THIS POST HAS A SOUNDTRACK

I'm a musician. Let me pause to make some room for the snickering. OK, for those who know me that is outright raucous laughter. I understand it. For those who do not know me let me make this perfectly clear: I cannot play an instrument. I can barely hold a guitar the proper way. I'm the only guy who can blow into an empty plastic pop bottle off key. And I can't sing. No, I mean I can't sing the way Mike Tyson can't write iambic pentameter. I remember telling this woman that I couldn't sing and she calmly assured me that of course I could sing and that that I have just been conditioned by cold hearted music teachers in school ... then I sang. I sang so badly not only did she go deaf, she went blind ...

Still, I'm a musician. And it all relates to video. When I was inspired by Elizabeth McClung's weekend adventure challenge to cut a video with every one's pictures and video, I began thinking about the music before I had seen any of the images. For me, cutting often is all about the music, it certainly begins there. Particularly if it is images only; music becomes tremendously important. In the video business we call this "music video" style editing; not in the annoying lip syncing, belly button flashing, hair flipping, bling flashing actually promoting a song sort of way, but simply putting image to music, or the other way around.


For the Weekend Adventure video I wanted something upbeat with a nice pace to reflect the fun implicit in the images but I always wanted something with a little substance, with lyrics that conveyed optimism and yet could also understand the poignancy of Elizabeth's challenge: Go out, live life, have fun, cause life oft times throws you a curve ball regardless of what you may be planning. Jem's It's Just a Ride fit the bill perfectly. An upbeat, catchy melody, and a message that was life affirming because it acknowledged that the ride is filled with bumps and detours and doors opening in your path but it's still a ride and all rides should be enjoyed.

When I sang the song in my head (even singing in my head caused my cat Gypsy to wince, that is how pathetic I am) I looked at the images on the computer and it all just came together for me. In my editing style the song goes down first ... first, even though this is a video. Music first so the images could follow the music. Sure, I had an idea what I wanted the images to do; grouping them by "adventure" starting off with each individuals pics in a group to help with identification (I had some quotations rolling as well) and theme. That was pretty obvious and I certainly could have done that without music. But video has a rhythm. It has a rhythm even without music, without a soundtrack. We've all seen static images left on too long ... it can illicit a physical sensation that is almost painful, like your chest tightening. Maybe that's just me. I feel it. An image not given enough time I feel right behind the eyes, like a brief flaring headache. So I put the music down first, and let that be the rhythm of the images.


In the editing software that I use (Final Cut Pro for all the geeks in the house) I can set a duration for any still image I bring into the program. The default is 10 seconds .. way, way, way too long. I have two presets: One at five seconds and one at four. Four seconds is actually how long I want the images to last on screen. I think that duration gives even a completely static image enough time to "tell its story" to give its information without overstaying its welcome, if you will. So why the five seconds? Because if you put transitions on either side of the image (like a dissolve, fade to black etc) that eats up some of the time that each image lives on the screen.


That length is not a hard and fast rule of course. If you watch the Weekend Adventure video, there is a section just before the chorus where Jem sings "break down, don't you break down, break down .." and I cut photos into each one of the "break downs" which is less than four seconds, more like two seconds or so. I'm betting that those photos don't seem less than half the length of others, because the images are moving and they are matched to the music in a way that it makes sense; it flows.


I think I've always seen images and music as elements that should not only exist together, but need to go together to be at their most effective. This probably comes from the movies. A great soundtrack does not just accompany a movie, it enhances it, improves it, embellishes it. The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed; the use of the zither as Joseph Cotton chases Orson Welles around the streets and through the sewers of post war Vienna ... the jarring music and Reed's off kilter camera angles and the brilliant black and white chiaroscuro all combined to give those scenes a breathless, edgy quality. Combined, mind you. Reed's camera work and editing is brilliant but that music adds so much to the scene, it would not be as effective without it.

There are dozens of examples; a bit more recently The Ghost and the Darkness, set in colonial Africa, uses African inspired music to great effect. The music is heavily percussive and filled with chants and not only does it reflect the film's location, it pushes the movie pace. In the early scenes, when Val Kilmer arrives in Africa to build his bridge, all optimistic and filled with testosterone, the music is big, orchestral, effusive and with the African rhythm more subtle, hidden under the strings. As the story progresses and the man eating lions begin to terrorize the area, as all of Kilmer's beautiful clean engineering is destroyed by feral violence, the strings are stripped away from the soundtrack; the drums come out, thudding like blood and the chants become more guttural, grunting, like the hunger of the lions and the fear of the men that leaves breathing short and blood hammering. The scenes are not cut to the beat but the beat informs them, it adds the poetry to the language of the visual images.

I certainly don't aspire to such artistry but I think I understand that power of music to inform image. I have a certain reputation for it in my field. I have worked with other editors on long, complex corporate videos; usually in such cases where the bulk of the video is highly expository, there is a desire to break up the talking heads and close up shots of steel presses with musical montages. These little scenes provide a reprise from the pure information but they still must have a purpose, they still must illustrate something about the product or company. Often, working on these kinds of videos the refrain was "let Kellar do the freaking montage".

Cutting to music is more than just matching cuts to the beat. It is understanding how images need to match up to the rhythm; when cutting to extremely fast beats I like detail shots, extreme close ups, like a pair of eyes or a just the logo from a large machine or the curve of a neck of a bottle of chef sauce (hey, I never said corporate video was romantic). In corporate video you use, largely, instrumental music, because you do not want to distract from the imagery and the message.

That kind of cutting is challenging, both on a technical level as well as a creative one. Where it gets more purely creative for me (let me whisper the word "artistic" in your ear in my most manly of voices) is not just cutting images to the beat, its using music to illustrate the image. This is where you you lay down the images first then stripe in the music afterwards ("striping" is a perfectly archaic video term for inserting a video element, it has to do with the way old school video decks used helical heads to record image and sound onto tape ... wake up, we're done with the geek speak now). Here, the challenge is to find the music that not just compliments the image, but illustrates it. I've been told I have a talent in this area. My friend Karen Baldwin-Porter, an actual for real can play an instrument musician asked me to put together a memorial slideshow for her husband David; when she saw it she told me "You got me with the music, I knew you would get me with the music" I created a similar slideshow as a memorial to Collette's mother Margaret ... and really, you know, I'm happy to do it, but its a duty I do not want to make a habit of. People also complimented the music, were even surprised at the song choices but agreed that it gave impact to the pictures. You can also take a look at this Hayley video where I had some fun cutting to the music.

That is how I am a musician, I think. I'm never gonna be able to play an instrument. Tom Harpell, my friend, my teacher, my mentor in all things video and a pretty mean blues musician, once told me that he could teach anyone, even me, how to play the blues harp. Tom, I love ya brother, but we all know that ain't gonna happen. Its ok. No regrets. I have my own way of playing music. You tune up your harp. Give me a second while I start the computer ...

THE WEEKEND ADVENTURE MOVIE: THE SEQUEL

Some things don't work out as planned. Actually, very few things work out as planned, that is why I plan for them not to work out; and that plan is often thwarted too. Let's just call that Life and move on.

I planned to put together a little video to celebrate Elizabeth McClung's call to arms to take a weekend and go out, be silly, have fun. And her readers did. From goth girls in cemeteries, to poi spinning, to traipsing in graveyards, to weaving, to Memorial day excursions in graveyards, to carrying rakes on bicycles to trying to visualize pain to more graveyards, people took up the call.

I was unable to participate in the challenge due to the behemoth known as Deadline sitting on my head ("Ignore me," he says "I'm a 500 pound gorilla with a mohawk haircut and a tattoo of Popeye on my ass, just try to ignore me")I had to stay home and work.

Still, these great adventures needed some sort of record and making a video without any pretense of commerce is fun for me. So I took people's images and video and put together a video that I hoped would would stand as some sort of record of the weekends.

The video was created but I carelessly overlooked some important details and we had to put that particular creation to rest. No fear. The video rises again. Call it Son of The Weekend Adventure, or the Sequel.

Again, I want to thank everyone who gave me permission to use their images. And thanks for Elizabeth to get the whole silly bar rolling.

The music is Just A Ride by Jem. I am not usually a real pop song kind of guy but it is a nice tune to cut to and I think the lyrics work with the images and with the whole concept of the adventure. The weekend was fun for most people but it was a challenge for others and a cause to reflect for some. The ride we are all on is fast, slow, scary, boring, impressive, forgettable, blissful, painful and, eventually, destined to end ... Put the helmet on. Grab the handlebars. Enjoy the ride.

It's just a ride, it's just a ride No need to run, no need to hide It'll take you all around Sometimes you're up Sometimes you're down It's just a ride, it's just a ride Don't be scared now Dry your eyes I t may feel so real inside But don't forget enjoy the ride



The Weekend Adventure from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

JEFF HEALY: MARCH 24 1966 - MARCH 2 2008

Jeff Healy died this past march. I have been thinking about it since it happened and, as is the usual case with me, it took some time for the thoughts to coalesce into something I could actually write about.

I don't know how famous Jeff Healy really was. Certainly here in Toronto he was well known; musician, bar owner, radio show host, a pretty big fixture in the town's music scene. He had some success in Canada with the Jeff Healy Band, a couple of hit records including Angel Eyes; ironically because that was a song least Representative of what this man could do. So he had some national fame but he took himself off the "record charts" turning his back on popular music and devoting himself to what he loved the most, blues music and (his preference) traditional jazz. I suppose he had some international fame as well. You can see him in the Patrick Swayze movie Roadhouse; although Jeff's character is called Cody (or something) he was playing Jeff; a blind white boy with a sense of humour with his guitar on his lap who played some of the most blistering blues/rock you ever heard. The movie won't to be everyone's taste but it has two things to recommend it: Sam Elliot ("that hurts, don't it?") and Jeff Healy.

Living in Toronto I was fortunate enough to have seen Jeff several times at concerts, blues festivals and at his original bar Healy's. I loved Healy's. It was this little basement place at Bathurst and King. Not sleazy but not fancy, small and dark and crowded just like a good blues bars should be. Collette and I saw Long John Baldry there most recently and it was a perfect venue to watch the Big Man do his thing. In Feb of last year Jeff opened Healy's Roadhouse just down from the Sky Dome on a very touristry strip that include Gretsky's, Second City, Don Cherry's etc. Its a big place, there is good music but boy, I miss that hot little basement.

I don't really recall what year my brother Ed and I saw Jeff at the Skydome. A baseball stadium is a shitty place to watch a concert but who could resist this: Jeff Healy, Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughn. C'mon. Could have shot me. Would have died with a smile on my face. I could not have imagined then that I would be writing this, not much more than 15 years later and of those three musicians, only Beck survives.

A personal memory of Jeff was when Collette, myself and her niece Billie-Marie went to see the Woman's Blues Review. In those days this annual event was held at this intimate church. When we seated ourselves Billie was looking around then turned to us with this excited look on her face "That's Jeff Healy! He's right behind us!" She had not been living here for long at that time and was still surprised to see "famous" people in everyday circumstances (a pretty good definition of a Canadian celebrity). She looked back at Jeff then at me and said "I keep looking at him but I don't want to be rude by staring" I pointed out "Its ok sweetie, he can't see you" I looked at Jeff and there was this little smile on his face.

Jeff Healy was one of these disabled people who was not disabled. He battled the cancer that finally killed him his entire life. It took his eyesight at age three. It didn't see to slow him down much. He had the music career, the bar career, a career as one of this country's leading experts on traditional jazz music, he did some film work. He had his wife and he had his children. I can't imagine how difficult his life actually was; certainly in the last few months of his life he was dealing with terrible pain but he finished up a new blues recording and was preparing live performances.

I recall watching one live TV taping with Jeff. Although he primarily sat on a chair and played with the guitar in his lap, he loved to get up and dance around when the mood struck him. As he got up, Jeff yelled "I have no idea where the camerman is but you may want to move!" as he bopped around the stage, head back, the guitar held across his waste, smiling and the music .. the music just flowing out of him

I will miss you Jeff. Good journey. Say Hi to Stevie for me.

Here is a video of Jeff Healy doing a cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps

IDENTITY: FILL IN THIS BLANK

I keep coming back to this issue of self definition. In an earlier post of my own I questioned the label of disability and wondered if I qualified and what that would mean. Elizabeth at Screw Bronze contemplates the same issue and wonders where she fits into the "disability world". In my last post I ruminated about names and what they mean to us and how much of our self-definition is tied up in the oldest label we, as individuals, have. In her blog, Wheelchair Dancer writes about fitness and our views of what being fit is both for able bodied and disabled people; read the comments left to her post, I found them very interesting.

Here in Toronto they are going ahead with the creation of the province's (and I think the country's) first "Afrocentric" school. This is a complex issue and I have no desire to really delve into the details of whether this concept is going to be effective in addressing the issue of the high drop-out rate of black students in the city. Still, Collette works for this board, she has worked with kids for over twenty years, so obviously this is an issue that floats around this house quite often. What interests me is the viewpoint expressed by some of the people behind this endeavour, that too many black youth do not have a strong sense of their identity, of their heritage, that they are lost in a society that does not reflect them. I can't speak personally to this issue; I have never really been a part of a racial minority (though I remember when living in Quebec, before my language skills improved of often feeling "left out" even when I knew it was not intentional, the people around me did not share my language and I did not share theirs, it was a linguistic impasse) so I can't really say if these feelings are legitimate.

I have, however, felt like a minority in my life, like an outsider. I grew up in a large single parent family and we were poor. I mean, at some points, really poor. When we lived in Odessa Ontario I remember going with my mother to some neighbour's water pump, filling a bucket up, and carrying it back to our house. I remember, later, in Kingston, living in a house when we could not afford heat. Ma and I once again were fetching back a pail (this time filled with furnace oil) and also huddling under blankets with my sibs because we had no oil at all. As a kid in school I wore hand me downs or clothes donated by the Children's Aid Society. I vividly recall getting a coat for Christmas from some charity that was a girl's coat; wearing that to school was like a badge of my poverty and it left no doubt that I belonged to a different social strata from other kids, that I was an outsider.

As time went on, the financial lode lessened a little (other sibs got older and moved out so it meant there was a bit more money to spread around) but the division that money created between myself and others never went away. School trips, school supplies, clothing ... I always lagged behind everyone else; as I got older I could rationalize this, I knew my mother was doing all she could and I could feel good about it but my badge was often recognized by others and pointed out to me, so there was no escaping it. So that was my label: The Poor Kid. I could see everyone else's label as well: The Gay Kid, The Fat Kid, The Black Kid, The Weak Kid, The Stupid Kid ... Where do these labels come from? Who is handing out the badges?

In school, there is no doubt that kids labels to other kids. Kids crave acceptance and it seems the easiest way to achieve that, is to apply categories .. I'm a jock, you're a nerd, she's a Barbie, he's a Goth, she's black, he's Muslim .... Some of these labels are ones we carry from day one, from our birth, from our families and backgrounds. You are black (or Jewish, or Muslim, or Native or Italian, or Irish ...) that's it, its what you are but that only seems to become important when you are among others who are not. In reading about the Afrocentric school I came across a story by a now mature black woman who, as a recently immigrated child, went to her new Toronto school and found herself surrounded by white faces; she wrote about being "frightened" in this situation. Where did this fear come from? From the white kids? From herself? From the uniqueness of the situation; coming from a place where everyone was the same, where everyone is like you, to a world where you are now different from those around you.

These labels of race and religion and culture, these badges we are born with, are given to us by our history, our geographical location, by our parents and our ancestry. And they are often reinforced by the same. Toronto has a Catholic school board and it has private schools for Jews and Muslims and now a public school for Afro Canadians ... so people learn about their labels, they are clearly encouraged to wear their badge for all the world to see. You could call this cultural pride, you could also call this self imposed segregation. In designing an Afrocentric school, are you reinforcing a culture, or are you just separating yourself?

Honestly, these issues of culture and race and religion, though important, do not hold a personal interest for me. What I think more about is the issue of self-labelling, of self actualization I guess. Who are we? How do we view ourselves? When I questioned whether I was disabled it was because I don't see myself that way but do others. And if so, does this exterior viewpoint alter my own personal reality. The woman who came here as a child from the West Indies may never have thought of herself as black until she was surrounded by white people, then it became an issue.

The TD Bank are running a couple of TV spots that have me thinking. The ads feature a couple of old timers, sitting outside the bank, bemoaning the fact that everything has become too convenient and how banks never catered to our needs before; whatever. What interests me about these ads is the background. There are a couple versions of the spot and in each of them, as the old dudes are bitching, we see a woman in a wheelchair whizzing by. Different woman in each ad. What I found interesting was, when we see a close up of the bank, there is no ramp ... there is clearly a steep concrete step. So now we know why the women are zipping past the bank .. they can't get inside it.

So, the woman in the wheelchair may want to label herself as "just a woman" but every time she hits that stair or that tiny bathroom, she is given back the label of "woman in a wheelchair" or "disabled". The black kid in school may want to be "the kid in school" but then he is given the label of "Afro Canadian" or "student of the black school" and he becomes something else.

I am a guy, into my fifth decade, married for 25 years, owner of my own tiny business, never in any serious trouble with the law ... but I have long hair, a beard, ear ring and a tattoo. I really don't think much about these attributes. I've had the hair most of my life (think about the name of the blog, let the light bulb come on [I have a hairy dog too]) and the ear ring and tatt have been around for a while too. And it surprises me when they get a reaction, both from individuals and institutions. I had a problem with my bank card a few years back, it got eaten by the machine or something so I went to a local branch of the Royal Bank up in Vaughn where I was working at the time. It was summer, edit suites are hot, so I was wearing shorts and a tank top and the people at that branch were treating me as if they had just seen me on America's Most Wanted. I have been a customer of the Royal Bank for over 30 years, I've paid off two student loans with them but because of my physical appearance I was given a label: Scruffy Dude Not To Be Trusted. Now, I often describe myself as an old hippie, but I never associated that label with something negative; my label conflicted with their badge.

To be human is to have an identity. As we go on, that identity morphs, evolves, changes. Very often there is a conflict between our own sense of identity, and the labels that others places upon us. It gets tricky when you are trying to figure out who you are, you may want a label, to sort of fix it in your own mind; but our inner monologues may be written in a language that others cannot easily read. So our label is misinterpreted and when we look down and see all the various labels we wear we often see a bunch we never put there ourselves. That is our challenge, identifying the labels, no matter from whence they came, polishing them, changing them, positioning them so the "right" ones are more prominently displayed.

For me, what I coming to see, is that what we really need is some readily available blank labels, placed high, for all to see. Have your pen handy, to scribble in the definition that suits you at the moment but understand that others have access to your labels as well; so carry a spare Sharpie and don't be afraid to lend it out. Let them scribble, read their label, try to understand what it means.

Just make sure yours is written in a bolder hand.

ARE YOU WHAT YOU ARE CALLED?

In an earlier post I mentioned our friend Michelle, who provided us with the ammunition (moth balls) needed to repel the dreaded ninja-skunk. As Collette read the draft she said "Hun, there's only one L in Michele's name" And I said "Right, one L, I knew that" These days the gap between the things I know and the things I actually remember is too wide for every generation of Kineval and the Ghost Rider together to jump across. I've made this typo with Michele's name before. When she performed in one of my student movies (we didn't have cameras back in those days, we actually just drew multiple pages really fast) I misspelled both of her names. So its Michele with one L and Collette with two L's ... or is it?

As long as I have known Collette, she has spelled her name with two L's. As long as Collette has known Collette, she has spelled her name that way. It is just how her name is spelled .. isn't it? When Collette was applying to teacher's college at the University of Toronto, that venerable institution delved deep into her paperwork and informed her that her name was, in fact, spelled with only one L. Collette was somewhat devastated by this. She enjoys being a "two L" Collette. Two L Collette's are rare and beautiful and exotic creatures rarely glimpsed by modern man and .. oh, ok, sorry, I get carried away. But she really does like having that little tangible distinction afforded to her by the spelling of her name. I think Michele feels the same way. When Collette lost that L did she lose her identity? The thing that makes her unique? Well no, not really, because we are made unique by a variety of factors all of which may shift and change over the years. Is your name you? I don't know, but it is your first possession. And it may be your last. Beyond the important legal ramifications of your name, it is the one tag that you carry with you forever.

When I was in high school I went through a phase where I hated being called Vic. I don't even really remember why. Maybe it was due to associations with sleazy famous Vics like Damone, or Mature, I'm not really sure (young people, don't look baffled, Google is your friend). These days I usually introduce myself as Vic. Few years back I started working as an editor at Tantara Productions. I introduced myself as Vic. Shortly after I started there I had arranged for a client to come down and work with me. My edit suite (if you call the former broom closet a suite) was in the back of the building so I told Dean, another editor, who worked up towards the front, to let me know when my client showed up. Hour or so later I just happened to be crossing the corridor when I heard Dean saying "Sorry, there is no Victor working here" I had to go flying up and catch my client before she left the building. Now Dean was a bright young dude and I don't believe he indulged in any kind of creative chemistry but he had been unable to make the association between Vic and Victor. I asked him "Don't you know that Vic is just short for Victor" His response was "I just thought your name was Vic"

Its a funny thing, most people do hang on to whatever version of my name I use when I first meet them, either Vic or Victor. I probably am the same way. I become kind of sensitive to people's name and if you call yourself Debbie I don't know if I'd call you Deb ... well, I might, but I would feel bad for you afterwards.

There is more, to my name, though than Vic and Victor. But before I go there, I have to address a Victor issue .. when you meet me, and you know my name, please for the love of all that's holy don't say "like that guy from the soap opera" No damn you! I'm like the guy from Rat Patrol and the Forbin Project .... ok, thats done now. Back to my name; there is more to it than Vic and Victor. I sign my name v.j. kellar, exactly like that, no caps. Why? Well, that is my writing name I guess, how I sign anything creative that I've written. In this world there have only been a couple of people who have called me VJ, being Collette and my eldest brother Edward, two of the people who have been among the strongest supporters of my writing, as it turns out. A few others are beginning to use the appellation and I am ok with that, I just want royalties ... just kidding (no I'm not, cough up the cash)

I often wonder about the Victor- VJ thing myself, I'm not really sure how I came up with that as a writing name. Before that point no one really called me VJ. I can't even think of any writers who I admired at the time who used initials. Perhaps it was some attempt to establish a separate persona, distant from the everyday and mundane world and therefore more free to explore the inner world the existential world thereby gaining precious insights ... but probably I just thought it was "cool"

What if we could pick our name? One of my sisters is called Venus. Yup, Venus (look, it was the sixties, that's all I know) As one could imagine, she took a lot of crap growing up. I seem to remember my mother giving her the option to change her name but she did not; by that time she was Venus and unlike a lot of us, she had earned the name in many ways. Edward's wife, who I have known for a very long time, started out as a woman named Sharon. She is now a woman named Eartha. This was a conscious choice for her, an important choice for her and clearly helped her re-define or perhaps even define herself. That is a function of strength, I think, to make a decision that outwardly declares some inwardly motivated change. We all go thru stages, thru changes but we rarely advertise them in such a public fashion. Deciding I don't mind being called Vic instead of Victor is not that kind of change, it really came out of me deciding: It doesn't matter what you call me, I'm still the weirdo I've always been.

When we are named, what is the motivation there? A lot of us are given names that hold some historical importance in our family. In my family most of our middle names have family significance; my middle name of James is in honour of a close friend of my father's at the time. My sister Marianna has no middle name, I'm pretty sure her actually name in Mary-Anne ... does the hyphen count? Did my mother run out of names?? Just how good were the sixties anyway?

One of my other sisters is named Tyna. Not a typo, that is how her name is spelled. One of Collette's brothers is Garry. Michele has the one L, Collette may or may not have the two LLs .. does any of it really matter? Short answer is yes; I have screwed up enough people's names in credit rolls over the years to know that we like to have our identities correctly noted. Because our names are our identities whether we like it or not. Our names are our badges, that public part of us we must share with someone in order to do any kind of interaction. Our names hold a power, if they did not we would not change them, we would not defend them, we would adjust or alter or even despise them; our names mean something.

I don't know if our names are who we are, but they were spoken before we are born and they will be spoken after we leave. So get them right.

SKUNK WARS 2 & A NEW VIDEO

An update on Miss Hayley's epic encounter with the dreaded ninja-skunk. Although the Skunked is an effective product we are dealing with, after all, a substance so toxic it rates above whatever hair products are used by Don King and Donald Trump. So as I was out yesterday in search of moth balls to fortify our perimeter, Collette had to give Hayley another treatment.

Trust me, this is not a happy border collie. Hayley does not mind her baths, but she rarely volunteers for one.

But, two baths in a row? With only a night separating the two? I mean, really, this is too much.

I think at this moment Miss Hayley is contacting the UN about crimes against humanity .. or, more properly, crimes against the World's Smartest Dogs.

So, as to the moth ball situation. This was something that should have been simple; I mean, wildlife aside I do live in Canada's largest city. You really can't spit without hitting a mall. So I thought, a quick nip out and I should be able to return with arms loaded with a bounty of moth balls. No, of course not, things could not be so easy. What should have been a quick errand developed into the Quest for Stinky Skunk Repelling Modules. I swear, at one point, in the check out line at Canadian Tire, I saw Sir Percival, looking haggard and loaded up with self-tapping screws and battery chargers. At least his quest was not a total failure.

I have heard that moth balls may have been banned. I have yet to confirm this but it wouldn't surprise me. Moth balls aren't "green". No, they are cheap and they work and seriously, how many people still use them anyway. Being able to buy them would be ... logical. And especially in Toronto the Good that just will not do.

My alternative was to look for a commercial product called Critter Ridder (seriously, that's what its called, not even I could make that up). Supposedly this product is "organic" the meaning of which I really don't understand. Farts are organic but I don't want to buy of bottle of them. And where a box of moth balls sells for a few dollars, a jug of this stuff is 35 bucks. But it should be effective, it "rids" all kinds of critters ... including dogs. Um, Houston, we may have a problem.

While I was pulling out my hair out (and we can't have that, if you know the name of this blog) Collette was in contact with our friend Michele, who lives in a small town about an hour away from us. Apparently, small town Ontario is either: a) Too backward and uneducated to be green aware or b) Doesn't have the time and money to waste on nebulous environmental concepts that are basically nothing more than marketing. At any rate, Michele's quest was far more successful than my own (send a woman to do a man's job, well duh) and she scored something like 16 boxes of moth balls. So we should be able to build a powerful perimeter and some serious memories of our grandmothers' closets.

Ok, on to the video. This is the last of the Hayley puppy footage. This features a long trip in the wayback machine. This is Miss Hayley just a few months old, in her first visit to Earl Bales park. We are pretty lucky where we live; 15 minutes by subway from downtown Toronto but surrounded by walking trails, big parks and deep ravines. Not only does Earl Bales have the ravines and the creeks (and ski hills) it leads onto a golf course that is a great place to let the dogs play in the winter. If you go to the post titled Why My Dog Doesn't Pee On My Shoes, you will see the video Hayley & Friends; part of that is Hayley and Max in the winter, romping around the golf course.

The Earl Bales video is pretty short, so I tossed in some pics, both Hayley as a puppy and some more recent stuff. And I don't know if the first song choice is as funny as I think it is (of course, nothing can be as funny as I think I am) but I like to cut to it.

HAYLEY MEETS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

The American government and the U.N. wasted time and money searching for WMDs in Iraq. They should have come here, to North York Ontario, because this is where all the truly toxic weapons are hiding. You think Saddam had biological weapons? Ha! The truly dangerous bio weapons are all in north Toronto, baby. It is an insidious, pervasive, soul-damaging bio hazard whose effect lingers for days and devastates all come into contact with.

Even more dangerous than the toxic weapon itself is its cunning delivery system. Silent, stealthy, well camouflaged. Lurking and moving with ninja-like effectiveness, the weapons platform seeks its target then delivers its deadly payload with computer-like efficiency ....

Yup, Hayley got nailed by a skunk last night. We knew the enemy has infiltrated our neighbourhood. We've been smelling him for days. To the extent where we've actually said "Damn, that skunk must be living in our yard" When we moved into this house last summer skunks were not an issue because we had a family of raccoons living back there; I have a feeling that, to skunks, raccoons are like an entrenched enemy army. Unfortunately, to raccoons, Miss Hayley is like Seal Team Six. She scopes out the enemy locations, infiltrates, strikes ... several times she trapped the babies in an unused grate out there and gleefully led me out to admire her first strike capabilities. Raccoons were totally safe, of course, this is a herding dog, not a hunting dog. Still, Mamma Raccoon apparently did not like the idea of her babies being treated like sheep so she moved on. And the skunk moved in.

Which brings us to last night's military campaign. It was late, close to midnight and I will use that as my excuse for forgetting about the enemy among us. Its also the beginning of the Victoria Day holiday weekend and that that means, in this neighbourhood, fireworks. Miss Hayley does not like fireworks. To her border collie brain fireworks means "Don't tell me to relax, some one's shooting at me!!!" So I just wanted to get her out of the house before the real noise began. Down the stairs, open the back door, Hayley slips out, I get almost back up the stairs, ancient addled mind kicks in "Did I smell skunk?" semi-gimpy body whirls around, goes down the stairs, into the yard, round the corner of the house and .... Does anybody have a haz mat suit I can borrow?

Poor Hayley. Skunk spray doesn't hurt but I think it must be humiliating. This is not the first time the World's Smartest Dog has encountered this enemy. At the old house she got hit two or three times in one month. So she knows skunks. She's smelled the WMD before. And this is a dog that learns, she has a great memory, especially for things that are unpleasant. You'd think she would have learned not to mess with the black and white cat; except there really is a black and white cat around here that is one of her mortal enemies. And, well, something in her yard that moves, Hayley is going to be on it. We have passed wild bunnies around here (no, really, we do live in a city with 3 million people even if we are surrounded by all this wildlife) and if the bunny freezes, Hayley does not even see it. If it takes off, she goes into full collie mode. Apparently skunks do not freeze. Why should they? They are armed better than John Rambo on his best day.

So Hayley gets the blow and I am left standing there saying "Shit, here we go again" My first mistake was letting her out into the back (usually in the presence of the enemy we take her out front to pee where we can watch her) but the real mistake was not having the moth balls down. Moth balls work, people. Put them around the perimeter of your yard and they will keep the skunks at bay. Collette's dad used them to keep away black bears up north. And no, they are not harmful to dogs. So, if we had had the moth balls down ... Someone owes a border collie a huge apology. And that someone writes this blog.

Luckily we still had some of the commercial skunk shampoo that we purchased last year from a local vet. Its called Skunked, and it works. When we had Gigs we gave him the tomato juice treatment. The way to use tomato juice, is you rub into the coat, let it dry, then brush it out; it can be quite effective. But Gigs had lab fur. Hayley has a coat you could make an entire fashion line out of so the juice is not near as effective. But Skunked works, thank god. So there I am, middle of the night, out on the patio, subjecting Miss Hayley to a further ignominy piled upon the embarrassment of us realizing that the world's smartest dog doesn't know a skunk from a cat ...

So, here we are the next day, Miss Hayley is mostly de-toxified (she may need a little touch up) but she still is carrying the shame of being outwitted by a life form that lives on grubs. I am off to buy moth balls and set up up our perimeter, and we are launched upon another summer engagement against our insidious enemy. So do not be afraid to come visit .... but bring your own haz mat suit.