the pod bay door

:: I returned from Calgary this morning, having attended bits of two days of the Blues and Roots Festival. Los Lobos, Richard Thompson and Solomon Burke were the acts I caught, all exceptional performances. Los Lobos rocks with the best, and began their set by inviting fans down from the stands in Burns Stadium (a baseball diamond) and onto the grass, right up to the stage. It made sense. They played with energy and conviction, and with smiles on their faces – they had fun. They closed with a great version of Mas Y Mas, and encored with a blistering take on Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl, a song which they may have now co-opted as their own. Thompson’s songs are powerful, and he weaves magic on his guitar. He performed one of his signature pieces, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, leaving me almost breathless as he played a solo that featured twists, turns and surprises not heard on the recording. Burke, the King of Rock ‘n’ Soul, surrounds himself with a great band, and is in true love with the audience – he hands out red roses to dozens of women while he sings, and each show ends as a big on-stage love-in. I learned from his harpist, Julia Cunningham, that their previous gig, in Beirut last Tuesday, was a great success. However, they were 35 hours in transit, arriving in Calgary on Friday quite exhausted, and without their luggage or instruments! Nonetheless, they played a great show for the last stop on their current tour.
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:: Have you heard the story about The Star Wars Kid? A 15-year old Québec boy named Ghsylain videotaped himself at school, pretending he was a Jedi knight, and using a broomstick as a light sabre. Apparently his “friends” found the video, uploaded it to the ‘net on April 19, and others soon found it. The video shot around the planet at lightspeed. Some took the original video and added sound and special effects. Over 40 clone videos exist at this time. As well, there is an online petition to get the kid a cameo in the final Star Wars movie.

What can I say? Admittedly, some of the clone videos are hilarious.

What began as a nightmare for this kid is already becoming an Internet legend. Hopefully he might be able to recover a bit of dignity in the process.

:: The homepage on my folks’ computer defaults to the Shaw high speed internet site. I’ve always detested the fact that Canadians cannot subscribe to US cable networks such as HBO, Cinemax, Nickleodeon, Showtime, etc. Imagine my shock and awe when I noticed the words, “Interested in HBO? Take the Poll” on the above page. I clicked and came to a page that reads:

INTERESTED IN HBO? HBO, ESPN, Fox News, Nickelodeon Kids, Showtime and more!

You may have recently read that Shaw has applied through the CCTA (Canadian Cable Television Association) to allow Canadian cable distributors the ability to offer American Networks such as HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, VH1 and others. This application was in response to numerous requests we have had from our customers through our call centers and retail locations.

Currently, the only way to access these popular networks is through Black Market illegal satellite systems. The majority of the 400,000 Canadians with illegal satellite are using it to access these popular networks.

We are interested in your opinion on this issue. Do you think that Canadians should have access to these American Networks? Click here to cast your vote.

Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion with Shaw. We look forward to serving you better!

After picking myself and my jaw up off the floor, I quickly voted, and noted the results to date: 96.5% – YES, 3.5% – NO.

I checked the CCTA web site, and found this 19 June 2003 news release, providing more details about the application. The 24-page application is available here, in PDF format.

If you support this application, PLEASE go to this page and cast your vote in favour of Shaw’s efforts. Note that you can only cast your vote once. But please, do it!

:: Last night I saw The Fab Faux at a free concert at the World Financial Center near Battery Park City. I was with friends who invited me to attend. As a lifelong Beatles fan, I was looking forward to seeing them perform, given the preconcert info I’d received from said friends: the Faux reproduce the Beatles’ tunes as you hear them on their records, as close to a note-for-note reproduction as possible, and delivered by some of the best musicians around, including Will Lee (The Late Show with David Letterman) and Jimmy Vivino (Late Night With Conan O’Brien).
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:: Geoff and I are in NYC. Our flight yesterday via Minneapolis was smooth and uneventful. On the flight from Mpls to NYC, a group of students from a middle school in Reno came aboard, and another passenger and I played cards with two of them for a while. It is warm here, and the humidity is high. The TONY Awards are happening tonight, a few blocks from the conference hotel. We are attending a cabaret tonight, seeing Blossom Dearie perform, then having dinner with representatives from the Institute of Physics.

That’s it for now. I need my morning coffee!

:: In the meantime, 7,000 people got naked in the name of art.

:: This Honda commercial took only 606 takes. And it is absolutely remarkable, and I continue to wonder about the imagination it took to design this. (Flash 6 required.)