AGT, John Lennon, Royal Baby and Summer

              Quote of the night, "I'm a cuttin' but you ain't bleedin'!" 

        ~ Foghorn Leghorn to that dog he tortures

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So, the results are in.....Mat Franco is the winner of America's Got Talent. 

 He looks like a cross between Jon Cryer and a pack of gum....

+

Still, he is really good.

I was happy that he won.

 It's a pretty good show, that AGT.  This year was great for talent. I had no idea there were so many people out there with such awesome talent. 

Some of them need to just get a frigging grip though... I mean...like the knife throwers?!....come on.. I don't think there's any knife throwing act worth a million dollars, but somehow, they can't be discouraged, those damn guys with their knives.

 Every year there's a few old guys trying to sneak past, thinking we won't notice them, with their over filled balloons and 'target girl' dressed in a tutu, with scabs and a frightened look....toting a length of rope.. Some of them actually make it on to the show, but they rarely go far. People soon wake up and realize that it gets really boring, really quick. I don't know. Maybe that's just me. 

I think American tv is so much more entertaining than Canadian tv....unless you're really in to period dramas...or shows about orphans in 19th century P.E.I........imagine an entire country watching nothing but Downton Abby or Little House on the Prairie....that's what it's like...or I guess that's what it WAS like. Canadian tv has some good shows now, but I don't know anyone who watches them.

I remember when I was a kid, we'd be watching tv, and suddenly there'd be little videos of wildlife...

.....Who's Who in Hinterland.

Does anyone remember that?

 It was a little wildlife break in the middle of the Flintstones.

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The National Film Board of Canada used to air little vignettes, some of which were really catchy and cute. 

I found 'The Log Driver's Waltz'. .....memories! I think this one originally aired in the '80's.

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God! The '80's eh?! 

That was a strange decade....people who didn't work out wore neon coloured 'gear'.....every teenager had a 'boombox' that they carried on their shoulders when they went to the alley to 'break dance'....gawd...gag me with a spoon....the decade started with the murder of the most controversial Beatle...and ended with walls coming down.

I remember the night John Lennon was murdered vividly. For me, the evening started with a toke or two with friends, and listening to Led Zeppelin  (betcha didn't see that coming!...),and ended having bran muffins at Bino's. 

The place was packed, It was about 2am. No one could sleep after the news from New York. Everyone I heard and saw and talked to that night was completely stunned. It was one of those situations where we all needed to grieve collectively....none of us knew him, but we felt like he was one of us, and we needed to talk about him. And we needed to speculate on the killer...why he would have done this, and what we would do to him if we ever met him. The place piped 'Imagine', on a loop, through the sadness.

It was a crazy night. 

Earlier in the evening, before we met with a bunch of strangers at Bino's, I remember looking out the window, and seeing a guy in the twilight, in the entrance way of the apartment across the street. He had been stabbed, and he was pounding on all the buttons at once, with his bloody fists. I could hear all these disembodied staticky voices, saying 'Hello? Hello?', "Who is this?'

By the time we got outside, the block was like the set of some detective show....during rehearsal. 

There were paramedics tending to the stabbed guy, and there were cops everywhere. Some had dogs, some didn't. We walked right past a cop with a huge german shepherd straining at the end of his leash, sniffing something at the base of a stop sign. 

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In lighter news, (Yes, yes, I know that wasn't really so much 'news' as a reminiscence, still...) it's nice to see that there'll be a new Royal Baby! That's right, the current Royal Baby will become the old Royal Baby sometime in the spring....I suppose every member of that family, was at one time, 'The Royal Baby'. I don't think there was as much hoopla about it before though....I mean, I remember when Prince William was the Royal Baby, and it was news, but I don't think it was as big a story as it was for this last Royal Baby....or it could be that the sands of time have gotten in my eyes and distorted my inner vision....I think that's what's happened here, because you'd think it would be a big deal whenever a future king is born. 

It's so nuts to me that there are some people, who, by accident of birth, are born to rule over the poor slobs who are, again by accident of birth, born to be ruled over.

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Well, at least the weather's finally cooling off! It's been damn hot here. 

This is the summer that refuses to frigging back down and admit it's over. 

It's grabbing hold of sticks and clumps of grass as it slides down the embankment and into fall...(some people are even stepping on its fingers)...and it keeps pulling itself up again, like Rocky! 

I would like to put forth the idea that we name extreme seasons, like we do hurricanes. 

So, the summer of 2014, (at least in this area of British Columbia) should be known as Rocky.....all in favour say, "Yo! Adrienne!".......

Hang on.....maybe that's not such a good idea. People might get confused and think it's named after Rocky the Squirrel from the 'Rocky and Bullwinkle Show', and not after Rocky the pugilist from that movie.

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You know what no one ever says anymore?

"Gumption"

It's gone the way of 'wisenheimer' and 'Sam Hill'.

They're all sitting around a campfire somewhere, eating beans and telling tales....Gumption, Wisenheimer and Sam Hill.

'Far Out' , 'Groovy' and 'Bogart' are around a different campfire, behind pull-tab curtains...still distracted by black light posters and finding out the meaning behind everything...

'Radical', 'Gnarly' and 'Gag Me' are at a Robert Palmer concert....

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Another Quote of the Night. (Yes, there can be two! That's my rules.):

"Who did you like the way they acted, that you might act like the way you do now?"

~ David Letterman to Luke Wilson

That's all for now.