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First of all, my apologies for not showing up on time. Things have been happening
here at Spud Central. First and foremost, I have been consumed with work. Mostly
work involving the development of a number of new joint venture partnerships as
well as the usual amount of regular stuff. Secondly, for some reason or other,
perhaps nothing more than intellectual lethargy, I have lapsed into a real take it or
leave it attitude towards the bits and pieces of entertainment I usually write about.
Blockbuster movies are no longer aimed at me. In fact I don’t know for sure who they
are aimed at anymore. The independent and foreign films, which are aimed at me.
are mostly complete downers or amateur time. The new crop of TV shows is pretty
much take-it or-leave-it across the board, save for a few, so I am seeking solace in
the tried and true. (Everwood, West Wing, JAG, NYPD Blue, 24, The Shield) The Wife
and I are literally down to about 2 hours a night. Thirdly, I have been devoting
almost all of my spare time to re-writing a screenplay of my own, called The Passion
Of Johnny Vallone, which was originally about a doomed relationship between two
people living outside the law, and pretty much still is, only the scenario and
therefore characters have all been updated. And last but not least, the Wife and I
have recently acquired a new Spud Central, a beautiful little arts and crafts bungalow
back in the east side of Toronto which, understandably can also be slightly
distracting.

THE DEAFENING QUIETUDE OF THE BIG VALLEY

Two years ago, more or less, the Wife and I moved into Spud Central, Lower
Scarberia, with the intention of living happily ever after in the blissful quietude of
the Big Valley.

About two months ago, we realized that this blissful quietude was slowly but surely
eating away at a number of vital organs, most notably my brain. I found myself
content to turn off my brain for long periods of time, igniting it only long enough to
make some money and then turn it off again. It was the Deafening Quietude of The
Big Valley that was doing this to me. Of course, it takes quite a while to figure out
just what the hell is happening when this Quietude starts to take over.

The first sign is, evidently, an unhealthy obsession with sports. I have spent most of
the past year perched in front of the small TV watching all manner of sporting
activity. I have watched golf (even the tournaments that Tiger isn’t playing in),
basketball, baseball, soccer, darts, billiards, bowling, the world’s strongest man
competition, tennis, (even Wimbledon), track and field, gymnastics, hockey (just the
playoffs), the Little League World Series, football (not college), even Nascar and
Formula I racing, bike racing, triathalons and iron man competitions and egads, even
poker. I have, in a mere 20 months, completely re-written the dictionary definition of
brain-dead.

Then one day, about a month ago, I was sitting in the car with the wife in front of the
video store in the old neighbourhood when it simultaneously dawned on both of us.
We are now living about two miles off our own beaten path, and it had slowly but
surely been driving us nuts. We can’t go anywhere on foot anymore because we’re a
mile from the nearest store. And we seem to spend all our free time driving around.
Riding my bike downtown and back on a windy day is enough to do me in, whereas
before it was a piece of cake. Missing a bus is tantamount to being cast into
purgatory for half an hour. And I have seen more people running red lights out here
in the past year, than I have maybe even in my whole life.

Now I’ve got nothing against suburban living, Lord knows there are tons of people
who love it. The big yards. The safe distance between houses. The chitchat about
whose got the better lawn…Yadda Yadda. And Spud Central is a drop dead gorgeous
piece of suburban real estate, without a doubt. But it has now fully dawned on the
Wife and I that this is not the location for us be in order to be as happy as the clams
we always believed we were.

When these realizations come over you, you have two options. You can put up with
the unhappiness like so many of the world’s unhappy people do… or you can, as
Shakespeare said, ‘take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing end, them.”
The decision to do the latter, we are now, convinced set a Kharmic wheel spinning.
This led us directly to an open house in one of the areas were we looking at. The
house was being sold by an agent who lived around the corner from our first house
on Kingston Road, which I’m willing to write off to coincidence. The house was,
however, owned by a fellow named Owen Graham, who was, believe it or not, one of
the kids who used to babysit my kids, back in the day. The house was beautifully
maintained and after one brief walk through the Wife tuned to me and said, “This is
it.” And you know what? As skeptical as I am about these things, I couldn’t disagree.
When Owen found out that it was the Wife and I who were interested in this house,
he literally bent over backwards to make it easy for us to buy the house. He even
extended the closing out to the end of January, even though he is moving into his
new house in early December. He even agreed to split the difference with us on the
cost of upgrading all the old knob and tube wiring in the house, which is a big issue
with Insurance companies these days. At Spud Central, our agents brought in a lady
named Barbara Carroll, who is one of those people we have dubbed “Knick Knack
Nazis who go through your house and tell you to strip away most of the personal
stuff in your house, how to arrange your furniture so that the central focus of each
room is really obvious, and also so that it’s easier for the people who are considering
your house as a place to live, can get a better impression of what their stuff would
look and feel like in your rooms.

After following as much of Barbara’s advice as we could afford to (This process can
cost some $$$$) and three or four days of hard core slave labour, Spud Central
Lower Scarberia, which was in absolutely pristine condition, freshly painted and
coiffed and looking like the mansion it truly is, sold to the first people who walked
through, at a hair under our asking price and with no conditions. Seven hours after it
was on the market we signed the sale agreement.

Our agents, Scott Judges and Jane Chisholm (Coldwell Banker), did the most
amazing job of getting us exactly the price and the conditions we wanted on both
sides of the deal. So instead of taking the usual 2 months out of our lives, the whole
process only 2 weeks. Amazing. If you ever have to move, call these people. They
will make it as painless as it gets.

Besides the Kharmic wells stuff, this has also been a real waker-upper for the old
(formerly lethargic) brain, and even though I’m sitting here in an almost complete
state of exhaustion from my regular gig as Onwords & Upwords guy and new
temporary gig of guy-moving-soon, I can already feel the synapses starting to
reconnect. And you know what? It feels just great.

THOSE GODDAM MARTIANS ARE WORSE THAN BIN LADEN

Coincident with the decision to relocate is a slight upswing in this, my weirdest year
yet in business which, I’m certain, is something that many of us have in common.
Everybody you talk to has a socio-economic theory about just why the hell it’s been
such a strange year. Surprisingly I don’t. I’m perfectly happy to blame it on the fact
that Mars was orbiting awfully close to the earth this year and Mars, as everyone
knows, it all about chaos.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed the chaos beginning to subside for myself
and some of the people in my peer group. Things are getting back to normal,
because life, as they say, goes on. And Mars move on too. Thank God.

IT’S DRAMA 101 TIME AGAIN.

The amount of work that goes into buying and selling houses is ten times more
exhausting than advertising or journalism or screenwriting. That’s because very few
people have enough experience doing it to make it stress free. One of the things it
does is take up a lot of your time, so you end up working a lot of nights and are not
able to get out to as many movies as you would like. But, frankly most of the stuff
out there lately hasn’t really snagged my interest. It’s that the movies are mostly
yawners at this time of year. There’s a new Ron Howard film called The Missing that
looks interesting. It’s coming out in a couple of weeks.
Every fall you get them, all the movies with the Oscar calibre acting performances in
them. Clint Eastwood’s got one out now called Mystic River with Sean Penn and Tim
Robbins that should do okay in the Oscar vote department. I’m waiting for it to come
out on video. There’s a movie called The Human Stain with Anthony Hopkins and
Nicole Kidman, which should net them a couple of Oscar nominations. Wait for tape.
Yadda Yadda. What I’d like to know is what the hell James Cameron and Michael Bay
and Martin Campbell are up to. These are three of the biggest names in Blockbuster
Movieland and I haven’t heard boo form them in quite a while.

THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING TO WATCH IN VIDEOLAND

Last week the Wife and I watched the first three episodes of the Sopranos, Season 4,
which has recently hit the stores. I hate to sound cynical, especially to you Spuds
who read my initial reviews of this series, but a whole lot of the air has been let out
of its tires. It just kind of lumbers along now, like some really out of shape dude
trying to run a marathon. I read an interview with Sopranos creator, David Chase a
few months back and he wanted to end it after three seasons, citing that, quite
simply the lives of these characters aren’t really all that interesting. Oh sure there’s
still great writing and powerhouse acting, but there just seems to be a real lack of
zip to these shows at that was omnipresent in the first three seasons.

Decisions decisions. There are a bunch of videos that are hitting the stores in the
next little while. Some recently released two spudders include Whale Rider, Finding
Nemo, Terminator 3, Bruce Almighty, and coming later this month, probably the
most entertaining movie of the year so far, Pirates of The Caribbean (buy this, you’ll
watch it a few times, I guarantee).

Anyway, we plan to be safely ensconced in Spud Central #3 by January 23. And
frankly with all the prepping we’ve done to get a good price on this house, half the
packing is already done.

Next issue, we’ll check on some of the old faithful shows and how they’re doing.
In the meantime, keep your stick on the ice and your head up.