HISTORIC ANNIVERSARY OF THE TITANIC

Today is an historic anniversary, indeed. Unless you live under a rock, you will already know this. Today is the anniversary of the Titanic. Fifteen years, four months, and seventeen days ago on this day in 1997 James Cameron launched his "unsinkable" motion picture, "Titanic". It has been called one of the greatest Maureen disasters in history. Maureen is my sister and she loves good movies. Maureen went to see "Titanic" on its opening day, and she was horribly disappointed. She called it an unmitigated disaster. "Typical Hollywood ending," she wrote at the time," The big boat sinks. Entirely predictable. I could see it coming a mile away." In her scathing review, she goes on to say that the whole plot was basically unbelievable. "Sure!!" she taunted Mr. Cameron, "Pull the other one!!" She also pointed out that the Leonardo DiCaprio line: "I'm KING of the world!!" was stolen from an Academy Awards acceptance speech. 

In tomorrow's blog, I will speak with actual living survivors... people whose love of great film survived the bombastic and gratuitous vehicle known to the world as "Titanic". I speak to, for example, Clara Hutson in Belleville, ON, about how she managed to escape from the theatre before the start of the second act. She will tell us about the usher who tried to stop her, saying: "It's women and children first!!" (Clara is not the most attractive of women... I say that, not to insult her, but to explain the usher's confusion. She decided to pass as an eight year old child rather than to try to prove her gender to him.)

Watch for our 3-D blog on Saturday. Get your glasses from neighbour's recycling box. If you want free SUNglasses, just call me. I have lots.  

MISUNDERSTANDING

My grandfather was a survivor of the Titanic sinking in 1912. There is no truth at all to the rumour that he somehow cheated to get himself on a lifeboat. His story that he fainted and woke up in Halifax seems credible to me. Here is a picture of Poppa right after waking up in Canada.

K. L. Milledge, Titanic survivor

LATEST NEWS--- from CNN

Before the U.S. Coast Guard could finish the shelling, and deliberate sinking, of the derelict Japanese trawler (whose name translates as: "Le Club de Hockey Canadien"), it hit an iceberg. Miraculously, no one died. This can be attributed to two things: Japanese tenacity, and the fact that the ship was already deserted.

SHUFFLE

Not really MY iPod

1. ECHOES (Pink Floyd), from
   Echoes (Disc One)

Rebuild the Wall

(If you have not heard the Luther Wright and the Wrongs country version of The Wall, then you have not lived, yet. Check out the video, on YouTube, for the song The Wall.)

2. BEAUTIFUL (Gordon Lightfoot), from
   Complete Greatest Hits

(This song can also be heard on the Margot & Greg Wedding CD. Greg is, of course, the Lightfoot fan. Seen him a few times. Several times at Massey Hall. The latest time at the N.A.C. in Ottawa. He wrote many great songs. This would be one of his best love songs. Originally recorded on "Don Quixote".)

3. NEW ORLEANS IS SINKING (The Tragically Hip), from
   Up To Here

Not Bananaskins

(Finally got to see The Hip when they opened the K-Rock Centre. The road right in front of the arena has just been re-named "The Tragically Hip Way". I wanted them to play at Bananaskins one New Year's Eve. I met Paul in the beer store and I asked him what they were doing New Year's? He said: The A.C.C., I think. I asked if it was BOOKED yet, and he said: Yes. So we were looking for a Hip replacement.)

4. I DON'T REMEMBER (Peter Gabriel), from
   Shaking the Tree: 16 Golden Greats

(I WAS going to say something.... but...)

5. THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES (Pink Floyd). from
   Echoes (Disc One)

6. TIME (Pink Floyd), from
   Echoes (Disc Two)

7. THE DARKEST ONE (The Tragically Hip), from
   Yer Favourites (Disc Two)

(Paul Langlois worked for me at Red Lobster. The definition of a Kingstonian is: Someone who knows someone in The Hip. A Canadian is: Someone who knows someone in the N.H.L. Chris Rock also got his start at Red Lobster. But not in Kingston.)

8. BIG TIME (Peter Gabriel), from
   Shaking the Tree: 16 Golden Greats

9. NOT FADE AWAY (The Crickets), from

Buddy Holly

   Buddy Holly Greatest Hits (Original Recording Remastered)

(The Stones cover of this song was their first hit. We once marked The Day the Music Died at Frank Vetere's by featuring a drink called "The Bloody Holly".)

10. SULTANS OF SWING (Dire Straits), from
   Money for Nothing

This Is Us

(I still remember where I was when I first heard this song. I thought it was Bob Dylan singing. I have since become a big Mark Knopfler fan. His duet with Emmy Lou Harris, "This Is Us", was a song featured at our wedding. I think we will call our wedding book "THIS IS US".)

BREAKING NEWS

Dean of the School of Piracy

SOMALIS WANT DERELICT:

The Mogadishu Pirate Academy (M.P.A.) is a school in Somalia that trains Somalis for a life of adventure on the "high" seas as pirates. It offers both two year diplomas as well as four year degrees. Today the M.P.A. announced that it wishes to use the drifting Japanese freighter as a training vessel for its Graduate Student Programme. The school is deliberately not telling the U.S. Coast Guard of its plans, so as to provide a more realistic test for its graduates.

DERELICT TO BE SUNK BY U.S. COAST GUARD: --CNN News Report

There is a rusty, abandonned Japanese freighter that is drifting aimlessly in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Canada. It has been on the high seas for more than one year with no one at the helm. It was, before the massive earthquake and tsunamis, a productive and profitable shrimper. It has been at sea without captain, or crew, and now the U.S. Coast Guard wants to shell, and sink, it. The Japanese name of the vessel translates, roughly, to: "LE CLUB de HOCKEY CANADIEN."

That's disturbing...

Someone DID find this blog by Googling "WOMEN, NAKED, BLOOD". Hmmmmm...... Did not mean to disappoint you.....