Seraphic77

I love actors. And not just because I used to be one. It’s that there’s a desire at the core of the profession to discover the truth and communicate it fully to an audience. Much as they giggle at the old adage, “Acting is about honesty – once you can fake that you’ve got it made” it’s as far from the actual work as you can get. Yeah, they drive writers crazy from time to time. We writers are the prospectors of show business, the truffle hogs who unearth the rich veins of comic or tragic gold... Read Full Story

“Idle hands are the devil’s tools…” – Geoff Chaucer (more or less) There’s been a lot of talk about Seniors in Canada over the last few weeks. This came after the government announced it was considering changes to the way our pension system works. Nobody knows what those changes might be yet. Maybe the retirement age will rise from 65 to 67. Maybe payments or benefit packages will be reduced. We just don’t know. But that hasn’t stopped calls for immediate panic and the usual pictures being... Read Full Story

A few years ago, my agent asked me to come down to LA during pilot season and I arrived on Super Bowl Sunday. I was staying at one of those short term residence complexes with all the amenities required for a pre-existing neighborhood experience. As such they were hosting a Super Bowl Party with a big screen, full service bar and buffet of goodies. Like a lot of California companies, the service staff was Mexican. And as the residents cheered on their teams, knocked back cold ones and foraged... Read Full Story

Nobody pays that much attention to beer league hockey. Mostly they’re made up of guys just trying to stay in shape. For every guy who’s still got the moves from his teens, there are a dozen who are clearly over the hill. Some played a little Junior. One or two got a sniff from a semi-pro team. But they all had a moment in pre or post-puberty when they shone and wondered if they might one day play in the Bigs. That possibility is long dead now. They come to the rink to hang with old friends... Read Full Story

There’s a scene in the opening moments of the Coen brothers semi-masterpiece, “Barton Fink” where Fink (the writer) goes to see studio executive Ben Geisler. Their conversation begins thus: Geisler: Ever act? Barton: Huh? No, I'm… Geisler: We need Indians for a Norman Steele western. Barton: I'm a writer. Geisler: Think about it, Fink. Writers come and go; we always need Indians. “Barton Fink” is one in a long parade of films satirizing how movies get made. Every working writer has a favorite... Read Full Story

During Friday night’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” on HBO the panel discussion degenerated into chaos as all the speakers insisted they alone knew the facts and everybody else was living in a bubble that prevented them hearing the truth. Now in most political discussions “truth’ is kind of a relative concept. But earlier in the evening, I’d been bemused by the following tweet from a CBC Radio listener… It would appear that no matter how often the CBC Ombudsman assures the public there is no... Read Full Story

There is a poem floating –- more correctly –- flying around the internet these days. It was first shared between caregivers in nursing homes and geriatric wards.  But now its readership is growing among those of the “sandwich generation”, people in middle age caring for both their children and their aging parents. It was found following the death of an elderly man in North Platte, Nebraska. He had died penniless and alone, a ward of the state with no relatives or close friends anyone could... Read Full Story

Those who have been paying attention know Matt Catingub as a Polynesian composer whose music has appeared in “A Beautiful Mind”, “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Good Night And Good Luck”. Others might know him as the conductor of the Honolulu Symphony or the musical director and arranger who toured for many years with “easy listening” artists like Rosemary Clooney. He’s widely recognized as an expert in an era of popular music that featured the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis... Read Full Story

As I write this, storms blanket the American Pacific Northwest and Western Canada. It’s a virtual white out across the Left side of the continent and the people who live there have a “snow day”. I love snow days. When I was a kid it was a day off school where you could head out to toboggan or build snow men. Or you could just hole up in front of the TV or catch up on comic books. Snow days were our best chance to be left to our own devices and our own creativity. As an adult, they’ve become... Read Full Story

There’s a theory that much of what passes for Canadian artistic exceptionalism can be credited to Winter. Yeah, the season’s a nice change when it starts. You want a white Christmas and a crisp, fresh day to start the New Year. But after that… It’s cold. It’s dark. It’s messy. Sometimes even accomplishing the smallest errands or tasks can take forever. The Canadian Winter becomes an endurance test and experiment in isolation that forces you to hunker down and do the work – because there is no... Read Full Story