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I hope you all took my advice and went out to see Bon Cop, Bad Cop. I don’t know how long it’s going to be in the theatres. They never advertise Canadian films as well as the American ones, so I doubt most people know it’s out there. Or they look at the poster and assume it’s going to be crap, which it isn’t.

I had some fun on the weekend, where I helped someone film a documentary covering the selection of the new federal Green Party candidate. I’ve never been to a political rally before, and I was right in there with the CBC, CTV, and CPAC. Wearing my trusty press card I moved through the crowd and shot what I could. You may have seen me on TV. Apparently I popped up on the CBC and CTV footage here and there. My arm sure got a good workout, having to carry around a Sony PD-150 from 9 am to around 6. It’s amazing how heavy a light camera can get when you hold it up for hours at a time.

Now, having spent the day seeing the behavior of the Green Party I have some interesting insights that you might want to consider come election time. They aren’t the wishy washy granola crunching Greens that many believe they are. They aren’t the European style Greens in any way. There seems to be two groups that comprise the Green Party, and the most dominant seems to be the Eco Capitalists. The serious eco-leftists seem to have been pushed aside. Yes I’m sad to say that the Green Party is actually right wing when it comes to economics. They have a lot of support from people in agribusiness, you know people that make money off the environment and want to ensure that there is a sustainable environment for them to continue making money off of. The problem is, is that they are still essentially capitalists. They don’t like a strong government that is going to tell them how to run things through legislation. They don’t want rules per say, but they think they are going to save the world through tax incentives. Though tax incentives can be useful, nothing serious is going to get done about the environment without legislation. Things generally don’t get done unless something dramatic happens that galvanizes public support, or the government passes legislation. Remember seat belts, air bags, product safety standards? Nah, we should do away with all that and let the corporate sector police itself! Throw a few tax incentive bones to guide them in the right way. Pah! So if you want to protect the environment, you might want to reconsider the Green Party of Canada. Do a little research and you will be surprised by how many Green Party people are ex-Conservatives! Hell, the new leader they just elected is a former Brian Mulroney Tory! I have a hard time believing that so many people can change their beliefs so drastically. The Greens sure ain’t Leftists.

Well on a completely unrelated matter, I hit a milestone this week. I passed the 100 pages mark in my book. It’s been going fast and fierce which is good. I’m really proving that having a well laid outline helps. I feel like it’s already been written in my head, so I just sit down and type to get it out of my head. I need the space for all the rocks. I still don’t know how long the first book is going to be, but I figure it might be around 400 to 500 pages. I crossed the 100 pages point and it’s still generally around the beginning of the story where the plot really gets moving. It’s a lot of fun, and I’ve let a few people take a look at what I have so far, which has been favourable. I’m kind of excited because I didn’t realize that I might be writing a fantasy book that people who don’t read fantasy might enjoy. It’s going to be a busy week, so I don’t know how much time I will have to write, but I want to have at least another 30 pages written this week. Maybe more If I get the time.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop, Good Movie!

I saw this film Bon Cop, Bad Cop on Saturday. I remember seeing the trailer last month and was excited by the idea of seeing a Canadian movie that didn’t have something to do with wheat fields, tragedy and necrophilia. There seems to be this conspiracy to ensure films that could only interest a small demographic get made in Canada. When you think of all the extremely successful Canadian talent that has gone across the border, you wonder what Canadian film would look like if they had stayed and took the hard road of building something here.

Well Bon Cop, Bad Cop is that answer. I haven’t laughed this hard watching a movie in quite some time. Bon Cop, Bad Cop is living proof that Canadian movies don’t suck. It’s a buddy cop movie that reinvents itself by satirizing everything Canadian. A lot of Canadian movies tend to scream at you “hey we’re Canadian!” and end up losing sight of the fact that it’s more important that the movie be good. This film never forgets to be good.

People in English Canada have fallen into apathy in regards to film. Make no mistake. 99% of what you seen are FOREIGN films. Everything you see is not us, it’s either American or the rest of the world. See your own country for a change and I think you will be surprised that you will enjoy it.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop is easily the best-written movie I have seen this year, and anyone who knows me, knows that I am one of the pickiest filmgoers out there. So I recommend that you take as many people as you can to see this movie. See it before Hollywood tries to take it out of the theatres!



Captain Canuck says "your country needs you." So go see a Canadian film today! This time they rolled out a good one for us!

Two Days of Wood..

Well I have been MIA from my blog for a while so I thought I’d let you all in on what I’ve been up to.
The cycling has taken a back seat. Wasn’t as much fun cycling on my own, since my brother had to go off to Montreal to train people to be WWI soldiers for a film. Very cool stuff. I got to take care of his cat, and I was lucky she didn’t jump all over the shelves knocking stuff down. Her nickname is Monkey for a reason.
Since I finished my book outlines, I started writing. It has been fast and furious, and I am now on page 79. I think the book is going to be a long one, because the story is just getting started. I better be able to find a publisher. That of course will be the really hard part.


The past week I spent at a friend’s cottage. They are perhaps the most generous people I have ever met.



I like camping so, weather permitting; I always bring my own accommodation as you can see above. There is this little patch of clear flat ground on the otherwise bumpy landscape that fits my tent nicely.



The cottage is lived in all year round, and heated with wood stoves. So I make a habit of helping to chop wood to be stored for winter. This weekend turned into a major blitz though. We started chopping, hauling, chain sawing at about 9:30 or 10:00 on Saturday and didn’t stop until it was time for dinner. Imagine lifting weights for 8 hours straight and you get the idea. Then on Sunday we started the day with lifting all the bits of wood we chopped up and moved them to the shed where they are stored. We did this until about 4. So we had two days of heavy lifting in a row.



My soft city skin got pretty scratched up, but you have to expect that.
So I’m back in the city, and last night I was writing under candlelight on my deck, and for the first time since I have been downtown (almost 4 years), I heard the squawking and screaming of raccoons! On top of that I started to get eaten alive by mosquitoes! I have never seen mosquitoes downtown! I had to deal with both critters while at the cottage on an almost daily basis. Did I perhaps bring them back with me?!
Well that’s it for now. Not much more to report. Back to the boring city. I’m hoping to make it back to the cottage again in September to help out with the wood chopping. I do take a great deal of satisfaction in that every time I show up, we chop as much wood as they get around to in a month (they have like, 14 jobs, and two kids, makes it difficult to waltz off into the woods to chainsaw). I plan to document the whole thing next time, and set up a time-lapse camera in the shed to show just how much wood gets moved. It might be funny, as we get more tired throughout the day, we might slow down so much that even in the time-lapse photography we end up looking like we are at normal speed!