Writing samples

 When I googled Glass of Port, here is what I got: " Port glasses traditionally hold a smaller amount of liquid than wine glasses , because Port has a much richer flavour and a higher percentage of alcohol . Port is normally between 19% and 22% compared to wine which is normally between 12% and 14%." This tells me that I would get drunk after drinking one teaspoon full of port. - I haven't taken a drink in nearly 10 years. I used to be a social drinker. Sometimes you could find me drinking a Black Stripe beer while watching the hockey game at Sue Magoos, a local watering hole that burned down one night while I was in Quebec. Later, I developed a taste for cognac. Since I rarely drink and am of small stature, I never drove if I had taken even one shot.  But I have since sworn off booze and I know I will never touch it again. I guess that means I don't have much to say about Port. - But maybe I have something to say about mead. Isn't it cool that you can make an al...

For me, it's no contest. Star Wars wins hands down. That's just because I was born in 1973 so I am old enough to remember a time when Star Wars was king. Star Wars may even be responsible for one of my life's most enduring friendships. My late best friend, Jason, and I were huge Star Wars fans. One Christmas, I got the Death Star and he got the Millennium Falcon. You best believe we put our Star Wars stuff together and had a major playtime. But Star Trek? No, never did anything for me. I can dig the mythos of Spock because I'm fascinated by the same thing he is - humanity's tendency to elevate emotion over logic and why this is necessary if we want to live meaningful lives. But try as I might, I just couldn't get into Kirk and Scotty getting beamed up from alien planets. My Star Wars love affair didn't last long.* My dad likes to tell about how I was so excited to see the first movie that I ran ahead of him to the theatre, certain that the movie would start ...

The surgeon general warns you that this note will probably mention Prince. Several times. I'm sorry, but if you give me "soul music" as a title, where do you think the muse is going to take me? That's right. Straight into Erotic City. But actually, the muse wants to talk about the Blues Brothers first. Does anyone even remember them anymore? The Blues Brothers is the best movie ever to be inspired by characters from Saturday Night Live (yes, it even beats Wayne's World.) Dan Aykroyd and the late John Belushi play a couple of blues musicians who "get the old band together" so they can mount a charity concert that will enable them to pay the taxes for the Catholic orphanage where they were raised.  Later, the Vatican newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano" called the film "a Catholic classic" and even recommended it as suitable viewing for Catholics. I dunno... I seem to recall a bit of profanity, some blasphemy, and a lot of reckless dri...

Because I can live vicariously through the hockey players, man. Hey, like most Canadian kids, I once nursed dreams of being an NHL superstar. I played minor hockey for three years and scored exactly one goal in all that time. I was a terrible athlete, I had zero competitive drive, and I didn't understand the rules, or even the concept, of the game. I also wasn't teachable. I bet the coaches were relieved when they learned I wasn't signing up to play next year. My dad was the very first play-by-play announcer for the Calgary Flames. I should have been a Flames fan because it was the Flames who, indirectly, paid the bills. But I wasn't. I was a Bruins fan, then a Penguins fan, and only became a Flames fan around the turn of 21st century. I was in a bar on December 16, 2000, and I was watching the Maple Leafs playing the Flames. Calgary was up 5-3 at the end of the second period. I hadn't gone into the bar to watch the game, but I wound up staying there; I was transfix...

The mythos behind the Van Morrison song Brown Eyed Girl is legendary. The way I heard it, Van signed a contract saying that he wouldn't get paid royalties for the songs he wrote when he first embarked on a solo career. The way I heard it, at the time, he was so impoverished that he signed that proposal, reluctantly, for some fast cash. How was he to know that Brown Eyed Girl, a song he considered a "throwaway" would go on to be a monster hit. Since its release in the late 60s, Brown Eyed Girl has clocked up more than 10 million radio plays in the US alone. When you consider that an artist should get paid everytime his or song is played on the air, that adds up to a lot of moolah.  But hey, if there's one thing that no artist knows, it's how the general public will react to anything they create. I mean, heck, the American director, Barry Sonnenfeld, turned down an opportunity to direct Forrest Gump so he could work on - wait for it, Addams Family Values. That's...

I know that cocaine comes from the coca plant. I know this mostly because of a crappy private eye novel I wrote back in 1990. The protagonist had busted into a secret underground laboratory in Florida where coca plants were being grown in a massive greenhouse. I doubt that could happen in real life. - Here in Glengarry, botanists warn us to stay away from something called poison parsnip, which is pretty much everywhere. If you get the sap from this plant in your eyes, it can cause blindness. I'm happy they told me this because I was in the habit of collecting sap from random plants and rubbing it in my eyeballs. No more, I tell you. No more. - Seriously though, as a reporter, I've learned a few things about plants. F'rinstance, there's this invasive species called phragmites (pronounced FRAG-MY-TEEZ) that are pretty much everywhere. They are a tall reed grass that spreads like wildfire and out-competes native plants for water and nutrients. A conservation officer once t...

 Normally, I disallow Christmas-themed titles for note-a-day. The reason for this is that I have written about it, exhaustively, in the past and am hoping for new territory to explore. But I have to be pragmatic. I've been doing this project, off and on, for seven years now. When I ask people for titles, it's not uncommon to get something that I've already done before. So I guess I should keep my complaints to a minimum, especially since my constant request for titles has started to become irritating (a few of my contacts tell me they're fatigued with the project and would rather not participate anymore.) So my dad asks me to write about a grandparent's view of Christmas. And since his day fell on December 25, I'm not going to deny him. That's serendipity, after all. Unfortunately, I'm not a grandparent. I am a parent though and I get immense joy giving stuff to B-Man and Kelsey. Sometime in adolescence, most of us figure out that it's better to give...