I’ve been told that my Avril Lavigne accordion segment on MuchMusic might — yes, I said might — be repeated on The Best of MuchOnDemand. Its airtimes:
Kathy “Relapsed Catholic” Shaidle and I (you could call me the “Relaxed Catholic”) saw the same Toronto Star article, but responded quite differently. The article was about the differences between Canadians and Americans, and here are the points she mentioned in her blog entry:
My response: Told you we were cooler.
Kathy’s response: “So: can I pleeeeeze come down and live with you guys? It’s official–I’m doomed up here…”
I guess that makes me Homer Simpson to her Ned Flanders. But really, who’d be more fun on a night out on the town? 😉
Now before my left-leaning readers all go marching down to Kathy’s blog with pitchforks and torches, please keep in mind that I while I don’t know Kathy that well, I consider her a friend. I met her at the Gathering of Evil Right Wing Bloggers held by David Janes not too long ago, and we get along even though we don’t agree on everything. Let’s just say that I’ve been out of University for ten years now, and even back then I found the practice of reducing people to ciphers based solely on their politics rather silly and tiresome.
Full disclosure: I’m a first-generation immigrant, and I will let my family’s record speak for the positive contribution of immigrants:
Real jobs, mad skills and thirty-eight frickin’ years of degrees among the five of us, which increases to forty once Sis gets her MBA. We all play active roles in our respective communities too.
We imports have a lot to bring to the table. It’s sad that many Americans don’t feel that way, and somewhat ironic — it’s as though many of them are saying “every since we came to this country, we’ve had nothing but crap from the immigrants.”
I also think that you can be moral and have good values without believing in God or having a religion. I’ve met such people.
I’ve also met people who do practice some kind of religion or believe in God who suck because they live in a moral vaccuum.
Aligning yourself with a religion is no guarantee you’re going to be a better person anymore than remodelling your kitchen will make you a better chef. The general concepts of Christianity and Buddhism are all well and good, but some of the vilest people I know are self-proclaimed followers of Jesus, and the largest chunk of people who’ve burned me in the past couple of years are Buddhists, and rather Richard Gere-esque vaingloriously self-absorbed ones at that (or at least in the world of Dances With Wolves, would have been given the name “Thinks of Self as Buddhist”).
Simply put: if you’re not doin’ the deeds, you’re just fakin’ the creeds.
My email has been incredibly unreliable over the past week or so, and only recently have I received the past week’s mail — in one giant burst. If you had an urgent message and I didn’t reply, please accept my apologies — I probably didn’t see it until now.
Updated Saturday, June 14th: The link for the video for people without BitTorrent is now fixed.
It may be up for a limited time only, so download it and put it on your favourite file-sharing network…
If you have BitTorrent, try getting it from here.
If you don’t, download it from here. Yes, this link is now correct!
Be sure to play it LOUD. You Friday the 13th will not be complete without it.
(The video’s 27 megabytes and in MPEG format, so you should be able to play it on any operating system. Big thanks to Lauren and Martin for the space!)
My friends Jason and Matt have digitized the video from the MuchMusic performance. It’s not one of my better ones, yet I feel strangely proud of it. I’m singin’ flat but lookin’ sharp. I’m working on finding a host for the video file, which is a whopping 27 megs.
Mental note to self: when performing a song solo, make sure you can also learn a chord button arrangement. Things sounds a little sparse without them, but I learned the song in a bit of a hurry.
If you’ve got a high-bandwidth web site and would like to host the video, drop me a line and I’ll make arrangements to get the file to you.
(Ghyslain, in case you were wondering, is the “Star Wars Kid” — you can read his story here.)
Once again, I’m busy with work, but that doesn’t mean I’ve left you with nothing to read.
Here’s an account from my friend Helen, who came to the studio to see the performance. Helen lives in London, England and is here in Accordion City for the summer. She’s my personal advisor on all matters British and part of my all-female volunteer squad of potential girlfriend background-checkers — just like Colonel Khadafy’s bodyguard squad! — who size up anyone before I’m allowed to date them. I didn’t form this elite cadre; they formed themselves after the New Girl Incident.
Meryle also came to see the show live and mentioned it a couple of times in her blog.
My friend Diana was also at the show and sent this writeup to everyone on the Thirsty People of Toronto mailing list:
Well, here’s a recap. First there is the line up outside — a CityTV staple. A bunch of teenagers stand out on the street or sit on the ledge. I am standing out on Queen Street, too. I haven’t stood still on Queen Street for any length of time since back in the days when I had no money to do anything else. Two guys try to sell manicure kits for $5 bucks to everyone going by. A guy in khaki’s sits on his coat with a sign that says “I’m only $3 short of taking over the world. Please help.” Everyone outside the studio is looking cool, waiting for the sign.
I feel a bit strange, being the only person who has broken 18 years old in this crowd. The guy in front of me turns to me and says he is high. He always stands in lines when he is high. Then he never knows where he’ll end up. Then into the building — all coats must be checked. Cameras are okay to bring in but not coats or purses — they don’t look good in the shot.
Then we are ushered into the “Street Level Studio” where the show hosts Jenn and Rick rehearsing their intro. Joey is warming up in his oh-so-posh swivel chair, sporting striped pants, an American dollar tie and the obligatory black shirt. There is an “audience rehearsal”, where we practiced being a good audience. Screaming and being enthusiastic. The teenaged girls did a better job than me.
Now we are live. After a few segments, Jenn and Rick introduce The Accordion Guy. Joey says the entire month of June is National Accordian Awareness Month (who knew!). Jenn and Rick are impressed and give the floor to Joey.
The Accordion Guy wastes no time. He reels in the crowd with a skillful intro then belts out the song he came there to sing: Avril Lavigne’s Sk8r Boi. Everyone working in the studio stops to check it out. When they realize he is singing Avril, they smile and applaud. Me, too. It is excellent. Joey wraps up the song with an accordion flourish and much applause. He talks about doing the song and being on Much, then he plays a tune to take the section to commercial.
Well done, Joey!
Thanks, guys!
I asked a dumb question on Freenode’s #infoanarchy IRC channel and got sent the URL for this graphic:
Okay, okay, hint taken.
But see if I ever play any accordion requests for you again, smarty pants. I don’t play “dumb requests”, you know…
