Absolutely All Hallows’ Eve

Halloween is a strange holiday for a lot of reasons. One of the oddest is the many ways you can celebrate it. Compare it to Christmas, say. With Christmas, you can take your festivities and decorations in essentially two directions: hokey, or religious. Okay, you can try to be classy and elegant, but that just looks hokey, but expensively so.

Most holidays are similar, with a dichotomy of directions:

• Easter: cutesy vs. religious
• Thanksgiving : vaguely-religious vs. just-here-for-the-food
• Canada Day/Independence Day: “I wish I could be this patriotic all year round” vs. “I wish I could shoot off fireworks all year round”

But then Halloween offers you several choices:

Darkness vs. General pretending

Halloween is generally about spooky-scary stuff, but it can be about just generally pretending to be something you aren’t. As I mentioned in a previous post, Halloween’s vague requirement for scariness seemed a little restrictive as a child, at least when compared to the usual freedom kids are given to pretend. And a lot of adults want to throw off the oppressive sorta-scary-requirement. Maybe they want to return to the childhood freedom to make-believe. Maybe they find the adult world scary enough. Though many seem like they’re using their Halloween costume to push something about their personality, like, “Look everyone, I’m really funny and playful! I must be if I’m a 300-lb bearded man in a princess costume!” Or, “I must be cool, I’m dressed as a meme I saw last week!”

And of course, the pop culture-industrial complex gets involved too: lots of people just want to dress as the latest thing, and lots of companies are here to enable you. So that's how there will be countless Barbies this Halloween. (And I'm assuming, a small number of ironic Oppenheimers.) But on the scare scale, she doesn't register. Ironically, you'd be better off going with Oppenheimer for that.

Traditionally Occult vs. Genuine Horror

What's especially weird is that a lot of the scary aspects of Halloween aren't actually scary. Witches, Frankenstein-esque monsters, and sheet-based ghosts have long since ceased to be scary in our society. But there are still many genuinely scary things. Or at least, gory things. So you have some people being "scary" with symbolically scary things, or you can actually scare people. That’s made worse by the fact that “scary” is another one of those concepts where we vary wildly as a society. If slasher pics are your comfort zone, then your Halloween lawn display may worry your neighbour who went back to their tent before the campfire stories started.

Disturbingly Realistic vs. Comfortably Fake

If you’re staying on the traditional side, you can dial-up the authenticity to suit your tastes. It’s easy to find adorable little witch and ghost decorations that are about as threatening as your average Christmas decorations, or you can go for some more authentic darkness. And that goes if your idea of “authentic darkness” means Wicca or Bauhaus. It may not scare anyone, but it will have your friends asking if you actually practice this year-round and only come into the open during this one time that it’s socially acceptable.

But surprisingly, even if you’re on the horrific side, there's also an option for hokey, but gory: if you go to the dollar store, you can find bloody severed limbs that look incredibly fake. I'm struggling to understand the mentality behind that: you want to imply tremendous horror, but god forbid it should be realistic. I think the idea is to aim for a humourously over-the-top gruesome display. But as with so many attempts to be ironically excessive today, no one can agree on what is excessive.

Child vs. Adult

Halloween is a holiday centred around horror and children - which is a weird combo to begin with - but it begs the question: just how scary are we supposed to make it? On the one hand, a scare that an adult can withstand is probably not something you want to subject your kids to. And on the other hand, kids don’t always know what they’re supposed to be scared of; the whole world is new and strange to them, it’s all kind of scary. Getting ushered around the neighbourhood to get food they don’t know from people they’ve never met is pretty scary to them. The costumes and decorations don’t really make a difference.

And then there’s the issue that Halloween costumes for adults — at least, adult women — have fallen into a rut of being sexy-whatever. On the one hand, that's a funny commentary on humanity: as a child, everything is scary, but as an adult, everything is sexualized. On the other, it’s further pushing us towards our having two Halloweens: one for kids and one for adults.

What's really weird is that these different aspects of Halloween don't really conflict with each other. While the religious and secular Christmases stay at arm's length, everyone seems okay with mixing Halloweens. So it's like, "You'll have a terror-ific time watching the Paw Patrol Halloween Special!"

Rated Xmas

I don't know if you're aware of it, but there's become a whole subculture of TV Christmas movies. Okay, "subculture" isn't really the word for it: in our modern world, we have so many entertainment choices that there can be an entertainment trend that exists on its own and has ardent followers, but much of the public remains oblivious, like Amish Romance. Well that's what has developed here; several specialty channels will be showing nothing but Christmas movies all through November and December. But it's just a few channels, and mostly during the day, so you may not know about them at all. But there are so many - with more being cranked out ever year - that there's apparently a great appetite for them. The Hallmark Channel in the U.S. is making most of them, and here in Canada they've been picked up by several channels with compatible programming. Mainly that's the W Network. Hey, remember when that started and everyone expected it was going to be radical feminism 24/7? Innocent times.

Generally, these are laid-back romantic-comedies, though there isn't even the pretense of going after the bro market, so the stories are very focused on the female character, and not a hint of slap-stick or gross humour. And there's a theme of people finding themselves, finding their love of Christmas, or, a new appreciation for their small town.

Interestingly, they seem to be mostly made in Canada. For one thing, we've become the cheap film capital of the world, and we have snow.  And that leads to something interesting: The stars of these movies are either soap stars, or people who used to be on sitcoms. But most of the supporting cast are Canadian actors. Even if you don't know them, you've seen them in commercials. But the mainly American audience for these movies wouldn't know this, they'd just wonder why the same few people keep popping up in one movie after another, and assume that these folks have somehow decided to specialize in just holiday-related roles.

I've complained in the past about the ubiquity of Christmas, and how long we celebrate it, so you'd think that I'd be really annoyed by these movies. And yet, I'm not. For one thing, I don't hate Christmas, I just hate having it shoved down my throat non-stop. I find that it's quite pleasant having Christmas in nice little parcels that I can take or leave, even if they start early and schmaltzy.

My only complaint is that, as I said, these movies are all variations on a theme, and it would be nice if other networks concentrating on different genres would offer their own Christmas movies. That could be difficult. Like say, there have been only a few Christmas horror movies. And there aren't really any sci-fi Christmas movies beyond Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. And twenty-eight Doctor Who specials. 

Of course, there's a discussion every Christmas about whether Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie, since it doesn't have much in the way of Christmas themes, but does take place on Christmas Eve. I always thought that argument was kind of silly, but perhaps I'm being too harsh. It's just the first of a new wave of Christmas action movies. The next one should be along any time now.

All About That Bass, No Pressure

At a recent hockey game, a commentator was discussing the scoring slump of Max Pacioretty, the winger for Las Vegas who was acquired in an off-season trade. The commentator said that he had asked a local reporter if he was under any pressure because of the lack of scoring. That reporter just said, of course not, it's Vegas. After all, hockey teams don't get nearly the media exposure in the US, even in markets where the sport is popular. The subtext is that Pacioretty had previously played his whole career in Montreal, where players are constantly in the spotlight. Had he started the season this slowly there, it would have been the only thing the city was talking about for a week.

And that's a concern that comes up a lot in Canada. Our hockey teams have never been great at attracting free-agents. Sure, the Leafs signed John Tavares this summer, but generally we haven’t made big splashy signings, and we'd like a better idea of why. Some say it's higher taxes, some say it's the cold winters. But if that were true, northern blue states would have the same problem, but it doesn’t work out that way. So many wonder if it's the media fishbowl that we put our hockey players in.

It’s great if you’re a successful hockey player in Canada; you’ll be treated like a god. But there will be a lot of pressure too. The unfortunate aspect of this is that it’s a negative with little upside. In most sports, being under the media microscope comes with more money or a better chance or winning. That’s why people love to sign with Barcelona or the Yankees. But the NHL’s salary cap means that you get the same money wherever you sign. And with that, the chance of winning is no different for Canada’s hockey teams, and the evidence is that they have even less chance. It seems that all things being equal, players would rather not have the pressure than risk it to get extra fame.

I've heard a lot of people over the years discuss this price of fame outside the context of sports. Is it worth the fame and fortune if you can't go about your life in peace and privacy? I remember a DJ once hypothesizing that bassists have the best life of any musicians. They get the same share of the money, as well as the cheers and whatever happens backstage and in the hotel. But once that’s over, they can go about their lives in peace with no one recognizing them.

But being a hockey star in the US is a similar perfect balance. Mostly, you go about your life unbothered. But then every few days you get to spend a few hours surrounded by adoring fans cheering you on. Within the arena, people know who you are and care about you, but once the game is over you go back to anonymity.

I know it's sacrilege to say, but the Americans have it right, in their own way. They care just enough about hockey, but not too much. Indeed, that’s how the whole world should work: We have this big event where everyone is really excited and has a good time, but when it’s over, we put it aside and stop worrying about it, and treat the participants like normal people. Yes, we should all learn from American hockey fans. When they show up.

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served A Decade Later

When I was a kid, I was a fan of a sitcom called Silver Spoons. It didn’t make a big pop-cultural impact, so it doesn’t get the nostalgia of a contemporary like, say, Diff’rent Strokes.

It was about a single man-child father trying to raise his estranged son. I should explain that this was when man-child meant a man with a child-like nature, rather than the current definition which would evoke images of Charlie Sheen or President Trump. In today’s terms I’d describe it as a Disney Chanel show back before there was such a thing: aimed at tweens, with a silly but not entirely fantastical premise.

I think one reason I liked it was that it was kind of dorky. I mean, it was a show about a kid trying to survive junior high while also living in a house that had a giant toy train. Somehow I could relate to that better than portrayals of kids happily diving headlong into the world of the teenager.

Of course, dorky doesn’t sell. Well, it didn’t sell in the 80’s. So they introduced a new character. Again, with the wisdom of experience, I can see that they were adding a Scrappy-Doo/Poochie character: someone who had what marketing wanted, but didn’t really fit the show. In this case, it was a cool character that captured the zeitgeist.

And that character was played by Alphonso Ribero. At that time, he was a precocious young teen determined to carve out stardom as a triple-threat, even if no one actually used that term anymore. This was at the height of Michael Jackson’s career, and it really seemed like a he was being promoted as a junior version, a fact underlined in this Pepsi commercial featuring them both.

You’ve probably already figured out the ironic ending to this tale. Silver Spoons and Ribero’s early career faded into obscurity, but then he got another job in another decade. That was on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, playing the exact opposite character. Fresh Prince would be popular enough to grab a big estate on nostalgia island, and now that’s what he’s remembered for. So now my inner ten-year-old gets some revenge: I was annoyed by Ribero at the time for being shoved in my face as the cool kid, but now he’s remembered for dorkiness. It’s another example of how pop-cultural entities may seem all-powerful and unavoidable at the time, but will end up as fallible as the rest of us in the end.

Looks Like We Made It

Wow, can you believe Barry Manilow is gay?  Oh, you can. Well, that seems to be the reaction: people aren't really surprised.  I was a bit surprised, since I would have thought that most gay celebrities are out now.  Could someone check The Closet, and let everyone else know it's safe to come out now.

But I'm a little disappointed that a lot of people have reacted to the news by saying that they always knew he was gay, or to ask why didn't he come out a long time ago, homosexuality has been accepted for decades, you know, Liberace and The Village People and them.

As for the idea that you knew it all along, I have to point out:

• There's a secretly-gay rumour for just about every male celebrity
• Have you seen the seventies? Even the really masculine guys had moustaches that would seem over-the-top at a Pride Parade today.

And for the people who think gay celebrities have always been accepted: Some of those folks are probably from that odd brand of bigotry that fervently denies that bigotry exists. But others seem to be really misremembering the past. Yes, you can point to gay artists of the 60's-80's, but a surprising number of them publicly denied their sexuality until more enlightened times. Liberace might seem like the most obviously gay man of all time, yet he claimed to be straight throughout his life.

The fact is that our society has had a strange attitude towards homosexuality for a while now, and there was a long period where we had kind of accepted that it didn't really hurt anyone, but we still held on to the general idea that it was wrong.  And that lead to a lot of celebrities who were stereotypically gay, but would never admit to it, fearing it would be career suicide.  And for a long time, they were probably right.

(Fun fact: The Village People weren't all gay.)

As if to underline our muddled views of sexuality, there's news that John Mayer has found a more masculine heart emoji. Specifically, he's using the heart from the playing card symbols, not the heart intended to symbolize love, which is more rounded. Certainly, it's not clear whether he was joking, but given the continued need people have to defend masculinity, I can't tell anymore.  It's one of the big mysteries of modern society: homosexuality is getting more and more widely accepted, yet men seem ever more fearful of appearing gay.  Just like there are fewer closeted celebrities, yet people are as quick as ever to speculate on who's secretly gay.

Ironically, by jumping to conclusions about people's sexual preference just based on their traits or interests, we're fuelling men's need to affirm their masculinity. Yes, I know, they should be accepting enough of others that they wouldn't mind being mistaken for gay.  But it's also putting a lot of pressure on them when they know that everyone will be quick to misrepresent their sexual preference the second they step outside of society's notions of heterosexual men. And it's all because people have this bizarre need to say "told you so" as soon as anyone comes out. So let's just stop the speculation and let people express their sexuality as they see fit.

Cashing-In Their Chips

There's a new Chips movie coming out - oh, I'm sorry, I mean CHiPs. It's based on the 70's/80's TV show.  Though really, it's not a movie of the TV series, it's a spoof of the series. Though really, it's not a spoof of the series, it's a generic "dumb guys" movie where the characters are named after the ones in the original.

I don't really like this idea of reviving pop-culture artifacts just to make fun of them.  No, I wasn't a fan of the original show, nor do I believe that anything is above satire.  But we're not talking about an SNL sketch here, we're talking about a movie that probably cost more than the entire series' combined budget, aimed at the children of the people who watched the original.  That really seems like kicking them when they're down.

The thinking behind it is transparent: they get the name recognition of an existing property, but don't have to worry about offending or alienating legions of fans.  Somewhere out there are people who still take the show seriously, and are probably really angry right now, but it doesn't matter to the studios, since they don't make up much of the movie-going population.

I actually feel a little sorry for them.  Sure, they don't have great taste in TV, but they're getting thrown under the bus just because they're aging and few in number.  And the fact is that we're all going to be in their position eventually.  We all have our guilty pleasures in entertainment, and they'll all make for easy fodder for lazy movies.

How The Hell'd We Wind Up Like This?

It was kind of lost during Christmas, but there was a story about Avril Lavigne feuding with Mark Zuckerberg. How did that happen? Well, Zuckerberg released a video showing off "Jarvis," Facebook's AI assistant. In the video, Zuckerberg asks Jarvis to play a good Nickelback song, to which it replies that no such thing exists. Lavigne came to Nickelback's defense; keep in mind that she used to be married to Nickelback singer Chad Kroeger. Wait, they have divorced, right (checks) yep.

I never thought I'd say this, but enough with the Nickelback bashing already. I've never been a fan of theirs either, and I'm usually the first person to demonize someone for dumbed-down rock music. And yes, I've taken shots at Nickelback too. But this has gotten to the point where people are piling-on just for the sake of it. Like monologue jokes about France, people are joining in on the ridicule without even knowing what they're joking about.

Sure, their songs all sound the same. And "Figured You Out" had the most juvenile lyrics this side of the Bloodhound Gang. But be honest, "How You Remind Me" was a great song, and "Someday" and "Photograph" approached actual pathos. So, a few good songs, some crap lyrics, and a bunch of songs that sound the same: I just described half the rock bands that have ever existed. Much like Coldplay, people seem to be beating up on a band for being ordinary, even though they're in a medium that has always had its share of hateable artists.

But let's not be naive. The Nickelback hatred isn't about the band, but about the fans. Nickelback are the stereotypical favourite of the Bro Nation. That kid who stole your lunch money right up until he dropped out in high school? Probably listens to Nickelback now. The fratboy you hated in University? Big Nickelback fan. Half the people who voted for Trump? You're sure they listen to Nickelback.

Kroeger and friends are a nice visible target for a widely-hated subculture. And they're easy to be seen as the "other." Like Creed before them, there's a weird phenomena where they sell millions of albums and concert tickets, but you never seem to know anyone who admits to being a fan. So they're easy to attack without worrying about consequences. I'd say Lavigne went overboard in calling this an example of bullying; really it's just a way of making lazy jokes that sound hard-hitting, but don't require taking a stand on anything. Really, it's just unimaginative and repetitive. Sort of like a certain rock band.

It's The History Eraser Button, You Fool!

As a fan of the Stargate franchise, I was delighted to see that new trilogy of Stargate movies probably won't happen.

If you're confused, here's how it happened: Stargate was a 1995 science fiction movie from director Roland Emmerich, a poor man's Michael Bay. It was built around Kurt Russell and the premise that the Egyptian god Ra was an alien enslaving humans. It didn't have a lot going for it other than that, except for some impressive (for the time) visuals and action set-pieces.

A few years later, someone thought it would be a good premise for a TV spinoff. The idea got handed to some new people, and they came up with a complex backstory for all the cool looking stuff in the movie, added and rewrote characters, and injected a lot of humour.

The result was a show that was far superior to its inspiration in every way except special effects. On the list of TV spinoffs that exceeded their movie inspirations, it's a solid number two behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Okay, Westworld has probably pushed it to number three, but you get the picture. It maintained a cult following, and lasted ten seasons, and spun off a further two series.

But in Hollywood's current attitude that absolutely anything with any name recognition must be made and remade as much as possible, Emmerich arranged to restart the movie series. The catch here is that he was going to ignore the TV shows and start over where the original movie left off.

Of course, in today's media landscape, reboots and rewriting are an accepted hazard of fandom. Different franchises have had their own ways of dealing with it:

• Star Trek - we'll start a new timeline, so we can change everything and pretend we're not changing anything. Your beloved characters are safe and sound and unchanged in their own timeline that we're never going to use again.
• Star Wars - we'll drop all the peripheral stuff that only the hard-core fans know about anyway. But the main story from the movies won't change at all. What about the prequels? Well, you know, it's like...look, is that Baba Fett?
• Batman - just accept that each generation the same story gets retold, but darker.
• Doctor Who - People used to think it was silly to have a show that reboots itself every few years, but you're not laughing now, are you?

But in Stargate's case, it seems a little more severe. Rather than change the actors or the tone, this would have rewritten the story, premise, and style. And I know it doesn't really matter; creating a new story with the same name and a superficial resemblance shouldn't take away from my enjoyment of the franchise as it was.

In today's pop-cultural world fandom is part of the experience. It's expected that there's going to be discussion on the Internet, extra stories in other media, and humourous in-jokes with fellow fans for years to come. Really, that's the most troubling thing about reboots and remakes: the idea that your part of the pop-culturesphere is going to be paved over to make way for someone else's experience.

When 40 Years Old You Reach, Look As Good You Will Not

I'll try to take a break from Trump-related articles now. I find myself wondering what one does when their ideals have been defeated and their values expunged from government. And the answer I keep coming up with is, accept exile on Degobah.

So, Star Wars. Are young people actually into Star Wars? Or is it just wishful thinking on the part of advertisers? I keep seeing ads for Star-Wars-related items portraying kids to young to remember the prequels as playing make believe in the franchise's world.

I know some parents my age have introduced their kids to the holy trilogy. So it's probably easy to sell Star Wars toys to those parents. And there seems to be a wide market too; I mentioned Star Wars make up earlier. You can get Star Wars tights and other feminine clothing. I'm assuming the marketing juggernaut isn't slowing down or we'd hear rumours of companies dumping unsold BB8 necklaces in the desert.

The point is, it's kind of ironic that this third generation of Star Wars is a hit with the whole family. When the prequels started up in the late 90's, many of the old fans like myself thought they came off as a little childish. No, this isn't going to be another rant against Jar-Jar. Though, you know, Jar-Jar. But there we're lots of aspects of those movies that were cartoony or dumbed-down.

George Lucas answered criticism like this by pointing out that the original movies were made to appeal to kids, which is why folks like me - who were kids when the original trilogy came out - got into them in the first place. So it wasn't fair for us to begrudge the next generation their own child-oriented movie series.

I could see the logic behind that, except for a couple of things: Realistically, he had to know the audience would be mostly aging fans of the original, whether he likes it or not. And the fact is that young audiences are getting more mature in their media (witness the direction of superhero movies as an example.) In my admittedly subjective opinion, Lucas had gone in the opposite direction, trying to win over modern kids with movies more childish than the ones that won us over in the seventies.

So now the new movies - without Lucas' involvement - have abandoned his strategy. Instead, they're making movies that mostly fit with what the now thirty- to fifty-something original fans were looking for. And yet that ends up appealing to kids better than the prequels did.

Mustang Silly

Back in 2002, GM took the Chevy Camaro out of production due to poor sales. I read an editorial in the Detroit Free Press that tried to explain why the Camaro's sales were low, especially considering that it's eternal rival, Ford's Mustang, was still doing well. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it now, but the gist was that the Mustang had some subtlety while the Camaro was too showy, a point they illustrated by refering to the song "Bitchin' Camaro" by the Dead Milkmen. I believe the way they put it was that the Mustang is a cool car for cool people, while the Camaro is the car that tries too hard for people who are desperate to look cool.

At the time, that seemed to me to be an accurate assessment. The Mustang of that era was a fairly modest car, an evolution of a design first used in the late seventies. While the Camaro contemporary was a gaudy vehicle that somehow managed to be sleek but not sexy. So I was totally in line with the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press and the Dead Milkmen.

But I'm not so sure anymore. If you don't follow automotive news on the Internet, let me explain. Owners of impressive cars often get together, for car shows, or more informal gatherings such as the Cars and Coffee series. And when people leave these gatherings, they often can't resist the temptation to lay some rubber. And since many people who own powerful cars cannot drive them nearly as well as they think they can, these burnouts often result in the driver losing control rather embarrassingly. And because there are usually a lot of people around watching this parade of impressive cars leaving the meet, there are a lot of people on hand to see the embarrassed driver, and usually at least one person recording it on their phone. It goes on YouTube, goes viral, yada yada yada.

What's weird is that the car driven by that bad driver is usually a Mustang. I'm not sure why: the Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger offer cars of similar design and power, and the Camaro is currently selling better than the Mustang, so you would expect that there would be plenty of Camaro crash footage too. But it's more likely to be a Mustang. And that's led to a bunch of memes on the subject. And that has led to one celebrated case of a Mustang owner who claimed he wanted to sell his car because he was sick of the memes.

In my own experience, I have to say that there may be something to this idea that Mustang owners are a little different. I mean, I think we all start to notice differences in the behaviour of drivers based on their cars. Even if you don't know much about cars, you've probably realized that you have to give SUV's a wider berth, because there is a good chance they haven't noticed you. And similarly, you realize that BMW and Mercedes drivers will notice you, but won't care. And I find that Mustang drivers are more likely to push the limits. When seeing one of them, I do subconsciously ready myself for aggression.

I don't know why there'd by a difference, since both cars seem to have a similar gaze-upon-my-masculinity style to them. But somehow the recklessly aggressive are opting for the Mustang. That's a little troubling for me. Mustang vs. Camaro is one of those dichotomies where you're drawn to one or the other, and I've always had a preference for the Mustang. But I have a much stronger aversion to the culture around it. So now I'm not sure which I would prefer out of these two cars I'm unlikely to ever own.

What A Fool Believes

A lot of people seem to hate April Fools day. Today I saw many people on social media lamenting its arrival, and the many half-assed jokes they'd be dodging over the next 24 hours. But personally, I enjoy it. True, many of the hoaxes and pranks are bad. But in a world where goofy broad comedy rules, it's nice to have a premise that forces everyone to use a deadpan delivery that we normally don't see outside of The Onion.

But today I realized that there is a modern problem with April Fools. I realized when reading an article about a Japanese Virtual Reality simulation of trying to save a cat on a plank: I couldn't figure out if it was a joke. Yes, it sounds like a joke. But then, we live in a world where there's a game called Goat Simulator. It started out as a joke, but then became quite popular. There's also a game where you play a slice of bread trying to get toasted. That wasn't even a joke. So when products are so light-hearted, how can we even tell which are real?

We already passed the point of Saturday Night Live commercials becoming real products, now April Fools pranks too. The trouble is that it's so easy to make things that we can now make them on a whim.

Surprisingly, for all my musings on the future, I never suspected this. Sure, people have speculated about what would happen if we perfected nanobots, microscopic robots that could do incredible work in their teeming millions. Even if that didn't lead to an apocalypse of nanobots consuming all resources as they endlessly reproduce themselves, giving everyone god-like powers of creation could be devastating. I wouldn't be surprised if some people used the new technology to carve entire mountains into sculptures of their own genitals, but that would just be one aspect of a bigger disaster. What I didn't expect was a long period of time where advanced humans leisurely produce one odd creation after another. But that looks like where we're going.

This is yet another way Star Trek lied to us. Their replicators and holodecks gave the characters incredible powers of creation, yet only ever used them tastefully. Sure, we all speculated about what was in Riker's secret holodeck files, but generally everyone used their powers responsibly. Of course, I can see how unrealistic that is now. If you had the power to make a giant pink rhinoceros when you feel like it, you probably will.

At least this answers one question I have had about the future: if humanity does survive for millennia, what are we going to do with all that time? I mean, once we've cured all the diseases and figured out all of science. I guess we're just going to fill out time doing weird, frivolous stuff. And I guess writing an article about April Fools Day that somehow links to the destiny of the human race is a good start.

9 Represent

You occasionally hear places described by their area codes. For instance, Toronto's satellite communities are often collectively called, "the 905." Toronto's original area code was 416, and it has since added a second one that I can't remember, but it apparently has a six in it, so Drake had decreed that henceforth, Toronto shall be known as, "The 6."

But outside of Toronto's cultural currents, the numbers don't come up much. For instance, I've lived my whole life in the 519 area, yet those digits just sit in my phone's contact list doing nothing.

Until now, that is. I've heard the evening news refer to the 519 region a few times as shorthand for Southwestern Ontario. I suspect it's just because in our world of consolidated local news, it's a convenient way of using the same report on CTV's London and Kitchener stations without anyone noticing.

But it actually makes some sense. After all, the 905 and 416 may be at each other's throats in elections, but they really have a lot in common. The 519 is really more distinct culturally and economically. Yes, I hate allying with our rivals in London (the Knights are going down in the playoffs!) But there I go: we both care about junior hockey, while the GTA shows little interest. That settles it: Shad, as the foremost hip-hop artist in the 519 region, it falls to you to popularize the region as, "The 9."

From The Past Until Completion

You may have seen this video of a group called "Orkestra Obsolete" using old instruments to play New Order's 1983 synthpop classic, "Blue Monday":

(And here's the original for comparison.)

It's all using instruments from the 1930's.  It may seem like cheating to use actual electronics, but that granddaddy of electronic instruments, the Theremin, dates back all the way to 1920.  I can't seem to find much information on this "Orkestra Obsolete," so I don't know if they're going to do more of these anachronistic covers.  I hope so; I want them to try Steampunk where they actually use steam to perform punk.

So if you could have made a pretty good approximation of 1980's electronic pop fifty years earlier, I wonder what the people of the 1930's would have thought of it. Because it sounds so unlike any music of the time, I'm guessing they wouldn't have liked it. And that brings up a point I've heard people make before: like it or not, technology shapes our musical styles.  For instance, bass sounds have become more popular along with the abilities of our speakers.

So that makes me wonder: it was possible for people in the past to create modern music with what they had available, it just wasn't easy.  So just how many different styles of music might be possible, but difficult, today?

All Those Moments Will Be Lost In Time...

During the hype for the new Star Wars, there was a tweet passed around that dared you to quote any line of dialog, or name more than one character, from Avatar. Of course, that should be easy, since Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time, at least for the next few days. Lots of people couldn't do it, which underlines the weird way pop-culture works.

When I was a kid, I remember going to the movies in 1982, and they had three movies playing. (Three screens! How adorable!) This stuck on my mind because I, unlike most of the world's movie-goers was excited about seeing Tron, while one of the other screens was showing E.T., which was turning out to be far more popular. In my mind's eye, I think the other screen was showing Blade Runner. I could just be imagining that, but according to the release dates, that seems likely.

In retrospect, it's interesting to see how those three movies have taken such different trajectories. E.T. was a huge hit, breaking Star Wars' box office record. It was also a cultural phenomena, getting referenced, spoofed and imitated all over. Yet it faded quickly from the public's memory over the years. The 20th anniversary reissue bombed. And now, at a time when other 80's blockbusters have had amazingly long lives, it gets ignored.

Tron was hugely anticipated, but died at the box office. For a while it was remembered only as the cinematic equivalent of the Edsel. But it maintained a following among us weird kids, and then when we took over the world, we elevated it to cult classic status, and it eventually got an unexpected big budget sequel.

Blade Runner was a disappointment at domestic theatres, but did better in Europe. Then it got rescued by, of all things, the director's cut reissue on video. It's reputation grew, and now it's regularly mentioned as the greatest Science Fiction movie of all time.

And we can see the same sort of things happening with newer movies. Avatar may not be as well remembered, despite its success. On the other hand, the previous James Cameron movie that held the box office record, Titanic, does seem to have maintained space in the hearts and minds of the public, at least if the there-was-room-on-the-lifeboat-for-Jack discussions are anything to go by.

The same thing happens in other media too. When I first noticed it, I called it the "Grand Funk Railroad phenomenon," after the band that broke Beatles' records in the 70's only to be forgotten by the 80's. Or on TV, there was The Cosby Show, which was very popular when it was on the air, but even before its star was revealed as a sexual predator, had faded from the public consciousness.

So what causes this? I've been trying to come up with some commonality to explain the fates of these pop-cultural artifacts, but I can't find it. For any rule about what makes something last, I can come up with a counterexample. Any ideas?

Tainted Love

Do you remember the "Hey" song they used to use at sports events twenty years ago? I remember one year both the teams in the Stanley Cup final (Pittsburgh and the North Stars, I think) were both using it as a post-goal celebration. I didn’t really remember where that song came from, but I vaguely remember it having some reference to Doctor Who. (Don't worry, non-geeks, this post will take a turn for the pop-cultural very shortly.)  Anyway, I saw a reference to it a few months ago, which was the first time in years I'd thought of it, so I decided to do some research.

I looked it up, and that song was called "Doctorin' the Tardis" and produced by a group called The Timelords. The Timelords were a novelty act; the same people would go on to form The KLF a few years later. (Gen-Xers will remember their songs "Justified and Ancient" or "3am Eternal.") Anyway, the song, "Doctorin' the Tardis" is basically a mash-up of the Doctor Who theme music and the 70's hit "Rock and Roll Part II." And that explains why you never hear it anymore: "Rock and Roll Part II" was by Gary Glitter, who has done jail time for child pornography.

Yes, I realize that trip down memory lane came to serious screeching halt. But it's something that happens an awful lot lately: media memories ruined by what we later learn about the creators as people.

An obvious example is with Bill Cosby. Lots of people have found that their memories of The Cosby Show are tainted. And with Hulk Hogan becoming personna non grata, I've seen a few folks of a certain age complaining that their whole childhood is now tarnished.

I wasn't so directly affected by these revelations. I was never a wrestling fan. I watched The Cosby Show, but really I spent most of NBC's Thursday nights waiting for Cheers and Night Court. But still, when someone had been a big part of pop culture for so long, they touch a lot of things. Forgive me for bringing this up, but: Fat Albert. Yep, he's ruined too.

What's depressing is that we don't know just what we might come across in our memories that turns out to be tainted. For instance, I never listened to the CBC Radio show Q when Jian Ghomeshi was hosting. But then one day I found myself humming "King of Spain" (By Moxy Früvous, of which Ghomeshi was a member) and realised that was another thing we'd lost. But the ultimate was when I saw a news report mentioning one of Cosby's increasingly ridiculous denials, and said to myself, "riiight." And I realized that I was referencing Cosby's own Noah's Ark routine. That was depressing, but seemed strangely fitting, as though Cosby's work was passing judgement on him.

And that leads us to one possible way of reconciling our feelings in these situations: regarding the person and their creations as separate, and trying to appreciate one while condemning the other. That's especially true if we can take ownership of our own experience of the work, and see whatever enjoyment we got from Cosby's career as belonging to us, not to him.

Take My Name, Take My Name

A lot of people are talking about actress Zoe Saldana getting married, and her husband taking her last name, rather than vice versa. That’s pretty controversial, and it’s great for our modern media, since it’s something they can talk about without doing any research or delivering any facts. Just run down all the possible reactions people have to it, and that’s considered enough. Though I am surprised none of the news stories have mentioned that there's already a male celebrity who took his wife's last name. I'll give the answer at the end.

Is amusing that this is such an unusual thing that the media isn't sure how to report on it. I just read an article reporting that Marco Perego changed his name. I believe that should be, "Marco Saldana, nee Perego." Seriously, you reported that a man changed his name, using his old name.

I'm actually pretty surprised that the wife-taking-the-husband's-name tradition is still as strong as it is. I never would have believed that we'd have gay marriage at a time when it's still expected that women take the man's name. For that matter, there seems to be more open vitriol and debate over a man changing his name than changing his gender.

It's not just the tradition’s longevity that surprises me, it's the enthusiasm with which it is still enforced. I've seen women get quite upset with women who don't take their husband's name. I've heard of businesses that automatically change a woman's name in their contact info when she gets married; they find they gave less anger from women about the automatic change than they get from women annoyed the change wasn't automatically acknowledged.

So why is it still going strong? It could be self-perpetuating: as long as women think of their name as belonging to their father, the less attached they are to it. And one could argue that a marrying woman is choosing between her father’s name and her husband’s, so neither is really a unique part of her identity. I haven’t talked to many women about this, but what I have heard - and read in a brief online search - is that there aren’t many deep explanations of why women change their name. It seems that the costs of changing your name are small, so if the expectation is that you will take the husband’s name unless you have a good reason not to, then you probably will. While the man will keep his name, because he doesn't have a reason not to.  Unless you're Jack White, then you'll take Meg's name.

Is He Ever Going To Swing?

You may have seen the quick news item that Jerry Dior, the creator of Major League Baseball's iconic logo, has died.

It's a pretty nice design.  It's recognizable, bright but not gaudy, and it gets across the message of baseball in America. And it's aged fairly well - I had no idea how old it is (since 1968, apparently.)

But it's also led to imitation.  The NBA has a similar logo, featuring a silhouetted player that even borderline fans like myself seem to know is Jerry West. I don't know which league had the idea first, but fine, they both use it. Then someone started using it with a skateboarding image on t-shirts. Still fine: I appreciate pop-art references as much as I like lists. Then the Indy Racing League couldn't think of a better idea for its logo. When the National Lacrosse League used a similar symbol, it's clear that this is some sort of default league logo. Is it even still iconic anymore? At what point does it become a visual cliche?

So please: pop artists and fledgling sports leagues alike, come up with something else to rip off.  Perhaps the NHL crest, or whatever that new MLS thing is.  Or just copy FIFA.  They won't sue you; I hear they're distracted right now.

So Long, And Thanks For All The Tuna Roll

You may have seen the speech President Obama gave during his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.  (Hey, spelled that right on the first try.)  It made the news because Obama thanked Japan for its many contributions to world culture, which he summed up as karate, karaoke, manga, anime, and emojis.

I hope this starts a precedent that countries will start formally acknowledging what others have given us.  I think that would help us to appreciate people from far away.  e.g. Hey Austria, thanks for Mozart and Red Bull.

But it also brings up something that people don't seem to notice: Japan has actually been pretty successful fighting back against the American cultural machine.  In fact, there are plenty of other things we can thank Japan for:

• Sushi
• Godzilla and other Kaiju
• Ramen
• Taking a few of our extra rock bands off our hands
• Cute robots
• Pocky
• Drifting
• The Walkman
• Saving video games after the Americans messed them up
• The Uncanny Valley
• The Power Rangers
• Yayoi Kusama
• Hello Kitty

You May Know Me From Hollywood Boulevard

Every now and then you hear about someone new being added to the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. What's weird is that the people being honoured seem to be at different levels of their careers. It's not like a sports hall of fame where their career has to be finished, or a lifetime achievement award where it's for a lifetime body of work.

On the other hand, they sometimes do give it to someone who's been around for a while. So we get these announcements that there's a ceremony to give stars to Kesha and Rich Little. And I'm wondering who decided that they are at the exact same level of accomplishment? And what did Rich Little just do that got him over the line? Is he lifting the ceremonial cover off that star thinking, thank God I did that show in Tucson last week, that finally got me here.

I'm really wondering about that, given the recent announcement that Phil Hartman is getting a star. I'm all in favour, as you can guess given that in the tag cloud in the margin, the SNL label is about the size as my hometown. But I have to ask what just happened to make him worthy, given that he died sixteen years ago. But then I realized: it was the recent Simpsons marathon. Apparently Troy McClure made a big impression on the Walk Of Fame people.

I Challenge Dear Liza

You've probably seen this ice-bucket challenge for ALS. When it first started going around, it really looked like people were missing the point: that is, people were having fun, and keeping the trend going, but not really putting much effort into raising/donating money. A lot of the challenge videos - even those from celebrities who should know better - didn't even bother mentioning ALS or telling viewers where they could donate. This seemed to be the dot-com of charity campaigns: popular and fun, but with little consideration for how it was actually going to make money.

And yet it actually is making money. ALS donations are way up. Thinking about it, you can understand how that works: ALS isn't one of the bigger diseases, so it probably doesn't get a ton of donations. But then it gets a huge, trendy, society-wide trend. So even if that trend only gets a tiny percentage of its audience to donate, that will still produce far more money than they usually get. Again, there's a technology comparison: businesses like Twitter are widely used, but only make a little bit of money - if any - from each user. It's a different approach than most businesses, which would try to make more money off each user, say by charging each user a fee. Similarly, the ice-bucket challenge doesn't use a more obvious money-making plea to each participant, say the way a telethon would.  It relies on a small amount of money from a large number of people.

It's interesting, and it would be nice to believe that every cause could work that way. But when I think of all the charities in the world, and multiply it by the cultural impact of the ice-bucket challenge, I'm not sure we have room in society for that much unfocused fun.