THE iPOD SHUFFLE

Just hit Shuffle and tell me what your first ten songs are.



k.d.lang



1. AFTER THE GOLD RUSH, k.d.lang, from

         Hymns of the 49th Parallel
2. I STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT I'M LOOKING
        FOR, U2, from
        The Best of U2 1980-1990
3. SLEDGEHAMMER, Peter Gabriel, from
        Shaking the Tree: 16 Golden Greats
4. IF IT BE YOUR WILL, Leonard Cohen, from

         Live in London

5. WHITE LIGHTNING, Dany Michel, from

         Live in Winnipeg

6. THE DARKEST ONE, The Tragically Hip, from

         Yer Favourites
7. FITS YA GOOD, Bryan Adams, from

The Tragically Hip

         MTV Unplugged (Live)

8. IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND, Gordon

         Lightfoot, from

         Complete Greatest Hits

9. HAWKMOON 269, U2, from

         Rattle and Hum

10. SHE DIDN'T KNOW, The Tragically Hip, from

         Up to Here

Rather heavy on the CanCon, eh?

SEX, VIOLENCE, NAKED WOMEN, BLOOD, JUSTIN BIEBER, etc.

Not trying to get an "X" rating... just trying to increase my readership amongst that all-important age group: 14 to 18. My ratings with adolescents and teenagers are rather low at the moment. On the bright side, I am a big hit in Russia, for some reason. "Balding, Grey" must translate into Russian as "Free Porn", or perhaps "Find a Canadian Husband". Oh, and, Honda.

Justin Bieber

FREE LATTE

Walked up to the counter at Tim Horton's holding a "roll up the rim to win"  winning rim. I told the young lady that I had won a car and that I had come to claim it. "A car!!?" she said, and smiled. "Then you'd better fill out a form..." she informed me, but I was still pretending to try to read the message. "A Honda Latte, I believe."*

*That's called product placement. I'm hoping that Honda will pay me a little bit if I mention Honda in passing from time to time.

THE OBJECTION

You know how at weddings the minister, or the "officiant", asks the assembled whether there is anyone who has reason to object to the union? And they use that great line, "Speak NOW---  or forever hold your piece"? It's a moment that is very often exciting in the movies, but I've never seen anyone stand up and say anything at a real wedding. I always look around... wondering: Who will object? Come ON!! Someone must know something that we don't know... But, no. No one ever objects. And the wedding always goes forward. How boring is that?

So I decided that at OUR wedding, at our THIRD wedding, which was scheduled to be the funny, fake wedding, some one would object. And I knew exactly who to ask. I asked my friend Peter. We told Peter that he needed to step forward at the crucial moment and halt the proceedings. We told him to make it funny. And we told him not to tell us what his plan was going to be, so that we, too, would be surprised. He took on the task. We gave him several months to come up with something. He did not disappoint.

This was to be the funny, fake wedding because the romantic, real wedding was to happen at Boldt Castle in the Thousand Islands the day before in front of twenty or so friends. The real wedding was to be a secret so that the ninety people invited to the Saturday wedding would not know that what they were watching was a fake ceremony. We had a fake minister dressed up as... as an Anglican priest, I suppose. We asked Chris to do the honours because he was just FRANTICALLY asking to be invited and we really had no room for him. He said he would do anything to be able to attend and that's when Margot realised that he would do a great job. He looked like a minister, perhaps... he was a retired university professor of art history: you can perhaps imagine!

Rev. Chris threw some humour into the service (a service that he prepared) but just about everyone at the wedding thought that he was real, and that the whole thing was legitimate. Towards the end, and just before he was to declare us to be husband and wife, he asked the key question, pretending to be surprised when Peter stepped forward to answer the call. Peter looked a little angry, I thought, as he gave us all a short lecture about taking solemn ceremonies seriously... and about it wanting to make some of us cry... and if we were to cry... why not a professional cry? At that moment there was a loud voice from the back of the assembled: "STOP THIS!! STOP THIS SHAM!!" Kingston's award-winning Town Crier, dressed in full regalia, and carrying a rolled-up proclamation, swinging a large brass bell, strode purposefully through the crowd, and took his place beside me. He unfurled the document and read about how this ceremony was a fraud and a deception. There were cries of "Shame!" from the audience. He announced that Margot and Greg were already married, and on foreign soil, no less. More, louder cries of "Shame!!" He had proof. The witnesses (my son and her sister) were there amongst us, and everyone turned to them. They looked sheepishly at the ground. AND (he continued) it was consummated! And of that he also had proof ! At this point he is holding over his head for all to see a VCR tape. I thought that the high point of the wedding came at this point when he told us that copies of the tape were available at http://www.fiveminutesofpassion.com/.
("Five minutes of passion" is a LITTLE misleading...  Two minutes of bloopers and out-takes, and a short interview with the director... the actual "passion" is just over forty-six seconds. I do not want you telling me that you did not get your money's worth. The line for that forms behind Margot.)
The Town Crier (whose real name is also Chris) pointed to the Rev. Chris and told the assembled that HE was a fake, as well, and not a holy man of the cloth, but rather a lowly doctor of fine arts at Queen's University. I thought that Rev. Chris's response to that was very dignified. He drew up his shoulders and stuck out his chest and announced that he had NEVER taught at Queen's. (Chris taught for ten years at Mt. Allison.) Rev. Chris also took umbrage at the accusation that he was not ordained. He then claimed to have received his ordination from a very reputable website just two days prior.
As per MY instructions, Rev. Chris then presented the happy couple to the assembled: "Ladies and Gentlemen: MISSUS GREG MILLEDGE.... and a long pause as everyone looked to Margot to see when, and how, she would explode... and then: AND MISTER MARGOT COULTER.
Wild Applause. The end.

ROCKS

Had a curling game to play at noon, yesterday. It was a tournament game... a MUST win game. Just before I left the house the telephone rang. The call was long-distance. The voice told me that our game location had been changed to The Royal Kingston Club.

"Who is this??!!" I asked.

"Elections Canada.... I mean, this is the Garrison Curling Club calling. Really. It really is us."

OUR FIRST NUPTUALS

When Margot and I went cruising in the Bahamas a couple of years ago we were engaged to be married. We had gotten engaged at Christmas. Margot received a coupon, rolled up in a tube, that entitled her to one engagement ring of her choice and design. I knew that I could not choose a ring for her. I knew that she would rather design her own. The coupon came with "some restrictions may apply": Not valid in the Province of Quebec (where her ex-partner lived), must be of legal drinking age (otherwise how do I get her drunk and take advantage of her?), and with a one-year expiry.

So that February saw us aboard the U.S.S. Liberty Something Or Other, sailing out of Nassau and heading east towards Eleuthra with eight other, fellow passengers, and ten crew. One other couple on board were engaged, as well, and when Captain Dan found out that he had TWO engaged couples, he informed us that he had recently obtained his minister's licence (from a very reputable on-line church) and that it might be a nice idea to have a double wedding, at sunset, on a nice beach. Margot and I thought: "Perfect!!" and began discussing plans. When we tried sharing our planning ideas with Couple Number Two, we discovered that they were less excited about the idea. He told me that they both were not the kinds of people who enjoyed being in the spotlight. I said to him that I understood, and then I turned to Margot and whispered: "I don't understand". The spotlight has never been something that I have shied away from...

Captain Dan is very funky. His Captain's uniform was usually barefoot, Hawaiian shirt, baseball cap, and what seemed to me to be love beads from the sixties. Margot will tell you that he was more hunky than funky, and she still has a soft spot in her heart for him. He was wonderful about the wedding. He spent days composing a special wedding ceremony for us. Each crew member had a role to play. One young woman wove rings for us out of twine. Another created a play list of music from her laptop. A cake was baked. Champagne bottles were placed on ice, and the second mate revealed that he had a special knack for opening corks using  a ceremonial sword. I chose a best man and Margot a maid of honour from amongst the passengers. Margot asked the cook's assistant (and cruise company vice-president) to give her away. He told Margot that he was from New England and had never given ANYTHING away in his life. But he took on the role. He took on the role so seriously that he felt duty-bound to have a very serious conversation with me (the groom) regarding my worthiness. I must have squeaked through somehow because he gave me his blessing.

We were married on the last day of the journey. We were anchored just off Rose Island and the weather was perfect. The sun sets at around 6:00 down there and so by 5:00 the groom's party (best man and me) were Zodiacking to the beach. My guy was Jewish so he had to immediately scratch out an Chuppa in the sand and then go in search of something suitable for the Matzel-Tov. He found an empty, plastic Pepsi bottle. Margot and her maid of honour arrived at 5:30. Captain Dan had ordered all crew and passengers to attend. That meant that even JoBar was there. JoBar was the engineer and he was a little rough around the edges and we were very pleasantly surprised to see him all (somewhat) dressed up. I wore my very best tee-shirt, the one that says: "Jesus is coming, Look Busy". Margot and I had each written our own vows. Margot's were very moving and she had trouble saying them through her tears. Mine were (predictably) more light-hearted. Norah Jones sang "Come Away With Me". The sunset was glorious. When Captain Dan asked the assembled whether or not anyone present would support Margot and Greg in their union, everyone answered "AAAAAARRGGHHHHH!!!" like a chorus of pirates. It was great!!

The wedding was not legal, of course, for there was no licence. The real wedding was still in the works and planned for the summer after the next, in August of 2011. But we had photos and we had our rings (that we both still wear) and we obtained a ceremonial copy, signed by Captain Dan himself, of the ceremony for display at the real do. Best of all, perhaps, we had some experience with planning a wedding, or a series of weddings, that might be fun and unusual and romantic, all at the same time.

FLAG OF INCONVENIENCE, TWO

So Margot and I are visiting Panama for a week in February, and we are staying with the Kuna Indigenous folks of the San Blas Islands. These people have been virtually independent from Panama since 1925, and they run their own province of the country  (Kuna Yala) which includes over three hundred islands off the north coast in the Caribbean Sea. One of those islands is Akwadup (which means, in their language, "island", and that seems to be appropriate), and we are staying at a "resort" there. The "resort" takes up the entire island, and there are only three other guests sharing the place with us. I say "resort" because it is pretty much bare bones and basic. It is not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but it is clean and the food is decent and the people who own and run it are wonderful, and we have an entire Caribbean island almost to ourselves. For an extra dollar Juan will take you in the motorboat to yet another, smaller island where the beaches are nicer and the swimming is better. So Margot and I decide that the price is right and we fork over our dollar (U.S.) and we head over there with the other guests. Margot is wearing her bathing suit and I am packing a recent copy of  The New Yorker. One of the other guests is a woman from Chicago who teaches Spanish for a living. For some reason she is under the mistaken impression that I also speak Spanish. Margot heads out to sea as soon as we arrive and I find a nice shady palm tree. Events seem to be unfolding as they should.

About one hour later my reading is disturbed by the lady from Chicago. She seems to be quite excited and she is telling me something, but she is speaking Spanish. I smile and I nod. I give her an "okay" sign with my hand. I say gracias, and I return to my magazine. What could possibly be so important that she should interrupt my precious reading time? She is American, I remind myself, and they all have a funny way of operating in the world sometimes.

I find out later that Margot needed to be rescued at sea. There was quite a strong current running along the coast that no one had told her about. She had gone out quite far (as is her wont) but soon noticed that she was swimming hard and getting nowhere versus the nearby islands. She was actually getting tired and she could not get back to land. Fortunately Juan was nearby, and he was wearing flippers. He tried helping her but had to resort to calling for the motorboat to come out to get them. Our fellow guest of the Illinois persuasion had been watching this and had decided that I needed to know that my wife had nearly been swept out to sea: to be eaten by sharks, certainly, or perhaps captured by pirates. She told me this in Spanish. And my response had been to smile, and to flash the "okay" sign at her, and then go back to my magazine. At dinner that evening she was a little bit frosty towards me.