HOW A RACCOON MADE ME CRYA

I'm just going to come out and say it. It's difficult. I have something to confess. Last week I went to see a movie and found one of the most entertaining and compelling characters I've seen in a long long time

And it was a raccoon

Yeh, a kick ass raccoon. He lives out there in the galaxy and he's a bad ass bounty hunter and all round criminal. He was created, against his will and he has a chip on his should about it. He also has a wicked sense of humour. Goes by the name Rocket. And he's a Guardian of the Galaxy

Rocket does not roll alone. He has himself a partner. Name of Groot. He's a giant .. tree. But he's alive. He has a lot of surprising abilities and a surprising personality. Groot is a man .. or tree ... of action but a being of few words. In fact his vocabulary consists of a single phrase "I am Groot." As Rocket explains "He pretty much can speak three words I and Am and Groot and always in that order." As it turns out though, those three words are an entire language, one which only Rocket can understand. Groot may be my second favorite character that I've encountered in a long time

Groot, of course, is also a Guardian of the Galaxy though they never intended to be such a thing. He and his kick ass raccoon partner start out trying to fulfill a bounty. They need to capture a notorious intergalactic outlaw who is on the run from his previous partners and who has in his possession a mysterious orb that is desired by some very very bad people. The outlaw's name is Peter Quill. He is a Terran, a citizen of Earth and he prefers to be known my his nom de guerre, Starlord. A name that very people seem to take seriously. Upon an adversary's blank stare Peter mumbles "Yeh man, you know .. the Starlord" Another great character and the only one in an entire movie who does wear heavy makeup or who is CGI

So, yeh, I'm talking about the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. It follows the three aforementioned characters and several more on a romp through the galaxy. And romp is the right word. This is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time and yes, for a sci fi space opera with superhero undertones, all the humour is intentional. It also has tons of action, some really high end special effects, clever Marvel dialogue and some solid performances

There are more Guardians of course. Two more, in fact, all heading off to find the orb and lay waste to the bad guy who so badly wants it. Yes, there is a plot and no, it doesn't really matter. It really is about the characters and the humour and that wide eyed "oh shit did you see that" quality of classic space opera; like the original Star Wars movie. But where that movie seemed to have been dreamed up in a little boys bedroom, Guardians was definitely written in a bar. In Texas. With a fight in the background

The other Guardians are Gamora, the deadliest assassin in the galaxy and a woman with some very personal reasons to protect the orb. Deadliest assassin may be a bit of hyperbole, she often finds herself on the wrong end of a beat down but then even in space, the kick ass heroine needs to be rescued every now and then.

Then there is Drax the Destroyer, a giant hulking dude on the vengeance trail and the most literal being in all of space.  When the big man misconstrues one of Peter's Terran references it is suggested that the statement went over his head. Drax responds "Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it"

The dialogue in this movie is flat out hilarious, the best example of Marvel smart assery I've seen since the original Iron Man. And it is perfectly delivered by a very strong cast.

Before this movie I really did not know much about Chris Pratt, who play Starlord but damn the guy is amazing. He is a very brave actor, not afraid to be goofy, to be silly, to temper the smart assery with vunerability. And he gets some juicy lined "I come from a planet of outlaws, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, John Stamos ..."

As Drax, WWE wrestler Dave Bautista acquits himself well. He has the dry delivery of Literal Man down perfectly and wisely underplays the emotional content. Most of these characters are strangers to each other and must be shoved together to form a superhero team, this is done quickly and some of the details of their lives are omitted in the process but that just makes us wanting more and yes, there will be more.

Zoe Saldana plays Gamora. She is a seasoned hand at this sci fi thing. Avatar, both of the Star Trek reboots, not to mention kick ass female action movies like The Losers and Columbiana. She knows how to go about her job, mixing her high kicks with just the right amount of emotional content. And like Pratt, she is not afraid to be a little goofy. When Peter observes that a race has stick up their butts Gamora responds "Who was it that put the sticks up their butts?"

Now we get back to my two favorite characters, Rocket and Groot. They are not real. As in, they are CGI or mostly CGI and in Rocket's case all CGI. Animated. But damn, how well they are animated. The expressions on the raccoon's face are incredibly realistic, from the wrinkling of the muzzle, the movement of the whiskers to the glint in his teeth. It matches one of the best performances in the movie, the incredible voice work of Bradley Cooper.

I really really love this character. Funny, tough, poignant all at the same time. You can't take your eyes off him. He is a genetically altered raccoon with a stick up his butt and nothing makes him happier than laying down some mayhem, usually for no reason whatsoever. There is sadness to Rocket's story but the script and Cooper know just when to drop that in and just when to pull it back and let the raccoon blow up something. In Rocket's words "There ain't no thing like me, but me!"

Fucking eh brother

Then there is Groot. Ah, Groot. The giant sentient tree who can only express three words and can only be understood by Rocket and who has a lot of secrets and surprises up his sleeve ..er... bark. Groot is voice by Vin Diesel. Compared to Bradley Cooper, Mr Diesel seemed to have the easier job. But he is good at this. He uses that deep scratchy voice to good effect with very few words. Diesel has done this again, see The Iron Giant. Groot and Rocket's partnership is never fully explained but that is a story I really want to explore more fully

I started this post after seeing Guardians on its debut but got side tracked before I got posted it. So you have heard about this movie. I won't go into spoiler mode here. All I have to say about it, is that it genuinely one of the most entertaining experiences I've had at the movies in a long time. There are flaws in this film, the bad guys are not as compelling as they should be and some of the plot seems a little rushed but this is a crowd pleaser. People were laughing and applauding and all in the right places. The visuals and the 3D (and I'm not often a fan of 3D) are exceptional so if you can, see it in the theatre. But, regardless I really only have one thing to say

GO SEE THIS FUCKING MOVIE AND MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY

And oh yeh .. We are Groot

DID SUCCESS KILL ROBIN WILLIAMS .. OR LACK OF IT

We will never know why Robin Williams took his own life. Not we the public. And perhaps not even his family and friends. Suicide is the ultimate selfish act, it releases the person from pain and allows the survivors to carry that pain for the rest of their lives

The man had demons. For a long long time. There is an old belief that comedy comes out of pain. When asked if this was true Ray Romano once said "If my dad had hugged me just once you'd never be talking to me"

Robin Williams was a funny guy. He was fantastic with accents and dialects. He had a penchant for physical comedy. He was very adept at reading his audiences. I never got to see him perform live but if I did I'd imagine my face and lungs would hurt so much from laughing that I may need to seek medical attention.

He had very early success with Mork and Mindy. And very unexpected success. I don't think many people could predict how popular that show would become or what level of stardom its young comic leading man would achieve.

That's a very old Hollywood curse isn't it, sudden and unexpected success. And perhaps unwarranted. Williams was a great performer but he was also a thief. A joke thief. Over the years several comics, chief among them David Brenner, accused Williams of stealing material. It became a running joke among LA comics that if Williams was in the house, don't use your best material. Because he would, at some later time

But on Mork and Mindy it was the script writers whose material Williams used and of course that's all kosher. He at least paid tribute to the man who was a main source of inspiration for him, Johathan Winters, who had written into the show

After Mork, Williams could have continued on in TV but he wanted to be a movie star. I think this was the beginning of his downfall. Williams made some outstanding movies. I can watch Good Morning Vietnam over and over, same with The Bird Cage. I liked him in Good Will Hunting and he was hilarious as the Genie in Aladdin.

But mostly Robin Williams made dogs. Movies that is. Mrs Doubtfire is unwatchable, as is Patch Adams. He made some horrible family movies like RV that were worse than the worse sitcoms on TV. He was a pretty good supporting actor, ad in Good Will Hunting, drawing on his uncanny dialect ear and ability to mimic.

But the guy could not pick a good movie project to save his life, over all. Let's face it, the last 10 years or so have not been kind to Robin Williams. Jumping from one tired movie project to another he lost whatever relevance he once had. I did not see his return to network TV, The Crazy Ones, but I know that it was cancelled. And I read somewhere that he based his onscreen character on another character created by another comic ..

I do admire that he attempted to expand beyond comedy with films like One Hour Photo and Insomnia. He was passable in the latter movie but never was able to command the screen as the villain. It's a movie that spotlights the downward spiral of two stars, Williams and even more sadly, Al Pacino, one of the greatest actors of his generation reduced recently to cruising through entirely forgettable films

As I said I regret never having seen Williams live. I loved his HBO specials. I wouldn't have cared how much of the material was his own, the man was funny and he was a great performer. But he was not as great as he wanted to be, perhaps needed to be. He floundered, never really finding the long term success as a movie star.

Sudden success was difficult on him as witnessed by his early drug abuse. Failure to maintain that success may have been difficult with recent problems with booze. I wonder if he was never comfortable in his own skin.

Because he may not have known whose skin it actually was

A DAY OF BEACH, STICKS AND EATING FROM A TRUCK

Summer in Toronto

Heat. Rain. Sunshine. Funnel clouds. Humidity. Cool breezes. More rain. And that's all before 4 pm

And lots to do. Actually, too much to do. Yes, that's a complaint. In any one weekend, hell in any one day, you can have four to six free street festivals of one sort or another. It's a big time management issue. Then add in the fact that this summer on any given weekend you could have at least one major north/south and one east/west roadway shut down and huge chunks of the subway not moving.

You spend as much time figuring out your logistics as you do actually attending a festival

Yay. Summer in Toronto

Still, sometimes, things actually do come together (don't let the TO city planners know this, I'm sure they would work even harder to stop anyone from actually having any fun). This past weekend we decided to take Terra to the beach. It has been a long time. We have not taken her there since Hayley died.

From our new house it's a bit of a haul on the TTC. I never consider driving. Besides the fact that if you want a parking spot you need to be better armed than Rambo and John McClane combined, that's a part of the city where it seems that every other street has been renamed to Road Closed. So, TTC it is, but it takes about 90 minutes each way with a few transfers

Still, it was a nice day. Not too hot, not at all sticky and we seemed to be in a lull between monsoons. So down we go to the place in the world that Terra most loves: The water. And let's be clear about this, Terra likes any water but the fact that there are off leash beaches does not hurt

Catching frisbees is something Terra does like breathing but really, when you are at the Beach the first thing you do is race across the sand, whip through the trees and immediately plop yourself down in the water

We are thoughtful doggie parents, we always bring a toy, frisbee and ball etc, but Terra views the Beach as her very own toy store. It's always easy to find a stick, especially if it's in the jaws of some other dog ... Thank you, I'll take that please

When we say we are going to the Beaches we are referring to the long stretch of beaches that run just south of Queen St, from Ashbridges Bay all the way over to Victoria Park where the boardwalk runs. There are a couple of official off leash areas here, one just south of Kew Gardens down by the rinks and the bocci ball court. This is a fenced in area, scrubby sand and lots of rocks but that never stops Miss Terra. It's busy here but we are rarely permitted to be distracted

If you go east from Kew along the boardwalk, towards the Balmy Beach Club, you'll come to an area right at the eastern end of the boardwalk, just before you hit the RC Harris water filtration plant, you'll come to another offleash area. This one is not fenced and it's quite large, encompassing three beaches with decent sand and easily accesable shoreline. I'm going into detail here because I talk to a lot of dog owners that, when I talk about off leash areas in the Beaches always think of Cherry beach, which is west of these beaches

At any rate, this eastern beach offleash area attracts more people than does the fenced in park over at Kew, due to the fact that the beaches are nicer and there is no fence. Yet it is quieter here, they are further away from snack stands and the boardwalk and the volleyball courts, picnic areas etc. Well they were quiet, until Terra decided that, seriously, stop admiring the scenery and throw the damn stick

After an couple hours of ball throwing and stick throwing and frisbee throwing and Terra trying to pickpocket every dog on the beach of their toys ... it was time to get some dinner. Normally when we are down at the Beaches we go back up to Queen St to eat dinner at a place called Lion on the Beach, they have a patio there where they will happily serve you and your dog. But this day was different, one of those moments of rare serendipity in Toronto .. back at Woodbine, they were have a Food Truck Festival

Yes, an actual festival when we wanted, where we wanted it. Is it masculine to faint? Doesn't matter, I damn near fainted.

There was a live band, kids area, seating areas and several food trucks, including our favorite, Busters Cove. Now, the whole food truck saga in Toronto is a long sad one but I'll go into that at a later date. Suffice it that we were very happy to find them here ... and oh yeh, they were serving beer

Terra does not care for beer. But she showed a great deal of interest in our lobster rolls and shrimp taco's. Her yelling on the beach for toys may be tolerated but yelling for food is never accepted. Still, border collies always have other tactics to get what they want

Here's just a little video of our day at the beach

THE THINGS TO PONDER THAT NO ONE TALKS ABOUT

We all have it. Reading material in the bathroom.

If we don't have it we wish that we did, often at the time when we can do nothing about it.

So we try to prepare, to think ahead. In our bathroom may be a flashlight, an air freshener, a book of Jerry Seinfeld jokes

These are for when we are prepared for but they do not exactly reflect our personal tastes. Not like the book you may carry in there and leave on the counter

So what's in your special room? What does it say about you?

In our house, Collette will leave behind a book on Restorative Justice

I will leave behind a novel by Mickey Spillane

Well, they are both concerned with justice. And Mickey has been known to restore a woman's wardrobe after .. well you know ... ripping it off her

Yeh, so what these books have in common is justice

Let's leave it at that

THE TORONTO INDY WEEKEND: WHY WALK WHEN YOU CAN DRIVE 330 KPH

I am not a gear head.

I like cars. I like to drive cars. I am not "car handy". I can change a tire, in a pinch I could change the oil I know that the engine is the thing in the front of the car though sometimes it is in the back. I enjoy driving, I don't always obey the speed limit, I like to know my car has some pick up to pass trucks etc but I don't enjoy driving particularly fast.

If I won the lottery (you know, the Canadian retirement plan) I would buy a new car but it would not be the first thing on the list. It would be down there a ways after some other significant capitol expenditures and buying a city proclamation that would require everyone in Toronto to refer to me as You Incredible Goofiness.

I am not a fan of auto racing. I can admire the skill involved but it seems a rather dry sport for me, as I don't enjoy driving really fast it holds little appeal. But some of the cars are purty.

But I live in a city where once a year car racing becomes a big deal. I am referring to the Toronto Indy, lately sponsored by Honda. It's a big deal here. Hundreds of thousands of people go down to the lakeshore to watch it over three days and it pumps a lot of money in to the economy. Although I'm not a racing fan it's one of those things I've always supported, good for the fans and good for the city

Last summer was a bit of a write off for Collette and I, having to move sort of sucked us into a black hole and when we emerged it was in the worst Toronto winter in decades. So this summer we've promised ourselves to take advantage of some of the things our city has to offer.

I am not prepared to pay money to see the Indy but as it turns out you don't have to, at least for one day. Fan Friday allows you to go down to the Indy for free with a donation to the Make a Wish Foundation and who can resist the Wish. No racing on that day but all classes of cars running have practices and with a few qualifying races. This past Friday turned out to be a perfect sunny summer day so Collette and I said "Fuck you winter, now we're having some fun"

It's a pretty cool event. You have access to most of the site including the grandstands, food areas etc. No access to pit lane but total access to the paddock area, inside the convention centre, where you can get great views of the cars and even talk to the crews if desired

Although you could not go right into Pit Alley you could look down into it from one of the grandstands and you could stand outside the gate that lead to that part of the track

There are some restrictions to the Indy beyond Pit Alley. Collette was allowed to bring her Nikon DSLR but they made a rather large point about not bringing in any "audio video recording devices" So I decided to not press my luck (coz I basically ain't got any to press) and I did not bring any of my camcorders. Instead I brought our little Panasonic Lumix underwater camera and my iPod Touch both of which of course shoot HD video. Now, Collette's Nikon shoots very good quality HD video at 24 fps but without a tripod or image stabilizer it's not very good at hand held video. The little Panasonic is far from rock solid but trust me it's better. And it does take satisfying snapshots, as does the iPod, all while easily fitting in my pocket

I have to say, it was pretty fun to watch the cars do their thing. There were several classes of cars, Indy and Indy Lite and G4 and G3 and Supertrucks the latter of which we didn't get to see run. I find the Indy cars incredibly exotic, more like space ships than cars, incredibly fast, nicely loud and very difficult for met to relate to .. but yeh, fun to watch

I found that I related a bit more to the GT classes that ran everything from Porsches to Mustangs to Vipers to Cadillacs to Camaro's to Kia's ... yes, Kia's. These were vehicles I recognized as car, yes incredibly highly motivated but it was like "Look, that's a Boss 302" or "that's a Viper, damn people still drive those?" Yes they do, and very very fast

The GT3 class, sponsored by Pirelli, were interesting to me. These were the so called "gentlemen drivers" in other words non professionals (though there were a couple of "factory" drivers) and they ran the Vipers and the Caddies and Ferrari's. Nice hobby. Guess all the spaceships were already spoken for.

Oh, another great thing about the Indy: It boasts the largest event liquor license in Ontario. Which means buy yourself a beer (oh, by the way, an 10 dollar beer) and you can take it with you anywhere on the site, except for one of the bridges. Yeh, OK, I still won't call myself a race fan but I'm starting to dig the Indy.

Here's the video such as it is

TORONTO INDY FAN FRIDAY from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

THE JOURNEY OF A HEART: BASIA BULAT

Sometimes art has a mind of its own, or a heart of its own.

Even if that art is your own.

Basia Bulat is an incredibly talented singer-songwriter from Toronto. She is a multi talented instrumentalist, playing guitar, piano and a range of traditional folk instruments such as autoharp and charango a kind of ukulele from the Andes. She also possesses a soaring voice filled with vibrato and depths of emotion.

Most of her music could be safely classified as "folk" and was largely acoustic. But she decided to make a change, for an upcoming recording she hired on Tim Kingsbury of Arcade Fire to help her go electric or, as she puts it, "modern"

But something happened on the way to the recording. Something sad. A very close friend of Basia's suddenly passed away. She already written most of the songs needed for the new album. But this thing happened to her, this terrible thing that was in her heart and would not go away. That's where her art came in, her art told her that this should be the record, that this sorrow was where her music should go.

The result was the recording Tall Tall Shadow and for me, it's one of the most beautiful things I have heard in a long time.

I have owned this recording for about a year now and either from a CD in the house or my iPod in my car I probably listen to it at least once a week.

Yesterday I happened to be watching Breakfast Television and was learned that Basia was doing a show at Massey Hall ... the next day. Credit card, internet, tickets bought. Collette and I went to the show last night.

Basia Bulat going "modern" is this tiny blonde woman a six piece band including two backup singers and a pair of percussionists one of whom is her brother. Her mandolin is electric but her autoharp and her charango are still acoustic. I've listened to this album a lot and I thought that this woman would be good in concert. I was wrong. She was a revelation.

She is winsome and sincere and funny. After she introduced her band she said "I'm guessing that you know who I am" After the audience chuckled she remarked "I'm such a dork"

Her playing is extraordinary. After this concert I can view the autoharp and as a perfectly viable pop lead instrument. But I think she has a technique that may be difficult to replicate for some. As she played she moved around, swinging her head, her long hair flowing across the instrument. The secret to the Basia Bulat sound: Hair in the strings

When you see someone perform live after first hearing the record it's an interesting thing. You want what you heard on the CD but you want something more. Basia Bulat gave us more. She gave us those spontaneous moments you can only receive from a live show; connections between herself and her band, one of her backup singers also played the charango and there were moments where Basia, playing her electric mandolin "battled" back and forth with her; connections with her audience, there were moments when she seemed genuinely affected by our reactions, at the first standing ovation she stood on the stage, hands pressed to her face, eyes enormous.

There are the moments in a live show where a song is altered from how it appeared on the recording. In the song Paris or Amsterdam Basia tries to reconcile the loss of her friend by imagining that her friend is simply travelling and perhaps someday will return. She performed a very stripped down version of the song allowing us to hear the emotion in her voice, drenching the song with an even deeper sense of sadness than can be heard on the CD

One is often taught to save the best for last and Basia certainly did. The song It Can't Be You is one of the most simply produced on the CD, Basia and her charango and a very simple arrangement that highlights her lifting, ululating voice. For the concert, she made it even simpler, even more pure.

With just the tiny instrument in her hand Basia moved away from the mic to the front of stage, her voice now amplified. She paced back and forth, strumming the ukulele, she began to sing. This woman can sing. It rose up into the rafters of Massey Hall; at first, without amplification it seemed thin and tenuous but as the song moved on and her emotion intensified that voice got strong and stronger, a shivering sweeping thing of beauty.

This is why we go to see an artist live

This where art can take you, into a journey of the heart, the heart of the artist and the hearts of those who have come to listen to her

THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU CAN'T PARK

It's a silly world. Filled with silly people who are so bored and silly that it becomes their past time to create silly laws.

Now let's talk about war and battles and the potential for sudden and blinding violence.

Yes, I'm talking about parking lots.

They are the battle zones of your urban city. Lots of silliness goes down in parking lots. Most of this chaos we bring on ourselves. Like, people making their own parking spots. Just sliding their vehicle, usually a big ass truck or the kind of North American boat driven by people who fondly remember the Diefenbaker administration, up beside a legit parked car, halfway in the lane designed to be used by people who .. you know .. want to be driving not parking.

Then there are those people who have strong emotional connections to a particular parking spot. Maybe they knew this spot when they were young and it has strong nostalgic connotations for them. Perhaps it's a case of unrequited parking spot love.

You know the ones I mean. They enter the parking lot, alone and forlorn, not sure if they can go on and then, there, a glimmer of hope, like the glint of a diamond glimpsed in the darkness of a Portapottie at the end of a free country music festival ....

I'll give you a moment

OK, so there it is, the driver's one and only true love, his parking spot, he accelerates, fingers trembling on the steering wheel, heart pounding, leaning forward to gaze lovingly through the windscreen only to find .. GASP .. what is this? OMG say it isn't so, another car, parked in his spot ... That cheating bitch!

Still, love conquers on, one must forgive, perhaps the spot was just lonely and it made an impulsive mistake. He can forgive her. And wait for her to come to her senses. So he parks his car at the entrance to the spot, waiting for the interloper to leave. Yes, he's blocking a couple of other spots and yes, he's filling up the lane but it's worth it .. Damnit, this is love!

We can all understand that can't we?

We all know that the parking spots closest to the doors are the premium. As a Catskills comedian would say "That's gold baby! Gold!"

Some of these spots are, of course, reserved for certain drivers. Disabled spots for instance; there will be no arguing about this, if you have a sticker you park there, yes I know some of them are traded as a commodity but that is not the fault of the disabled person and no, not every disability is clearly visible so shut the fuck up about and keep cruising, so what if you park way in the back. Walk will do you good.

Over the past few years, new signs have cropped up Reserved for Family or something, with the little baby stroller icon. OK, this one we can argue about. Yup, it's tough to haul your one kid and its 4,000 pounds of gear across the parking lot but over all, no one forced you to have the kid ... or buy it enough gear that it requires a mobilized platoon to transport. But there it is. It's a fact. I got over it

Hey, the walk does me good

The other day I went to park at a new Walmart in my neighbourhood. Cruised up towards the doors,  not expecting to find a spot but what the hell, I don't go to Vegas so this is how I gamble. I see a good eight spots with some kind of reserved signs in front of them, I'm assuming Disability or the specious Family but I see something entirely new .. Reserved for Hybrid Vehicles

What the bleeding blankety blank

Why on earth does someone who drives a hybrid need and/or deserve a parking spot closer to the doors? Where is the logic in this?

Is it because the drivers of these eco friendly cars have such massive ego's and sense of importance that their heads have become incredibly heavy that they can't walk very far?

Wouldn't walking be something that an eco minded person want to encourage? I mean, don't they only drive their hybrids when the weather is too bad to ride their bike, or when they have way too many Ikea furnishings to carry on their backs?

And dude this was Walmart .. Walmart. Isn't the target customer for Walmart someone who wears sweat pants 24/7 and who drives there from the trailer park in their RV and who need to walk as little as possible due to the noise of their thighs rubbing together and their massive breasts jiggling that they violate noise bylaws .. and yes, I'm talking about the men

I was going to ask these questions of the Walmart greeters but my Canadian Redneck is a little rusty at the moment.

So the next time you are out and about and circling a parking lot desperately seeking a spot, hoping your emergency supplies of water and trail mix don't run out, if you see a hybrid parked anywhere, jump out and plaster this sign on the windshield:

YOU SHOULD BE AT WALMART

Somewhere, a trailer park RV is still circling, out there somewhere, in the dark. Sssssh quiet now ... you can hear the Charlie Pride music .. can't you?