PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Winnipeg Day 3

After sitting about til 9:30 Mike and I went over to CostCo. It's a warehouse store, one where you have to be a member. The stuff there is pretty cheap. Mike took me there a couple of years ago to buy boxes of chocolate bars. We were getting chicken for a BBQ supper, some salad and french bread. I bought two big bags of McCormicks Marshmallow strawberries and a big bag of McCormicks marshmallow bananas. I have been a fan of these since I was a kid. I couldn't find much info on McCormicks, they seem to be part of a bigger company called Beta Brands. There is another company, Dare, that also makes marshmallow strawberries and they are slightly different. I prefer the Dare version, texture wise the McCormicks candies are a bit softer. I usually pick up some of each, if possible, and eat the McCormicks first. The marshmallow bananas are just like circus peanuts. If you don't know what circus peanuts are, here's a dillhole who doesn't like them to explain. Here's a rebuttal. Here's the Spangler page on CP, it has a tiny bit of history. Back in the early 90's I did three issues of a fanzine called Spangler. It was after seeing the name on the top of a Spangler brand circus peanut. I even wrote to them and asked if they knew the origin of the candy. The president of the company wrote back to me and told me what he knew. Not to much, as it turned out, but he was nice enough to take the time to write so I put his letter in an issue of Spangler and sent him a copy. I never heard from him again. Who know's what he thought. Here's a funny bit from The Straight Dope people. They even have a page in the Wikipedia. I prefer the Spangler version over the Brach's and the inferior Melster. Here's a nice bit from the Capitol Times.

After a stop at the Safeway to get more food we headed back to Mike's where we wasted more time and had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. I hadn't had one in years. Nice. When Mike started to clean I left. I just don't like to see that, cleaning. I headed to another comic shop, Comics America, owned by a guy I used to hang out with 25 years ago. Joe Krolick has been hawking comics for ages, since the 60's and his shop is much packed with comics and toys and gaming crap. I hadn't seen him since I moved away in December 1978. We spent a good hour plus yaking about the past and the comic biz over a coffee at the local Starbucks. It was fun to catch up. I wound up with some nice comics to fill in the gaps of my Disney collection. Before I knew it it was nearly 4 pm and I had to get my ass moving.

I picked up mom and we returned to Mike and Susan's house for a BBQ. Joining us were Steve George and his wife Val, and Tony Dalman and his daughter Claire. They all have their own blogs too. After stuffing our faces on Mike's cooking, we sat and yakked for a while. It was fun. Eventually mom wanted to go home and I ran her back. Nice thing about Winnipeg it's not so far to anywhere, no matter how you go. After returning to Mike's all that were left were Mike, Steve and Tony. They left after a while and I am blogging before hitting the sack. Staying up to late, that's my motto. I spent too much time looking for marshmallow strawberry info, of which there is so little available.

Winnipeg Day 2

Well another crappy night trying to sleep. I seem to have so many. This time it's just SBS, Strange Bed Syndrome, with a side of pillow angst. I finally got to sleep after 2 am and woke several times through the night. At 7:30 they started jackhammering on the street outside and that bounced around the closely packed houses inMike and Susan's neighborhood. Time to get up. I had coffee and sat with Mike who was sort of hung over. He went back to bed and I went to visit mom.

Mom lives in a large senior building. It not a bad building. Rent's fixed and cheap, about 400 bucks Canadian for a one bedroom apartment. Six stories up with a nice view toward downtown. He sat and chatted about stuff. Then it was off to lunch at the Salisbury House, and a trip to WalMart. SH is a chain of resturants in the Winnipeg area, partially owned by Burton Cummings of the Guess Who. I like the Cheese Nips. That's their version of a hamburger. I like them, something in the combination of tastes really appeals to me and you can not find anything like it anywhere. They have been in the Winnipeg area for decades. My mother was telling me today that she went to the first one back in the early fifties, when she moved into town. There's a picture of the first resturant, a small place with the distintive red roof, in the resturant we visited. The SH web site is not very informative, only telling where the 23 Sals are located.

Did you know that Winnie the Pooh was named after a bear in the London Zoo that was named after Winnipeg. Here's something about that. Here's kind of fun page on the A-Z of Winnipeg Culture. I didn't know what I was missing.

After eating and picking up a ton of bottled water at the WalMart for mom, we headed back to her apartment. We spent the afternoon complaining about things and catching up on more gossip. Dinner was some take out from Chicken Delight just across the street. It was fair but I was already too full from eating at the Sals. I don't eat as much when I am home by myself. I rarely eat a big meal twice in a day anymore. Just some light snacks, fruit and cereal in the evening. After a while I headed back to Mike and Susan's, stopping at the Safeway and Chapters. The first is a grocery store, if you don't know and the other is a bookstore. I found some Eccles Cakes at the Safeway. I don't know if I will like them. I will let you know tomorrow. I have only heard of them before. In two Monty Python sketches. One with the house that's a lifeboat and the other about the crappy airline. At Chapters I found a new hardcover by Eva Ibbotson that isn't out in the US. It's an English book, they turn up in Canada pretty regularily.

After sitting with my hosts a while they went to bed one by one and I wound up here in front of the computer.

Winnipeg Day 1

I got up at 5:30 Wednesday am and drove to Winnipeg. I got on the road about 6:10 and arrived there at 1:30. Normally I stop for lunch but this time I just sailed on through and ate in the car. I still had to stop every hour or so to pee and stretch my legs. I started with a 12 oz. can of diet coke and followed that with a 20 oz. and a 16 oz. coffee.  Then I nursed a 20 diet coke to the border. I had to pee a lot near the end. I have been going back to the home soil most every year since I left in December 1978. My mother and a few friends still live there. Many of the other people I knew have moved away or disappeared into the ether. I haven't done a good job keeping in contact with them, sometimes it's better to move on.

The drive wasn't too bad. I have come to dislike driving long distances. Winnipeg is about 485 miles by road. It's a vastly unchanging landscape, flat and uninteresting. Most trips I play the stereo and hope for the best. It would be nice to have company but rarely does anyone come along. I think Joe W. was the last person to make the trip and I was informed tonight that it was about 5 years ago. That was the year of the butter. Back then, my mother has this boyfriend named Tom. Tom was a huge Yugoslavian. He'd left the real old country years ago and somehow settled in Winnipeg, bringing only ignorant old-school ways with him. I had been in Winnipeg about ten years when they hooked up and eventually moved in together. Moms? What are you gonna do? My brother and I never did warm to the guy. My mom was happy.

Anyway, Tom, thinking that the Manitoba Dairy Council was putting beef fat in the butter, asked me if I could bring some "good American butter". I said sure. Anything for mom. It doesn't pay to argue sometimes. That year Joe and I drove to Winnipeg, in Joe's car, I don't remember why we didn't go in mine. There we were in Joe's Trans Am with Alabama license plates, Joe living on the west coast with an east coast drivers license. I maybe a bit fuzzy on the exact details but Joe isn't reading this so who's going to correct me. I was a Canadian living in the USA. Something must have popped up in the mind of the customs guy and he said pull over to the sheltered area. That's where they put their eyeballs up close on ya. I had a lot of stuff in Joe's trunk, gifts for people, lots of American beer and several pounds of butter. I always bring more than people ask me for, so I had several pounds of butter. The guard started to go through the stuff and when he got to the butter, carefully packed on ice, he paused. I went into the long and complicated story about the beef fat and my mother's boyfriend and the butter. He sent us packin'.

When I visit Winnipeg I usually stay at my oldest friend Mike's place, he and his wife Susan have not lived in sin in various places together for 25 years and I have stayed in most of them. Joe and I stayed over at their house that trip. Next day I went to my mother's house, with the butter, armed with a conversation from some nice lady over at the Manitoba Dairy Council. She said they do not put beef fat in the butter. No at all. I got into a big argument with Tom and he called me an asshole for challenging him and left for the day. Get this, I asked Tom how he determined that there was beef fat in the butter. He clarified some butter and it sat out for a couple of days and it smelled like rancid beef fat. My brother and his family were also visiting my mother. We all celebrated getting rid of Tom for the day. My mother finally got fed up with him a couple of years later and threw him out. He later went crazy, bought a building with all of his saved money, intending to open an acupuncture shop. He had the needles, so he was all set. No skill or licence, but what's that to stop a crazy person. The washers and dryers were still there from the failed laundromat. He would have been better off re-opening that. Needless to say when he could not pay any of his bills, he was declared a imbecile ward of the province and he died a short while later. I don't miss him at all.

No butter this trip, just books. I have about a hundred and fifty pounds of books in my trunk. Stuff my mother might like or not. She plans to keep the stuff she is interested in and will give the rest to her friends church. They deliver books to seniors and sell some to make money for things they need. I can't get anything for most of them but that's ok, they're going from my house. Yahoo.

I could not raise Mike, who was home but upstairs. There was so much noise from the city digging up the street, it's no wonder he couldn't hear me. I went and bought some comics at a shop way up Portage Ave. Got some nice stuff. Came back to Mike's to find him painting outside. After sitting and chatting while watching the street workers it was suppertime. I didn't want the fishy pasta dish Mike was making, so I went down the street and got a fatboy from George's. If you haven't had a fatboy, you might be missing something. It's a regular burger with the usual lettace, tomato, onions, pickles and chili on it. I think it's native to Winnipeg, let me know if this is untrue. They sure are good but I couldn't eat there all the time. The homemade fries are also great. Mike says they boil them in water briefly before they deep fry them. A killer meal, better enjoyed on a yearly trip to Winnipeg. Just like the cheese nip. More on that later.

After dinner and some sitting on the screened porch we were joined by Steve and Tony for beer and chatting. It's always enjoyable. Tomorrow off to see mom.

World of the Dragonlords

I just finished the Gemstone graphic novel World of the Dragonlords and really liked it. It's a fun adventure story staring Huey, Dewey and Louie, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge McDuck. It's by Byron Erickson and Giorgio Cavazzano, and it's truely an international book. Erickson the writer, is an American, and he has lived in Denmark for 15 years. He's currently the Creative Director at Egmont, and he has been their Managing Editor and the Editor-in-Chief. Cavazzano is Italian and he's been drawing Disney comics since the 60's. In his forward Erickson tells of meeting with the German Disney comic publisher in 1999. It was during a sales slump meeting that the idea for Huey, Dewey and Louie riding dragons is born. From that single image the novel length story is fleshed out and illustrated by Cavazzano. After taking two years to write and draw, it sits in a drawer for a while longer. Done as a serial, it first sees publication in Donald Duck Sonderheft, a German monthly "aimed at fans and collectors". This is in early 2003. It was followed by publication in Italy, Finland, Brazil and finally here in the US. I like the part of the world that does stuff like that. Some of those other parts suck.

The cool but frustrating thing about Disney comics? Too much good material being done in other countries, too little of which has yet to show up here in the US. The I.N.D.U.C.K.S. website lists over 169,000 stories. You can't read that over the long weekend. That's the Italian cover to Zio Paperone 165. It's pretty exciting. The US version has the dragons on the back. That's my only complaint. Not as good a front cover as a back cover. Same cover just with no dragons. What's up with that? That and the ink wears off of Gemstone books, just from ordinary handling. It happened to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Both books, along the edge of the spine the ink starts to rub off. Need some more varnish on there guys.  Still, that's my only complaint. The interiors of the books are printed really nicely and the color is great.

On the whole Gemstone has been doing a great job. A very nice looking and rather elegant line. Lots of old and new material in several formats. I hope this graphic novel format might bring a few new fans, especially kids. The story has kids as the hero's. There are dragons, magic, humor, lots of action and some really nice art. One whole chapter has no dialog balloons. It tells the story of the big fight with pictures only. It's very beautiful, and it's not too scary, although a bit sad. There is some jeopardy for everyone, the evil troll like Morgs have taken the humans as slaves and Huey, Dewey and Louie join the resistance to rescue their Uncles, Donald and Scrooge. And the dragons are just so damn cute. It's a really nicely produced book, no matter what compaints I have, and I enjoyed reading it and will reread it or at least look at the pretty pictures again soon.  It's a nice addition to my comic library.

Gemstone has two more interesting items coming out, along with their regular line of comics. The first in October is a 64 page book, Somewhere in Nowhere. Written by Carl Barks in 1996 and drawn by John Lustig, the story didn't get published until 2000 and in Italy, luckily in both English and Italian. Now it's coming here, along with a reprint of North of the Yukon, a Barks story from 1965. Both stories are set in the Yukon, a place Scrooge made some of his early fortune, and some good laughs and adventure. Those are the stories I like the best, the adventure stories, Scrooge, Donald and the boys searchin' for treasure and finding adventure on top of it. I'll try to remember to let you know if I liked it.

The other project is a reprinting of the complete Walt Disney 1 pager's that ran in Good Housekeeping magazine from 1934 to 1944. Adaptations of Disney cartoons in verse with nice little paintings. This 360 page book is only 30 bucks. Read the interview with David Gerstein and buy the book of Mickey and the Gang Classic Stories in Verse. I am mostly interested in the pictures, not being a big verse fan. Again, remember, like.

Friday Night Movies 23

It was just Joe and me, over at my house. Sperhauk was sick and Greg and Mike were out of town. We watched Waking Ned Devine. It was pretty funny. A 1998 film writen and directed by Kirk Jones. He was a commercial director, WND was his first film, his second film is Nanny McPhee (due out soon). WND is set in a small Ireland coast town, where two old gents find their friend dead in his bed. He's clutching the winning lottery ticket to a nearly 7 million pound win. And he's dead. And he's got no kin. The two live codgers eventually enlist the town, a total of 52 people, in hoodwinking the lotto into believing that one of them is Ned. Humour ensues. The two old guys seem to take off their clothes alot. There is naked mototcycle riding. You don't see that very often. It's a nice comfortable low impact comedy with lots of characters up to some shenanigans, and foreigners are always funnier. The scenery reminds me of Local Hero or The Secret of Roan Inish or even The Shipping News. There's something about the stark coast lands that I like. I would like to live there but it's far from everything that might save your life. Joe suggested getting my own helicopter. Cheaper and safer to watch it in a movie.

Be Cool was our second feature. It was the sequel to Get Shorty, directed by F. Gary Gray earlier this year. I had seen it before, at work, while we were stuffing Benefits Brochures into packets for everyone at DCI. Joe hadn't and it was okay with me. Gray has directed a few other movies that I liked, The Italian Job, The Negotiator, Set it Off and Friday. I haven't see A Man Apart with Vin Diesel, but I will, just waiting until it gets cheaper. You don't have to wait long sometimes, a year, and you can find stuff for under ten bucks on sale. Be Cool was a pretty good sequel, I hate to say it wasn't a good as the first because it is an entertaining piece. I thought later about this and wondered if part of it was my lower interest in the music industry over the movie biz. John Travolta returns as Chili Palmer, with Uma Thurman as the romantic interest. There are a ton of good character actors like Robert Pastorelli, James Woods and Harvey Keitel, smaller parts for Danny DeVito, Steven Tyler and Seth Green. I especially enjoyed The Rock as a flamboyant and somewhat innocent singer/actor wannabe who is bodyguard, chauffeur and chief toady to Vince Vaughn's Raji. It's Vince at his most annoying here, Raji has been figuratively touched by the tar brush, converting his original jewish background into a black pimped-up hustler. He's the mack-daddy of his own little universe. You get to see him on fire, so it all balances out and order is restored to the universe.I also liked the music producer played by Cedric the Entertainer, his speech to the Russian is simply wonderful. Keep an eye out for Andre Benjimin's Dabu and the always beautiful Debi Mazar as a local cop.

Strange Bedfellows

I picked up a copy of Employee of the Month at Target when it was on sale. I was liking the cast. Matt Dillon narrates this fun modern noir tale. Christina Applegate and Steve Zahn lead off a nice bunch of character actors in this sordid tale of adultery and criminality. All three of them are great. I hate to give anything away, it has some nice stuff at the end, suffice to say some people get pretty fucked up when all is said and done. Dave Foley, Peter Jason and Paul Doley all have small parts in the movie, especially Paul Doley, but the little bits are fun to watch. Actor, writer and first time director Mitch Rouse has a pretty fun image of the world. He's not afraid of going for the laugh, especially the dark ones. He was a co-creator of Strangers With Candy, and wrote the screenplay to last years Without a Paddle. Employee of the Month is a lot better than that. I laughed out loud. For the few Strangers with Candy fans, you can see an amazing amount of effort at Jerry Blank dot com.

Atlas Shrugged

Lance, the guy with the hat at DreamHaven, passed on a cool new webpage. bubblegum fink. It's a mishmosh of popular media. I liked it and a lot of the crap talked about. Comics, movies, science fiction, tv and much much more, with lots of color pictures.  Anyway, it's fairly good reading and I will bookmark it to return to. His link list is huge and there might be some interesting places to go look at. Never know what you'll find. One entry was about Atlas comics. This was a very short lived company but their place in comic history is important. They changed the comic industry. They were responsible for a huge improvement in artists rights. Things like owning the characters that you create and getting originals back.  The article is long but interesting reading. It's not just a comic history, it's a labor story. I remember, vaguely, those comics. The article says they weren't very good but I don't remember. Most of it wasn't very good. I was mostly interested in the art. And there were a lot of weird things going on in the comic industry at that time. The Comic Code Authority was being broken, bit by bit, and the publishers were trying all sorts of new comic ideas in an effort to keep readership. Horror was pretty big. I read a lot of horror comics. The industry has shrunk over the years. Some of the issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories were selling in the low millions back in the 40's. Now a quarter millions the top of the heap with the big majority way under a hundred thousand. As I have complained about before, WDC&S only sells around 4000 in the US. Pitiful. Makes you weap. The only good thing about that is not too much compitition for the back issues.