Let the real games begin...

If you just immigrated from a cannibal galaxy to pose as an earthling, I'll give you a big hand and tell you that today marks the beginning of The Games That Must Not Be Named.©®™*

Only yesterday I was telling the Independent Observer how torn I felt. I can, and do, admire the single-minded focus and dedication of athletes that train for years to compete. And their overarching efforts in the sporting events themselves.

But the arguably corrupt organization of entitled minor ex-aristocrats behind them, and the overburden of corporate sponsors jostling to noodge as much reflected glory as possible away from these athletes? Not so much.

And the blank-eyed Prime Minister with the Fiberglas©®™ hair who plans a big post-prorogue poll bounce in the happily-ever-after of Canadian athletes (completely unconnected with himself) winning a buncha bent gold gongs, not at all.

So it is with a song on my lips and a smile in my heart that I open the ESI Olympic Non-Specific Scandal watch. Things are interesting already. We have the usual 30-odd garden-variety doping bans (not us, so far, eh?) meted out before that big flame even fired up. Performance-enhancing drugs are so 90s. Everybody does 'em. Can we just ignore that aspect and move on? Please? They're an inconvenient distraction. Not at all what we meant by Citius, Altius, Fortius. At least not originally...

But just out of the starting gate, we also have a wild Canadian accusation that the German luge team is using magnets in its sleds. Somehow.

Rapidly followed by official denials all 'round, from the Germans and the sport's international sanctioning body.

As a semimythical coyote of wily but small brain, I'm totally unclear on any, ummm, actual science-y thingies involved. So, apparently, were the accusers. But, hey, that didn't stop the story from bucketing out of the starting gate faster than sledders themselves.

There has been speculation in some parts that this is part of a psychological campaign to strike fear into the hearts of our sledding opposition and unbalance their sang-froid. Unfortunately, they ain't the ones lookin' unbalanced at the moment. Obviously, the PM excepted, Canadians are so amateur at this mind-game stuff. Must do better! Or as we coyotes always say, citius, altius, fortius...!

* Unless You're A Shill An Official Sponsor Whose International Corporation Has Paid A Whack Of Blackmail Money To The Private Club of Crepuscular Old Men Who Run The Franchise As A Personal Fiefdom

A significant birthday

It is time again for us to to wish the Fifth Muse a happy birthday.

When we Irregulars set up shop back in the cybercretaceous era, we were all about the Muse - we even called her "ours" in a proprietary way, although she wrote compellingly about her life for, well, the whole Net. Frankly, it was a bit of a drama. But we felt engaged.

We also saw a need for comment and occasional nudges along the way, if she chose to accept them. We filled it in our fashion, which is mainly solid individually, enthusiastic certainly, but perhaps anarchic collectively. (And no, ma'am, it was never entirely about finding a date, although that issue figured prominently for you. I digress. Again. Imagine that...)

The Muse (wisely, we think, although we miss her) withdrew from semi-public anonymity to live life rather than blog about it. We're no longer party to her thoughts, but hope that she's still keeping a journal. Someplace quite private would be best.

Oh, we still hear occasional snippets about her life. She's around. But following her lead, we don't pry, and these days we chance only upon random items. Let us just say that she, like most people, has had good times, bad ones, and a triumph or two to which we have raised quiet glasses.

The Elgin Street Irregulars have obviously moved on too. We continue, likely less impassioned without her. The first great fling is always the most memorable... But we wish her well, and hope she has a decent date now and again. Happy Birthday, Muse!

Heart shaped world

On the eve of St. Valentine's Day, I am pleased that our inimitable Audrey continues her endless honeymoon. Her Top Ten Romantic Things list now stands at thirty items, and counting. She floats on a pink chiffon cloud wherever she goes, stylishly pink-clad feet barely touching the ground. I rather picture her wearing heart-shaped pink sunglasses on her (yes...) romantic trip to Jamaica. It suits her.

However, we coyotes' glowing yellow eyes see things that are not quite so uniformly tickety-boo with others. XUP may be pro - hard to tell, because she ain't dishing much personal - but there's a twist of asperity. Jo's buy-in seemed at one point to be coming and going in (dishwasher) cycles. Megan is bucketing along between righteous sistah militancy and feeling a little more ummn, disheartened. J is flirting with what Jo labels as one of the oldest standard guy "Plan B" lines going.

Now, we coyotes draw our semimythical mojo from cultures considered by some to be based on superstition, or magical thinking. So, we are wont to wonder if it may not have something to do with Valentine's Day chasing hot on the heels of Friday the 13th. What with that, and the big event residing not unadjacent to the scientifically-calculated crappiest day of the year, ya gotta ask if the vibes ain't clashing.

If it weren't for the mountains of chocolate that would go begging, I'd wonder if the whole day was worth... huh.

Woodsy just emailed me a SweeTart. Awww...! I know she hands 'em out to everybody like candy, but suddenly I feel, like, all sweet and warm and smooshy. Maybe even like taking another pre-diabetic look at Zoom's nuzzling kitties and fawns. Must be the tiny perfect sugar hit. Anyway, when that wears off, there's good eatin' at Zoom's blog...

Merry Christmas to all…

…and to all a good night…

Things that go bump

Since Hallowe'en is the vestigial tail of a no-longer-mainstream religious cosmology, and we coyotes play (ahem) a small role in one or two pre-Christian religious systems ourselves, we're totally down with All Hallows Eve. Especially the chocolate.

What's not to like? Acceptable scariness. A chance to live somebody else's (quite possibly libidinous) life for a few hours. Terminally cute little satanists with tiny plastic pumpkins, teenagers armed with their parents' body pillowcases, thingies in strangely realistic looking dog costumes, and other stuff that goes bump in the night, romp about the neighbourhood, to knock on doors and hit up complete strangers for candy, which, if they are lucky, is not those cheap n' nasty, orange 'n black-wrapped things that epoxy themselves to the roof of your mouth and cause you to howl mournfully and make goofy-looking chewy motions until they finally dissolve and leave cankers on your tongue. I digress.

But we mustn't forget origins. History is important. I am semi-reliably informed that Hallowe'en descends from Samhain, the Gaelic harvest festival that marks the Celtic new year. I mean, before bumptious johnny-come-lately churches crashed the Hallowe'en party, appropriating it and Frankensteining it to shoehorn it into their own belief systems to attract new fans. (You thought such blatant campaign tricks were more modern, I bet...) You could look it up. A couple of popes named Gregory were involved, apparently. And lemurs. Cool! Oh, wait. Not that kind of lemurs.

Ah, Wikipedia - is there anything more useful to a coyote seeking backup and bafflement potential for his side - any side - in a debate?

Now where the, ummm, Hell was I? Oh, yeah. It's Hallowe'en. Gimme chocolate!

Summer Solstice

For those of you that don't know what to buy your very favourite - indeed, your only* - blog-coyote-about-town as a thoughtful and much appreciated summer solstice gift, may I suggest a Doggie IQ Test? Only £4.99! With the small stipend for 'super fast delivery', you might still make it by tonight, if you hurry! And after all of this damnable rain, I'm pretty sure it'll bring me a very welcome little ego boost.

If you figure I'm already smart (ass) enough, and don't need further excuses to tap my full potential in that area, I'm also completely open to the Stylophone or the intriguingly fluorescent Space Putty, suggested as alternatives further down the catalogue page. But be forewarned that paste-on smile for pugs is a non-starter.

Meantime, I suggest that everybody reading this start flushing your minds right now of any and all mental images of certain Irregulars dancing naked around their gas barbecues tonight. Down that road lies rump of skunk, and madness. 'Kaythxgbye!

*This town, anyway. Wandering Coyote has the Southern BC franchise sewed up.

Image: Captain Cripple and his K9 Companion Skipper the Wonder Dog

Icemaking, Rideau Canal

The PC * Primer

* Pee Clues **

Well. After one's recent snappy exchange with the ESIs' (really, probably all of Ottawa's) favorite Sassy Redhead, one feels compelled to explore the topic in more depth. You know. Put one's nose to the ground, sniff around, tread a contemplative circle for a bit, satisfy oneself that one has found exactly the right spot, and then... one digresses. It must be instinct.

She raises a valid question. Why need we be concerned if a certain partner pees on himself, and only himself, then walks into a Tim Horton's? What business is it of ours? Other than because he blogged it for the entire Internet to read, I mean.

Well. I can only speak for myself, because other members of this little consortium may (okay, almost certainly do) have other thoughts on the topic.

In my view, though, if he's going to make a habit out of this kind of thing, there are products out there that are way better adapted to some form of human riding in an auto's shotgun seat, than Coke cans.

More importantly, as one of several four-legged species that regard this form of communication with the utmost seriousness, I have to say that if he's peeing on himself, that's just a totally egregious waste of perfectly good territory-marking ammo...

** C'mon! You didn't think this was going to be about Political Correctness? Personal Computers? President's Choice? Or, Dog help us, the Progressive Conservatives? Did you?!

Lite Rite Nite

Requiem for a Tavern

Went to work and then to Hull. Then the B.C. Met Dan M. there. Talked about airplanes. Home at lunch, then to Capital and then the Prescott. Met John B. and Jack M. Went to Alex and had green beer. Then to Ritz and met Jim G and Eric C. and learned that Denny G. had a heart attack and died at the Ritz. Jim G. lost his driver’s license after neg. breathalyzer test.

Partially redacted diary entry: Tuesday, March 17, 1970 – Ottawa

My father kept a daily diary from the year 1965 until his death. His diary was more of a journal of the day’s events as opposed to any personal and private confessions. It sure wasn’t close to anything like a blog. Of the over thirty years of entries, I have yet to find anything getting close to wanky self-indulgence in them. His self-indulgence rested in the activities he logged about. And Ottawa’s taverns ranked fairly high in those activities.

In his diary of 1970, the Ritz Hotel, on the corner of Bank and Somerset, figured prominently, though it ranked second place to my dad’s favourite watering hole – the Belle Claire Hotel on Queen Street. The B.C. was a popular haunt for many Ottawans, and was noted for its decent food. It was regularly patronized by politicians, sports figures, police, and crooks. Paddy Mitchell and his cohorts were regulars there. The Ottawa Rough Riders also made it a second home. Yeah, the good ole days when sports pros were just regular Joes who drank as hard as they played.

On Bank St., there were a few choices. The Alexander Hotel (the “Alex”) was a popular spot near the corner of Bank and Gilmour. The Ritz, on the other hand, never had the class of the Belle Claire or the Alex. It might have in its hey-day but by the early seventies no one of note was a regular there. Up until the mid-1970’s it maintained its segregated entrances: Men’s Tavern on one side, Ladies and Escorts on the other side. I can still sense the smell of stale beer, smoke and sometimes-urine that would waft out the doors as I walked past on my way to or from Big Buds or Hartman’s IGA with my mother. A big part of why the corner of Bank and Somerset Street is still considered the dodgiest part of Ottawa rests with the legacy of the Ritz Hotel. Some of that carried over to the Lockmaster, though the Lock carried a special nostalgia by the time it came on the scene, what with taverns being very much in decline. University kids and karaoke changed things for the better, I suppose, but not by much.

Now the wrecking ball looms. The Grads. The Alex. The Windsor. They are all gone. The heritage neophytes are up in arms about losing this grand old building first occupied by the Crosby Carruthers Company in the late 19^th century. A few of us reminisce about the good old days of the Lock or the Duke of Somerset, or hanging out on a Sunday night to see Ottawa’s version of The Pogues: a band called Jimmy George.

I read, not long ago, prior to the renovation failure, that the owner was intending to open up some new retail services on the site. They were even thinking of putting in a Tim Horton’s.

Maybe it’s good that we let it fall.

For my mother, I know she won’t regret seeing it come down. She carries no such nostalgia.

Wedding Tips

Rather than get annoyed by people smoking cigars and standing in front of my chairs at the Blues Festival, I went to some weddings this past weekend. Lovely affairs, they were, but I have thoughts on how things could be more efficient:

• The Rockcliffe Park Gazebo is a beautiful place for a wedding ceremony, but if you want the Fourth Dwarf to actually get there and not wander around Rockcliffe for an hour and a half, have your wedding in a facility that is served by a bus route.


• If the 3-year-old son of the bride and groom couldn't manage to keep his clothing on during the rehearsal dinner, it is probably a bad idea to give him a baseball bat and ball to play with during the reception.


• You may not really need a photo of the bride and groom with every possible permutation and combination of the wedding guests. But once you have every possible photo shot at the wedding site, you definitely do not need to go to a public garden to get more photos.


• If you're inviting the Fourth Dwarf and he's going to be wandering Rockcliffe for an hour and a half, do not have an open bar.
  

Management by magazine

Lately his Esteemed Baldness, Larry, has hired business gurus to help with his 'thousand days of change 'visioning' thing over at City Hall. (I hold a certain distaste for people 'verbing' nouns like that, but I will forebear digression -- just this once.) I suspect this exercise to be an outgrowth of that little book about 'corporate excellence and change' that he read, Execution: The Discipline of getting things done. He got so excited he publicly urged all the city councillors to read the sucker.

I suspect the mayor's infatuation with this book may be a, ummm, textbook variation on management by magazine. As excited as he is, he treads a very well-worn path. I'm a very old coyote. Old enough to have seen a buncha business cycles, a buncha companies and a buncha hotshot executives in action. And y'know, all of 'em seem to blather on faddily about cultures of excellence and paradigm shifts and methods for ensuring organizational quality. All sounding strangely repetitive after awhile.

Remember The Rules? A book of instructions that, if followed to the letter, would allow a women to snag herself a ma-yun? Heard it mentioned much lately? I thought not. It's pretty much the female dating equivalent of business guru's books on corporate change.

I'm gonna heretically suggest that this may be because so many captains of industry don't have a hot clue what the fuck they're really supposed to be doing to make their companies successful. Sure, they've gotten the MBAs (or in Larry's case, gone to Algonquin College) and they've learned to project that take-charge outer confidence that investors and voters love, but they're really as clueless as the rest of us.

Having aligned themselves with the people they believe to be the smart money, they don't want to admit that their fates depend as much as they do upon dumb luck. I can almost guarantee you that every rich guy whom I've ever visited of a night to tip over their trashcan, fondly thinks they've succeeded because they're such darn smart businessmen. They just don't get how much dumb luck is involved, and don't want to know. Because that would mean they're schnooks like the rest of us, not steely-eyed captains of their own fates.

Which leads us to management by magazine. At some level, everybody's insecure. Everybody's looking for a guru. Everybody wants to believe that someone else can tell 'em - preferably in fewer than eleven chapters - all of the rules for success in life and business. Because they don't think they know 'em themselves, and they find it heartening to think that someone else can tell 'em. A ton of writers are out there, willing to feed 'em that same old recycled bullshit, too.

Bad news: Today's guru, as soon as the next hot flavour-of-the-minnit comes out, is tomorrow's has-been. Guys who write these books are just as clueless as the people who buy 'em. But at least they're gettin' paid publishing royalties for it...

My 20 favourite things (other than sex):

In Honour of Audrey's List:

My 20 favourite things (other than sex):

1. Warm weather
2. Sunshine
3. Walking with a friend
4. Getting a big cheque
5. Watching things grow
6. Lakes
7. Drinking beer at the Preferred Place with friends
8. Reading a good novel
9. The sound of rural open spaces in summer time
10. Cooking exotic cuisine
11. morning coffee
12. When *redacted* brings me coffee in the morning
13. decks (with good conversation, or a book, or coffee, or good sounds)
14. cuddling
15. watching movies
16. My mother
17. my cat
18. yoga
19. Watching Young and the Restless (lame, but true)
20. drinking good red wine, at home
21. When *redacted* fills my wine glass without me asking

P.S. I didn't add things like: the happiness of others, when wars end, when cancer goes into remission, because I didn't think of them until my list was finished. And then I felt bad, and decided as penance that I still couldn't list them.

A pleasant goosing

I awoke rather early to the sound of honking the other morning. Strange, I thought, there's rarely traffic on my street at this hour.

Then it dawned on me - Canada Geese were gliding through the darkness above, returning from their winter sojourn.

I glanced over at the clock: 4:56 a.m. But I didn't mind.

I drifted back to sleep knowing that in a world of constant change I could count on at least one tradition to remain comfortingly the same.

Caribou! A progress report on Canada's new national toast

It has been almost a year since I christened Caribou! as Canada's national toast. So it seems time for a refreshing update.

With the exception of some initial encouragement from the lovely Aggie, my proposal was met with skepticism on the part of most of the ESIs.

So after generating some summer buzz at Bluesfest, I took the concept on the road. After all, sometimes Canadians honour their own only after people abroad have given their blessing. (Katrina and the Waves are still virtual demigods among the Jarawa of India's Andaman Islands.)

A frothy cappuccino at Heathrow Airport's Caffe Nero in late July marked the first international Caribou! cheer. Only two problems: I am alone. The coffee sets me back £4.30.

On to Morocco, a land renowned for its hospitality and therefore the perfect launching point for the African Caribou! craze. With Audrey as my witness, I raise a Casablanca beer to introduce Canada's national toast the Dark Continent.

However, it soon occurs to us that in a largely Muslim country alcohol is somewhat difficult to find. So the next cry of Caribou! is heard over milkshakes at a rather exotic Marrakech luncheon spot that serves something called the McArabia.

Three continents down. Four to go.