mustering up all the courage that he has to embark in what could very well be the last few months of his life.



It was a sucker punch to the gut for most Canadians the day after Victoria Day weekend when it was announced that Downie, 52, had a brain tumour that was deemed inoperable.  Worse, the cancer that he had was one of the most aggressive kinds that there was.  It is unknown exactly how much time Downie will have left, but the prognosis is not good.

It's hard enough to deal with a cancer diagnosis.  I've known quite a few people who have died from the disease, or who have had major hardships as a direct result of it.  I can only imagine what Downie, his family, and his bandmates are going through right now, and my thoughts are definitely with all of them at this time.

But, Downie has made the decision that he wants to make the most of whatever time he has left, and he and the Hip have decided to give their fans a couple of going away presents.  A new album by the band is set to drop June 17 - which I am predicting will be hard to find in stores unless you download it from iTunes - and the band will embark on one final cross-country tour this summer.  The final date will be held in the very city that their career began - Kingston, Ontario.

Now, living fairly close by to Kingston, it would be nice to go see them in concert to support the band, but I know that tickets would have been extremely hard to get given the high demand for them.  Certainly I know many of my friends have tried to get tickets, but came up empty.

But I don't think any of them could have prepared for just how hard it would be to actually score some tickets to any of the band's shows.  And to be honest with you, I'm not very happy about how it went down thanks to some incredibly greedy people who have used a man's disease to earn some fast cash.

In this day and age, scalpers have always been associated with high-profile concerts.  Suppose you have a ticket to, oh, let's just say going with the Canadian theme here, Three Days Grace.  And suppose that an average concert ticket would cost $75 to get inside.  Scalpers would buy one hundred tickets, and resell them for $325 - making a huge profit off the original ticket price. 

Despite the fact that scalping is an illegal offence in some places (I know my province of Ontario has a law in place), it is surprisingly ignored, and thus is the reason why scalpers continue to be a problem in the music industry.

As a result of scalpers monopolizing the ticket sales through online websites like Ticketmaster, the tickets sold at face value in record time.  Meanwhile, the scalpers were selling the very tickets to Tragically Hip fans for double, triple...even fifty times the price of the ticket!

As far as I'm concerned, this is NOT what The Tragically Hip would have wanted at all.  And, I can guarantee you that fans of the band have considered this to be an all-time low.  And honestly, I can't say I blame them for having that opinion.

It's bad enough that scalpers have put a high price on a show that a lot of people have wanted to go to.  But for them to purposely do it knowing that this tour is going to be the last time that The Tragically Hip will play in front of a live audience.  I think there's a special place in hell for people like that.

But, I am definitely not going to suggest something like finding a scalper and literally taking a scalpel to his scalp.  That sort of contradicts my new zen state.  What I am suggesting is that governments work with ticket retailers to fix the system so that scalpers receive heavier punishments for scalping.  I am also suggesting that online retailers implement systems that prevent people (including spambots) from purchasing any more than six tickets per transaction.  That may not stop them entirely, but it might slow them down enough for people to have a fighting chance to legitimately get their tickets.

Another radical idea would be to sell tickets the same way they did thirty-three years ago when the Hip were just starting out - no online sales at all.  Instead, you line up at an actual ticket booth and wait in line to buy tickets.  And if scalpers show up wanting hundreds of tickets, they can be escorted out of line!  Maybe going back to a pre-technology world would be a radical, yet necessary step to ensure that more tickets go to more fans.

Whatever the case, I'm sure that things look bleak for fans of The Tragically Hip, and I certainly hope that these scalpers can look at themselves in the mirror having done this.  At the very least, they could have used the profits from the scalped tickets and donated it to a Canadian cancer charity so that research could be done to save more lives.  But I guess that would be asking for too much, right?

In the meantime, for fans who don't have tickets, I will suggest that you check your local radio stations.  I would imagine that some stations were given tickets to give away as a promotion, or they bought up tickets themselves to offer up as prizes.  It would be in your best interest to listen for these contests if you really want to see the band perform.

And I have also heard that the CBC is interested in simulcasting the band's final concert on live television.  At the very least, I hope that a deal is reached.  After all, everyone who is a fan of the band should deserve to see them - and not have to pay an arm and a leg to do it. 

Saturday, June 04, 2016

A Celebration Of Those Whose Give a Damn's Aren't Busted



Well...this has been quite an eventful week.  In more ways than one.

I'll admit that I'm in a good place right now with everything.  When I sat down at my computer on Monday morning and typed out what I needed to say - stuff that I had been sitting on for so long - I was in a particular mood that could not be classified as either contentment or zen.  It had taken up a long time for me to say the things I needed to say to get some sort of closure over what had happened.  I can sort of see where some parts of that message seemed as though it was coming from a place of bitterness.  At the time I wrote it, I'll admit that I was surprised at how it came out.  But I hold no regrets and make no apologies for it.  I said what I had to say, and no matter what, it made me feel better about myself for saying it.  It was very cleansing for the soul and now I can go back to being in my zen state once more.

And, let me tell you.  It's such a great feeling to let go of the negativity that I carried with me for so long.  And I feel so great about it that I think I want to do a follow-up to Monday's entry...only through the eyes of someone with a lot more perspective towards life and who has a happier outlook.

It's just going to seem kind of strange for me to reference the song "My Give a Damn's Busted" at the beginning of this entry - mainly because it seems to contradict everything that I just said.  Well, to be honest, with the case of some people I've crossed paths with, my Give a Damn is legitimately busted with no sign of repair whatsoever.  But I've given them enough attention and choose not to go any further with it.



But the song itself - well, can you think of a catchier title for a song?  I think it's quite clever, to be perfectly honest with you!  The song has been recorded several times, but I believe the 2005 version, as sung by country music artist Jo Dee Messina is most well known.  The song itself is about escaping a toxic relationship and how the person who is leaving the other person is trying to find something to keep them involved in the relationship, but can't come up with a reason because...well...their Give a Damn is busted! 

Well, in this blog entry, I want to talk about the flipside of that.

I've decided to make this piece a full-fledged celebration of the people in my life whose Give a Damn is NOT busted.

Hence the title of this blog - "A Celebration Of Those Whose Give A Damn's Aren't Busted"!

Again, I will be making this a public piece - and this time, I'll probably be doing a lot more name dropping in this space because I do believe in giving a lot of praise and kudos to those who truly deserve it.

Obviously, I have to start with the family portion of the blog.  Although there have been times in which I have wanted to pull my hair out because of them and although there have been times in which I have sworn that I was adopted as I am so very much unlike any of them - I honestly do hold my family (at least the immediate family) on a very high pedestal.  At 35, I consider myself extremely lucky that my family is mostly still here with me because I know that as the years go by, they won't always be there.  The truth is that they helped make me the person I am - for better or worse - and for that I think I will always be grateful to them.  Whenever I needed them, their Give a Damn's were never busted, and I will owe them a lot for that.

I also want to single out some of the kids I went to elementary school with over the years.  It wasn't a perfect time in life, but I chalk it up to the fact that we were all little and stupid back then.  Trust me, I had my moments back then, as I'm sure all of us who were ever children did.  The point is that most of the kids who I went to school with in elementary school turned out to become fairly decent adults and members of society.  And while I definitely will not remember everybody's name in this piece, I'll single out Orijit, Eileen, Sarah, Jason, Jennifer, Bailey, Erin, Nicole, and Erica in particular for standing by me - even if there were times in which we didn't speak for quite some time.  The point is that you never gave up on me.  Your Give a Damn's were never busted in regards to how you perceived me, and I never did forget that.  So, thank you!  And, I also feel the need to give a special shout out to Jessyka as well for supporting me in what I do in this space as well as in real life.

Next come the teachers who proved to me that their Give a Damn's were never busted when it came to handling me.  Admittedly, I was a complete enigma of a student.  Some days were most definitely better than others, but despite that, you never once doubted that I would be all right, and you never once gave up on trying to make me a better person.  In some ways, I believe that your influence on me helped shape the way I treat other people.  Again, I'm trying to go by memory here, but just to name a few, I will honour Miss Johnson, Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Woodfine, Mr. Haskin, Mr. Tripp,  Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, Mr. Cristello, Ms. Renusz, Mr. Lacerte, Mrs. Quick, Mr. Wright, Mr. Pearson, Mr. Weese, Mr. Corney, and Mr. Brady for showing us all how to teach people the right way - and to teach like your Give a Damn isn't busted.  And although some of these names are no longer with us, I will never forget any of them.

I'm also going to shout out a bunch of names of the various people I've met on online forums over the last few years - people who have sent birthday and Christmas cards, people who have been around to listen whenever I needed advice, people who have comforted me when I needed someone to talk to, and people who although I've never met them have been some of the best friends that I have ever had in my life.  Again, I'm just going to list off a whole bunch of names that I can think of, and if I do forget to list a few - well, I don't have a magic mirror and I never was on "Romper Room".  That is my excuse.  But sincerely, I am singling out Kat, Brian, Cathy, Mandie, Celeste, Helen, Sharyn, Cullen, Joe (JP), Matt, Nicole, Eric, Hector, Viki, Jill, Jeri-Ann, Kathy, Tammy, Dawn, Hilary, Tracy, Mark, Chris, Riann, Sandy, Julie, Railyn, Allison, Laura, and anybody else who has touched my life in this way.  I'll also add in Teresa and Rosemary - two friends who have sadly passed away.  You'll never be forgotten.

Finally - and this time around I won't be naming names because if I did, this post would be as big as the phone book - I am so eternally grateful to the majority of the people that I like to call my Walmart Canada family.  Honestly, if you had asked me 20 years ago if I ever saw myself being where I am right now, I probably would not have wanted it.  Sometimes I still question whether what I am doing is really what I want to do.  But it is a full time job and those are not very easy to come by, so I'm doing the best I can.

But in all seriousness, having a group of people who have really genuinely supported me is nothing more than phenomenal.  Let me tell you exactly what these people have done for me.  They helped me come out of my shell more than anybody else has.  Lord knows they had a struggle.  I refused to talk to anybody for two whole years when I first started there!  Now I won't shut up for anybody!

But let me tell you what they have done for me.  They were there for me when I lost two of my best friends within a year of each other, making sure that I was okay.  They cheered me on as I participated in the Relay for Life, making sure that I kept going even when my body was telling me to stop.  They visited me in the hospital and kept tabs on me when my gall bladder tried to kill me five years ago.  They have invited me to birthday parties, weddings, and never once made me feel like I was not a burden.  If anything, they went out of their way to make me feel welcome there.  And even though our workplace can get a bit stressful, and we sometimes get into some depressing moods, we always find a way to make each other smile at least once.  When I call my workplace a family, I truly do mean it. 

And you know, it really dawned on me over the course of the past week or so that...I have got people who are cheering me on and whose Give a Damn was never busted in regards to me.  No matter how hard I resisted, they refused to give up on me.  And I know it sounds silly to admit that I resisted their kindness and patience at first - because I didn't think that people like me deserved it, and that it was for other people. 

Now I know differently.  And I'm eternally grateful.



But I do want to single out Lenettia, Jennifer, and Amanda - three co-workers who have truly become three of my best friends ever - for giving me this wonderful gift as a reminder that I do have people in this world that I can count on.  People whose Give a Damn's weren't busted.

And in essence, I supposed they repaired my Give a Damn.  Funny how life works out, isn't it?  Is this the life I dreamed of?  No.  But is it a life that I am proud of?  Yes.

Finally, I want to say a few words about another man whose Give a Damn never had the chance to get busted.  Throughout his career as a world famous fighter, Muhammad Ali showed strength, perseverance, and dedication in his sport, his family, and his life - even when a debilitating disease ravaged his body.  He was a source of inspiration for so many, and he will truly be missed.



Rest in peace.

Friday, June 03, 2016

Jem Reviewed: Episode 11 - Last Resorts

Last time on Jem Reviewed, Jerrica lost her earrings...and her brain.  Here's hoping that the chill of the winter air brings her back to her senses.



This is Episode 11:  Last Resorts.



Jem and the Holograms are on vacation, and they've decided to cool off by skiing at a Colorado ski resort for a week.  I question the fact that they appear to be driving on a snow covered mountain in a convertible with the top down, but maybe having frostbite on your ears and noses is the hottest fashion trend of '86.  Or maybe the top is broken on the car.  Or maybe Jem is an idiot.

Regardless, once Jem and the Holograms arrive at the resort, they enter to check in only to find that there are no other guests around.  Strange.

We learn more about the situation from the owner of the resort, Rick Franklin.  The ski resort used to be a popular one before Jem came, but recently a new resort that opened up a few miles away on the same mountain has been doing better than his.  Furthermore, many of his guests are reportedly having some bad luck, with some of them even getting injured on his own ski trails.  That doesn't sound good.  In fact, it sounds very suspicious.



But Jem and the others aren't concerned.  They check into the resort - with Jem signing in as "Jem and the Holograms"!  Then they go out onto the slopes.



Aja is immediately thrilled to be out on the ski slopes.  The athletic one of the bunch has been itching to slalom down the mountain since they arrived, and she stops to take a deep breath of winter air...



...as she gets beaned by a wayward snowball. 



Oh, look!  The Misfits and Clash are on the ski slope too!  Pizzazz actually makes me laugh a little bit by referring to them as Little Miss Pink Hair and the Singalongs!  Okay, yeah, Pizzazz is a horrible person, but so help me, she has the best zingers!



It's time for another Misfits song.  The song is "You Gotta Be Fast", and this is a really great song.  I mentioned that Jem and the Holograms do the best ballads...well, I think the Misfits do the greatest rock songs.  It's hard to find a single thing wrong with this song.



After our little musical interlude, the Misfits continue to wreak havoc on the Holograms.  Thanks to Clash, Shana gets buried underneath a small avalanche of snow.



And Roxy and Stormer set up a trip wire that sends Aja and Kimber down to the ground.



By the time Jem arrives, she's confused to see Pizzazz by herself.  But Roxy, Stormer, and Clash soon arrive on snowmobiles and start pelting Jem with snowballs.  Four against one is hardly fair.

Is that an echo I hear?  Someone else just said it.  In what appears to be a Swedish accent.  Is ABBA making a special guest appearance?



Oh, wait.  It's just a Swedish skiier named - wait for it - Svenssen.  And, Svenssen just happens to be dressed in the same colours as the Swedish flag.  Great, first China is stereotyped, and now Sweden.  What next?  The Holograms run into Crocodile Dundee while touring Australia?

Whatever the case, Svenssen scares the Misfits away and tries to charm Jem.  Of course, we know that Jem kind of sort of is sharing Rio with Jerrica because she's too afraid to let him know the truth, so Svenssen really has no chance.  Still, I like the fact that he tries.  He's already showed that he has more balls than Howard Sands.  Then again, Pizzazz has more balls than Howard Sands.  In fact, STORMER has more balls than Howard Sands.

Can you tell I don't like Howard Sands? 



Luckily, Howard Sands is not in this episode.  But a whole bunch of angry guests are.  And they want their money back because they claim Rick's resort tried to kill them.  Rick is adamant that he is not at fault, and he seems to think that once again the new resort is to blame.



But Jem seems to have an idea.  She announces that she and the Holograms will put on a concert at the end of the week for all of the guests in the resort, and that they should at least wait until then to make up their minds.  Immediately the guests all decide that spending an evening with Jem and the Holograms at a ski resort might be a lot of fun, and they take Jem up on the offer.  But Rick Franklin is still insistent that a lot of the problems that he has been having is because of the new resort - which leads to the question...who owns the resort?



Oh.  Never mind.

Eric isn't riding alone though.  He's with a man from the bank - I believe it's the same bank that issued the loan that helped Franklin pay for his own resort.  I don't think we learn his name, so we'll call him The Banker.  We learn that Rick has fallen behind on his mortgage payments and that he is at risk of losing his lodge.  And naturally with all the bad luck that has been going on with skiers staying away, making the payments has become harder and harder.  But when Eric and the banker learn that Jem will be performing a concert at the ski resort - which should make up the difference he still owes, both turn as pale as the snow outside.



Now we get to learn the real plan.  Apparently, Eric wants to have the monopoly on the whole mountain and buy Rick's resort so he can double his profits, and he's asked the banker to help him do it because this is a cartoon, and in all cartoons, bankers are evil.  Luckily, the banker has a plan to knock Jem and the Holograms out of commission so they don't make their gig.



Unfortunately, the banker's plan includes our old pal Zipper.  And, Zipper decides to sabotage the ski lift.  Sigh...once again, Zipper displays his homicidal tendencies.  Where did they find this guy again?



Predictably, the Holograms are on the ski lift when it malfunctions, and the chair that Shana and Jem are sitting on starts to fall apart.  Jem nearly falls out of the chair to her death, but Shana grabs a ski pole and Jem manages to hold onto it!  Okay, unless Shana weighs like two thousand pounds, this should be impossible.  At the very least Jem should have taken Shana down with her! 



Rio sees everything happen, and he once again risks his life to save Jem and Shana - as well as Kimber and Aja, who happen to be in the chair directly behind theirs.



But whereas Rio literally tries to climb across the ski-lift to reach Jem and Shana, Svenssen arrives on a helicopter and manages to save all four of the Holograms as well as Rio before the whole chair lift crashes to the ground.  Wow, Svenssen's smart.



Once safely on the ground, Jem is grateful to Svenssen for saving her life, and Rio is disgusted, and tells SWANSON to stay away.  Kimber meanwhile tells Jem that if she doesn't want Svenssen, she'll take him!  Good lord, Kimber...you were slobbering all over Sean and Jeff, and now Svenssen?  Was it always the writer's intention to make Kimber the bicycle of the show, or was this a new plot development?  Seriously, Kimber.  Pick one man and stick with him!



Once word breaks of the ski lift accident, Rick Franklin is absolutely furious, and wants to confront Eric Raymond for the sabotage.  But their anger is misplaced, because we already know that the banker is responsible for Zipper destroying the ski lift.  Even Eric feigns ignorance, which tells me that not even HE is aware of what the banker is up to.  I get the feeling that the banker has ulterior motives here.  What those motives are, I don't know.

But whatever the banker has up his sleeve, it's absolute war between Rick and Eric.  It's suggested that a contest be held to settle the war once and for all.  A ski race between Jem and the Holograms and the Misfits.  The winners of the competition will earn the right to control both resorts.  Sounds like a fair idea and Jem is instantly on board.  But it's a really bad sign when the banker overhears the whole plan and gets a nasty scheme of his own.

Jem and the Holograms and the Misfits embark on their own training regimen in preparation for the big race.  It's time for another Holograms/Misfits mash-up not heard since "Click/Clash"!



This mash-up is slightly better than "Click/Clash".  It's also a nice mash-up and contrast over the Holograms eager work ethic and the Misfits complaining and wanting to be lazy.  I still don't care for the mash-ups, but I don't mind this one.



Before you know it, the race is about to begin.



On the Holograms team are Jem, Kimber, Aja, and Shana.  The Misfits are Pizzazz, Roxy, Stormer...and since there are only three Misfits at the moment, Clash is added in.  It seems like just as the Holograms took in Clash's cousin Video, Clash has wormed her way into the Misfits social circle.



The race is on, and it's neck and neck between the two teams.  But why is Zipper sitting in a tree watching the race with binoculars?




Oh...it seems as though the banker has arranged for a group of henchmen to set up booby traps all over the course so that Jem and the others lose.  



Poor Aja gets sidelined when she somehow gets yanked off course by a rope attached onto her ski outfit by one of the skiers.  Kimber falls into a hole that is covered by snow, and she too is knocked out of the race.



Shana gets a face full of snow caused by one of Zipper's men shooting her with a snowblower, and the shock sends her woefully off course into a flowing river filled with ice chunks!  What is up with Shana getting all the abuse in this episode?!?



Jem somehow seems to be holding her own.  Roxy tries to knock Jem down, severely damaging one of the JemStar earrings in the process, but Jem is like a Weeble.  She wobbles, but she doesn't fall down!  She does however go the wrong way on the ski path thanks to one of Zipper's men switching the sign around.  What else could go wrong?



Well, Clash decides to take matters into her own hands.  You know those nifty cymbal bracelets she wears around her wrists?  She smashes them loudly.  You might think that dinky jewelry wouldn't do much damage, but for some reason it triggers a massive avalanche.  An avalanche that puts Jem right in the way of danger.



Don't believe me?  This is Jem's "Oh, Crap, An Avalanche" face.

Fortunately, Jem has enough agility to outrun the avalanche's path and she skis into a cave.  She's protected by the cave walls, but the avalanche buries her completely.  Not good.




Even worse, she finds that she's trapped in the cave with a big grizzly bear who doesn't like having company over.  Okay, this storyline is getting really farfetched here.  This is a cartoon, not an episode of "All My Children"!

Rio, Svenssen, and Rick watch with sadness as the Misfits cross the finish line in tandem, and it appears as though all is lost.  But Rio is very concerned about Jem and the others, and worries that something terrible happened.  Rio and Svenssen agree to split up covering more ground that way.



As all this is going on, Aja is walking down the path of the ski slope, trying to make her way to the finish line when she stumbles upon Kimber, who informs Aja that the Misfits are up to their usual tricks again.  Aja helps Kimber out of the hole and they move on.



Not long after, they hear Shana screaming, and Shana's situation is much more dire than Kimber's was.  She's in danger of going over a gigantic waterfall, and all she has is a series of small ice islands to guide her.  She hops from island to island as Kimber and Aja hoist a rope across the waterfall.  After a couple of near misses, Shana grabs hold of the rope and inches her way toward solid ground.  So, the Holograms are safe.  I wonder if Jem's having better luck?



Wait a minute.  She's changed into Jerrica?  Oh, I get it.  The bear is standing in front of her blocking Synergy's hologram projecting.  It also doesn't help that she's running on half power since Roxy damaged one of her earrings on the slope.  And she accidentally dropped her good earring a good fifteen feet away because the bear scared her.  What's she going to do?

Rio somehow happens to dig his way into the cave, but is absolutely confused to see Jerrica instead of Jem!  Uh oh!  Does this mean that Jem's secret is finally out and Jerrica will have a lot of 'splainin' to do?



Well, the bear temporarily knocks Rio out, leaving Jerrica to do some major crawling around to get to her earring before Rio becomes the bear's next meal.  She grabs the earring, and uses it to transform Rio into an ugly, scary monster that scares the bear away!  Nice going!  Of course, Rio has now seen Jerrica in the cave, so just before Rio regains consciousness, she transforms back to Jem.  Wait...so, you risk your life against a freakin' bear to save the life of your love, but you're too afraid to have that conversation with Rio about your side gig and alternate identity?  Wow...just wow.

It's a good thing that both Rio and Jem are distracted by the fact that the cave walls seem to be glittering.  Heaven forbid this situation get any more awkward.

Back at Rick's ski resort, Kimber, Aja, and Shana are waiting for Jem to come back, and hoping that nothing bad happened to her.  The ski resort is filled with people, but they all came to see Jem and the Holograms.  And, well, as talented as Kimber, Aja, and Shana are, they can't perform without their lead singer.  In the corner, Eric and the banker are putting on their best Snively Whiplash masks, salivating over the fact that they won.  They won by cheating, but by gosh, they won!



Or have they?  It seems as though Jem and Rio are alive and have discovered the secret that the banker has been hiding.  Turns out that the real reason why the banker is so interested in Rick's resort is because the cave on his property contains pure silver inside!  So, that's what the banker was after.  He only wanted Eric to win the resort so that he could have free access to the silver deposits!  But of course, the banker scoffs at that claim, saying they have no proof.



But wait.  Here comes Svenssen with Zipper and everyone else involved in the plot to take Jem down.  I have no idea how he apprehended four men by himself, but Super Svenssen reveals that they have been working for someone - and it's NOT Eric.  After outing the banker as the real mastermind, Eric himself is shocked that he could be so ruthless.  Wow...you know someone is evil when ERIC is disgusted by their actions.  The banker is furious at Eric, and tells him that he's now going to jail, but Eric's more upset that he's lost his resort!  Couldn't have happened to a couple of nicer guys.

In a twist to how the episodes usually end, this one concludes with a song.  In this case, it's the song "Love Is Here", which is quite appropriate given the setting and the fact that this takes place at night.  




So, my thoughts on "Last Resorts"?  I do like it a lot better than "Adventure In China", and despite the impossibilities and silliness within the episode, I do think it was a classic good vs. evil battle.  I do wish the Misfits got more of a comeuppance though.  That would be my only nit picky point.

And since I didn't have any sort of Jem Trivia in relation to this episode, I'll add in a generic piece.  Did you know that there was a Jem Bible that Christy Marx wrote that basically has every detail about the show and its characters inside of it?  It's the same size as a full length novel, and when the show was in its heyday, Marx used to give it out to fans.  But copies of the Jem Bible now are very hard to find.

Next week, Shana gets a chance to design clothes for a fashion competition in Italy.  But when the Misfits do everything to destroy her self-confidence, can the other Holograms bring Shana's mood back up? 

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

May 31, 2005

I have something to add to the end of this edition of the Tuesday Timeline, and it is something very important and personal.  It sort of goes back to what I wrote about yesterday.

In a way, I suppose it can be loosely linked to today's subject that I've picked for today.  Very loosely.  But, I suppose it will be a challenge to tie up some loose ends.

So, let's close out this month by seeing what happened throughout history this thirty-first day of May!

526 - A quarter of a million people lose their lives in a devastating earthquake that strikes Antioch

1854 - France abolishes the civil death procedure

1859 - The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament - the same tower that is the home of Big Ben - begins keeping time

1879 - Gilmores Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt

1908 - Actor Don Ameche (d. 1993) is born in Kenosha, Wisconsin

1909 - The National Negro Committee (which would later become the NAACP) convenes for the first time

1911 - The hull of the doomed ocean liner HMS Titanic is launched

1921 - Riots break out in Tulsa, Oklahoma over civil unrest; at least thirty-nine die in the melee

1927 - The final Ford Model T is rolled off the assembly line

1929 - "The Karnival Kid" - Mickey Mouse's first speaking appearance in a film - is released

1938 - Singer-songwriter Johnny Paycheck (d. 2003) is born in Greenfield, Ohio

1941 - During World War II, a Luftwaffe air raid over Dublin, Ireland claims thirty-eight lives

1942 - Sydney, Australia is subjected to attacks by Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarines

1948 - Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham (d. 1980) is born in Redditch, Worcestershire, England

1954 - Disco singer Vicki Sue Robinson (d. 2000) is born in Harlem, New York

1971 - Memorial Day occurs on the last Monday in May for the first time - previously the date was fixed as May 30

1977 - The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is completed

1981 - Jaffna Library - located in Sri Lanka - burns to the ground during the Sri Lankan Civil War

1985 - Canada and the United States are subjected to no less than forty-one different tornadoes striking on the same day

2000 - The reality show "Survivor" debuts on CBS

2013 - Actress Jean Stapleton dies at the age of 90

I would also like to take the time to wish the following famous faces a very happy birthday; Clint Eastwood, Peter Yarrow, Sharon Gless, Joe Namath, Bernard Goldberg, Tom Berenger, Jean Chalopin, Gregory Harrison, Ben de Lisi, Susie Essman, Roma Maffia, Chris Elliott, Lea Thompson, Corey Hart, Hugh Dillon, Scotti Hill, Darryl McDaniels, Brooke Shields, Jeremy Hotz, Nick Scotti, Phil Keoghan, Sarah Murdoch, Archie Panjabi, Colin Farrell, Eric Christian Olsen, Joel Ross, Reggie Yates, Jason Smith, and Azealia Banks.

Now, while I can't promise you that the date I've selected will be quite a while back - the event in which this date is linked with certainly is.



So, let's set our time machine back eleven years to May 31, 2005.  But before we go and see what happened on this particular date, we have to go off course just a bit and go back further in time to the year 1972.

Otherwise known as what could be one of the worst years of Richard Nixon's life.

Those of you who were around and are old enough to remember what happened in 1972...it could very well be summed up in one word.



Watergate.

The political scandal which saw Nixon resign as President in the summer of 1974, kicked off in June 1972 when five men were arrested on charges of breaking and entering the Watergate office complex in Washington D.C.  Specifically, the area in which the men targeted was the Democratic National Committee Headquarters.  At that time, the reasoning behind the break-in was not known, but when the Federal Bureau of Investigations got involved, their lengthy investigation found some very troubling information.

The investigation proved that there was definitely a link between the money that was found with the belongings of one of the men involved with the break-in, as well as money that was being stored in a slush fund used by CREEP (The Committee for the Re-Election of the President).  Keep in mind that 1972 was an election year and Nixon was about to conclude his first term as President of the United States.

A few months passed, and Nixon was re-elected as President in November 1972.  But as the calendar changed years to 1973, the investigation intensified, and by June of 1973, more damning evidence came to light against Nixon and his administration.  Between the testimony of former staff members at the Senate Watergate Committee, and the realization that there was a tape recorder in Nixon's possession that may have recorded some valuable conversations, it seemed as though Nixon's world was about to come crashing down around him.

And it did.

After a legal battle between the United States Supreme Court and Nixon - who refused to submit any of the recordings taped between 1972 and 1973 - the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon was obligated to release the tapes and its contents as evidence.  And when the tapes were listened it, they confirmed what many had suspected.  That Richard Nixon had tried to cover up some activities had taken place after the break-in, and that he used federal officials to delay and deflect the investigation.

Nixon formally resigned his presidency on August 9, 1974, and Gerald Ford was sworn in one month later.  Although Ford would later pardon Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, the damage was done, and Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon's legacy as President was forever tarnished.

But how did this whole scandal get tipped off?  Surely if Nixon knew that what he was doing was wrong, you would think that he would have taken all the necessary steps to make sure that no information leaked out drawing suspicion towards him and his administration.  After all, if the general public got word of what was going on, it would surely mean impeachment, or even prison time.

See, this is where we go back to our original timeline date of May 31, 2005.

You see, back in 1972, it was long suspected that somebody who was either part of Nixon's administration or was involved in the Watergate break-in investigation was secretly feeding information to two reporters from the Washington Post - Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.  The two men had covered the whole investigation and scandal in the newspaper for the two year duration, and the Post was known for publishing inside information about the case before any other media source.

It was later revealed after the scandal had ended that Bernstein and Woodward had a secret informant who went by the name of "Deep Throat".  And it was the information that Deep Throat revealed that helped the investigation continue onward, leading to the biggest political scandal of the 20th century - well, until the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky story broke in the late 1990s anyway.

But nobody knew who Deep Throat was.  And it was a secret that was kept closely guarded for thirty-one years after Nixon's resignation.

The list of suspects as to who could have been Deep Throat was long.  Fred F. Fielding, Ron Ziegler, John Erlichman, L. Patrick Gray, William Rehnquist, Henry Kissinger, and even future Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush were suspected as being Deep Throat.

If Richard Nixon knew who Deep Throat was, he certainly didn't talk.  He mostly kept a low profile after his resignation, and he passed away on April 22, 1994.

It would be eleven years later, on May 31, 2005, that the identity of Deep Throat would finally be revealed - in of all places, Vanity Fair Magazine!



And who was Deep Throat?  Well, that would be W. Mark Felt, who at that time was Associate Director for the FBI!

The news was published in an article on the magazine's website, written by John D. O'Connor - an attorney who was acting on behalf of Felt.  At that time, Felt was suffering from the effects of dementia, and initially even denied that he was Deep Throat.  But once O'Connor had his article published in which Felt admitted that he and Deep Throat were one in the same, it was more or less confirmed by the two journalists who worked closely with him in the Watergate investigation.

So, I suppose the one question that needs to still be answered is why did he come forward with the information at that particular time?  Some might say that it was personally motivated, with Felt wanting to provide information to Bernstein and Woodward to satisfy his disappointment over L. Patrick Gray being named Director of the FBI over himself.  According to Woodward and Bernstein, they say Felt had a loyalty to his country and felt he had to step up before Nixon damaged it beyond repair.

Or, it could just be that most of the key players in the Watergate scandal had passed on at the time Felt made his announcement and felt that he had nothing to lose.  Felt himself would succumb to his disease just three years later in December 2008.

Whatever the case, the Deep Throat mystery saw its conclusion eleven years ago today.

All right...so now to tie this entry to the one I wrote yesterday.  Well, obviously I was not linked to any political scandal.  The closest I ever came to that was when "Elbowgate" in the House of Commons took place on my 35th birthday!  And, I certainly haven't kept a secret for 31 years.  At the age of four, I was a chatterbox back then!

But I do know what it's like to have so much emotion eating away at you for so long.  I get the impression that with most of the Watergate key figures deceased, Felt had no reason to fear any repercussions for speaking out.

And for me, being out of school for 16 years gave me the courage to speak out against something that really held me down and controlled me.  Yesterday was the day I decided to take it back, and I feel so much better because of it.

I guess I just want to say thanks to everyone who might have taken something away from what I wrote yesterday.  It's nice to know that there are people who understand and who are supportive, and I will never forget that.

So, that concludes 31 days of new entries.  I'm going to take a break for a couple of days and will be back on Friday with a new entry.  I reckon I've earned it!