March 9, 2009 reviews

Steve Martin recently said on a guest appearance on 30 Rock, “You can move to Canada with me. Toronto is like New York, but without all the STUFF”.

Lest you get the impression we watch 30 Rock, we don’t. Why? You can find less mugging for the camera when the Channel 6 weatherman visits an elementary school. 30 Rock is like Ally McBeal without the anorexia. What it has is the opposite: the increasingly hefty Alec Baldwin, easily the most talented Baldwin when it comes to eating your way out of the movie business. Tracy ‘what’s happ’n, chief?’ Morgan is about as funny as a cataract, but is occasionally funny because he inexplicably speaks in 90s Ebonics (we are not sure if this is intentional). It’s also got a guy with weird hair and a hat, who should be funny and Stephen Wright but isn’t and isn’t.

Steve Martin got us thinking…

1. What’s a genuinely funny guy like that doing on a crummy show like 30 Rock? (which we initially thought was 3rd Rock, a possible but unlikely spin-off for John Lithgow) and…

2. Maybe there is something to this Toronto pot-shot.

So, because it’s Monday we decided to lighten the load and ease you good folks into the working week after our killer chimp horror movie list and our 10 Unique Implements That Have Killed People in Horror Movies and do the following little run down for you: NYC VS Toronto, The Big Apple VS The Big Smoke, Gotham VS Hog Town…you get the idea.

New York Versus Toronto:

In New York, people build on vacant lots. In Toronto, the vacant lot becomes a focal point of much discussion.

New York attracts the best and brightest across the nation. Toronto attracts the best and brightest from across the  nation who then go to New York.

In New York, a successful writer gets by with a small apartment. In Toronto, a successful writer teaches on the side.

In New York, a successful young novelist is 31 and single. In Toronto, a successful young novelist is 48, divorced, with two kids.

In New York, there is cut-throat dog-eat-dog competition. In Toronto, there is as well, but a dog-eat-dog municipal leash bylaw is strongly enforced.

New York is the city that never sleeps. Toronto had a 1AM last call in the 90s. (this was fortuitously extended when The Shark Guys achieved the legal age of 19, almost as if we had friends at city hall)

In New York, when a new subway line is needed, it’s built. In Toronto, it’s treated like a vacant lot.

New York has a slogan and t-shirts are hawked with this slogan. In Toronto, there are numerous slogans, none of which stick and certainly not to a T-shirt.

New York has a ferry that offers a spectacular view of the skyline. Toronto has a ferry that offers a spectacular view of the skyline and costs $5.

New Yorkers think their city is great. Torontonians think their city could be world class.

Everyone outside of New York hates it, but flocks to it. Everyone outside of Toronto hates it.

Many movies and TV shows are filmed in New York. Many movies and TV shows are filmed in Toronto, and passed off as New York.

In New York, a month is required to get a sense of the city. In Toronto, a long weekend will suffice if you hustle.

New Yorkers are gruff and unfriendly, until you interact with them and find out this is often not the case. Torontonians are gruff and unfriendly, until you interact with them and…(fill this in if you live elsewhere in Canada)

When abroad, Torontonians are treated like Americans until this is corrected and then they’re treated as Canadians. New Yorkers are treated like New Yorkers.

There is a huge Italian population in New York. There is a huge Italian population in Toronto, yet finding good pizza is difficult, a decent baked ziti next to impossible.

In New York, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. In Toronto, if you can make it there, you try LA or New York.

New York sets trends, Toronto takes these trends and disseminates them throughout Canada (unless it’s music, where we set trends and await New York’s validation).

New York is unlike any other place on earth. Toronto is a much larger, more diverse, Northeastern version of Seattle with a better tower.

New York has Times Square. Toronto has Yonge Dundas Square, which is often compared to Times Square.

New York has a spectacular park enjoyed by everyone. Toronto has a spectacular park enjoyed by people who live near it.

New York has a spectacular bridge that is celebrated on film. Toronto has a spectacular bridge that people frequently jumped off until suicide barriers were erected.

New York has a massive Chinese population and incredible Chinese cuisine. Toronto has a massive Chinese population and incredible Chinese cuisine, out in the suburbs.

In New York there are happy hours and you can buy beer around the clock in a corner store. In Toronto, there are no happy hours and you buy your beer from a government monopoly. During a recent World Cup, local businesses petitioned the city to extend bar hours for the week of the tournament, to accommodate the games’ time difference so locals could enjoy the biggest sporting event in the world—it was turned down.

In New York, there are more than 100 ethnic groups, nearly half the population is foreign-born and there is food from all over the world. In Toronto, there are more than 100 ethnic groups, nearly half the population is foreign-born and there is food from all over the world, but on Mondays, a surprising number of restaurants are closed.

In New York, the subway runs all night. In Toronto, the subway starts running at 6AM (9AM on Sunday)

On the Waterfront, Rear Window, The French Connection, The Godfather, Network, Annie Hall, just to name a few, were set in New York. Both of us at one point lived in Toronto and can’t think of one film actually set here off the top of our heads.

[Editor's note: We've spent considerable amounts of time in both cities. If you'd like to pit one city against another, preferably ones we've never set foot in---we'd appreciate the challenge--- please email us at admin@thesharkguys.com and we'll do our best to accommodate]

October 3, 2008 lists

As we noted in Part I of our Canadian Election 08 Blooper Reel, the gaffe pipeline has been steadily fed by political parties of every persuasion and is showing signs of structural compromise.

Wednesday, we focused on the Liberals, our self-described “natural governing party”, who, at election time, like Mike Tyson pre-Buster Douglas, often feel that they’ve got things in the bag just by showing up. Unfortunately for them, the Liberal Big Red Machine (a nickname they share with the Hells Angels, fitting given the previous government’s penchant for bribery and extortion), is going to take it on the chin this time round. With polls showing that the Liberal War Horse might soon become pet food, we figured it was the ruling Tory’s election to lose.

These past few weeks changed all that, as no sooner had we laid down our Tory win/Tory majority parlay, then the election bookie laughed and dropped the phone. It seems our PM Stephen Harper, the alloy-eyed cyborg economist dressed up in sweater vests to hide his mechanical shell, was nailed using a speech which like the comedy of Dane Cook, was nearly completely lifted from other sources.

In this recent clanger an aide (who’s since had the good sense to step aside before getting his bottom reddened) admitted to lifting lengthy verbatim passages from a speech on Iraq by former Aussie PM John Howard in this, another in a series of embarrassments that have dogged Tory Blue.

Stephen ‘Toastmaster General’ Harper, who’d been busy cramming for the upcoming candidates debates was busted like some C student, and this while tell-all required reading by Julie Couillard looms. She’s a Hells Angels affiliated one-time girlfriend of a former foreign minister in Harper’s government, who’d left sensitive NATO documents in her home. (Minister Bernier, apparently, had some choice words for his old boss the PM in Ms. Couillard’s new book, saying he had a lousy sense of style, was fat, unhealthy and drank too much Pepsi).

Speaking of victuals, recently a bacterial illness resulted in the largest food recall in Canadian history as 19 people died from processed meat from a Toronto plant. Conservative Agricultural Minister Gerry ‘Wisecracker’ Ritz, who apparently had more than a few lines of his sensitivity manual blacked out, called the health scare “Death by 1000 cold cuts,” and when hearing of the latest victim’s passing (and seeing that he was not going to be played off-stage by a Vaudeville piano) cracked that he hoped it was a rival Liberal. Amazingly, he hasn’t hung himself with this gallows humor and remains in cabinet [seen here inspecting food]

Conservative Candidate Chris ‘Macho Man’ Reid: Recently, a terrible story made waves across the continent. A young man was randomly and savagely beheaded aboard a Greyhound bus by a maniacal fellow passenger. How do you handle such a horrific incident when you’re campaigning? Well, three choices: A) You don’t mention it (Hint: This is the best choice). B) You make some sort of call for increased safety on buses. C) You take on the role of armchair Batman and chastise the traumatized people who witnessed the horrific event for not trying to overpower a machete-wielding psychopath. If you chose C, you’re probably Chris Reid. The conservative candidate, who’d apparently slept through the important bits of Ritz’ sensitivity training seminar, resigned after he criticized passengers who “couldn’t muster up any courage or self-sacrifice to intervene”, blaming the lack of action on a “castrated effeminate population.”

Speaking of castrati, at least politically speaking, we now move on to the NDP, a party whose sphere of influence covers shabbily dressed public-sector workers, fans of government-mandated extra-long coffee breaks, Vegans, non-tenured professors, their debt-addled students and the homeless.The NDP has never and will never form a national government, but they can often be relied upon to provide some much-needed color come national election time, and this year they outdid themselves.

First up, the toker twins, Dana “Don’t Bogart Those Joints” Larsen and Kirk “Dave’s Not Here Man” Tousaw. (Larsen is the guy pictured to the left trying to get into the Guinness Book in a way that is a hell of a lot more fun than attempting to best the record for most handstands on a grapefruit). Larsen was the first of the two candidates to drop out, and he presumably did so because the NDP Party has yet to discover Google. Larsen appeared on an episode of “Weedy Wednesday Smokefest,” a mainstay on the now defunct Internet-run Pot-TV (apathy concerning the need for someone to get up and flip on the webcam believed to be chief among this outlet’s reasons for ceasing production).

Larsen was filmed lighting up a handful of joints (see above), as well as dropping acid, and driving a car while high on TMT and smoking a joint. (Editor’s Note: High-five!) His videos are best remembered for the stunning insight he shared with viewers during his acid experiment: “Hey, look at my foot – isn’t that trippy?” Tousaw (right), Chong to Larsen’s Cheech, dropped out of the running when another video surfaced of him sampling the contenders at a marijuana competition.

Both Larsen and Tousaw (for YouTube news clips of both stories click here) were recruited from the MARIJUANA PARTY, so we’re a little baffled as to why the sight of them indulging so reddened Layton’s bald head. Layton too was on Pot-TV, singing to the choir about how “an NDP government” would legalize marijuana, etc., and popular pot spokesman Marc Emery said a deal was cut with the NDP: You push for legalization and we’ll give you the pot-smokers vote. Layton has apparently changed his mind, no doubt after realizing the risk of putting all his political hopes in the hands of a group of people who may or may not decide to stay in for pizza and Playstation come Election Day.

Finally, we’ve saved the creepiest for last. Say hello to Julian “Currently Pointing” West, completing the BC NDP trifecta. Julian stood for environmental protection, caring about the needs of you the voter, and having the scientific truth behind the shrinkage factor in cold water taught in our nation’s schools. Mr. West also dropped out of the race recently after it was found out that he had taken his clothes off in a front of a group of teenage girls at an environmental retreat in 1996. It was initially reported that West merely went for an impromptu skinny-dip, and he said nothing inappropriate happened. But what he initially referred to as a “serious error in judgment,” is now being referred to among the now grown women who were there that day as “the day that creep, the tree-hugger got naked and was evidently happy to see us, without the possibility of anything being in his pockets.”

Two women who were there at the time said that West – a Green Party candidate at the time, so we’re really killing two birds with this entry – stripped down completely in front of the girls who had been facepainting, and, they wrote in a letter to CBC that “Mr. West’s behavior was grossly inappropriate and of a sexual nature.” While witnesses allege that Mr. West was aroused at the time, we would like to raise the possibility that his arms were paralyzed and he was merely pointing out the direction to the free parking. We’re not saying that’s definitely what happened, we’re just throwing that out there.

NDP Leader Jack Layton, again showing the ability to take command of a perennial third-place party in troubling times, said that his party would have to review its screening measures for potential candidates. And by “review”, he meant “have some.”

CLICK HERE FOR PART ONE OF THE SHARK GUYS’ ELECTION ’08 BLOOPER REEL!

October 1, 2008 lists

There are some who would say that Canadian politics are dull. And they would be absolutely right. Once you take out all of the entertaining parts involving French secessionists and the joys of bilking Alberta out of its oil money (where it’s best to look the part before you saddle up with a bag of it, see our Prime Minister*, left), Canadian politics and watching paint dry are about equally entertaining, with the latter slightly edging out politics as at least you can be alone with your own thoughts while watching paint dry. This is something you can’t do while trying to figure out what the hell the Canadian Senate does, who its members are and why you can’t vote for them.

[*Editor's note: Prime Minister Stephen Harper is embroiled in a controversy of his own we'll get to soon---an aide stealing speech excerpts from a former Aussie Prime Minister's speech!]

With everyone caught up in the US election, including, well, the two Canadians who write this blog (see our take on a certain US vice-presidential candidate’s belief that humankind marked the end of a working day by sliding down the tail of a brontosaurus by clicking here), it’s not surprising that the Canadian election campaign running at the same time has fallen into the shadows–that is, until now.

These days, Canadian politics isn’t as boring as the waking paralysis of Liberal Leader ‘I could’ve been a contender’ Stephane Dion speaking on any topic. This year, blogs and the major kick in the pants they mean for those in the mainstream media have resulted in numerous election candidates being caught with their pants down (sometimes literally, sometimes not… more on that later).

Here is a look at some of the more entertaining (well at least if you’re not on the campaign bus of the concerned party) political gaffes to come to light during this election season. We have divided them on party lines, so as to show that bad taste, poor judgment, and, okay we’ll say it – insanity – comes in all shades of the political spectrum. Here in Part One, we take a look at the gaffes of Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s old posse, the Liberals:

Lesley “Black Helicopters” Hughes (Manitoba): You know that office nutcase who seems a bit strange but sort of blends in with the furniture until the inevitable happens and he sounds off on the fact that the moon landing was filmed on a Hollywood sound-stage and that Elvis and Tupac are alive and well and have in fact opened up a B&B in rural Pennsylvania (which the Paul McCartney impostor is helping to fund)? Well Lesley Hughes is the Canadian political equivalent of that guy.

Hughes, a former radio talk show host, so therefore thoroughly experienced in communicating with people who are also a few slices short of a loaf, claimed that the Mossad was involved in a 9/11 plot warning Jewish businesses to get the hell out of dodge before the Twin Towers attack. Such claims can be countered by anyone with the ability to think, read, and recognize the number of Jewish names on the list of those who perished that day. Liberal leader Stephane Dion wisely sent Ms. Hughes political fortunes in the general direction of the mercury in Winnipeg’s thermometers.

Simon “Dead Air” Bedard (Quebec): Who says radio hosts appealing to the tinfoil-hat / chronic insomnia crowd shouldn’t run for public office? Well, we do, and to strengthen our case we present to you Simon Bedard, who had to drop out of the election race recently after comments he made at the time of the Oka crisis in 1990 surfaced. At a time when tensions between First Nations (Native Canadians) and the Army were at an all-time high following a standoff over plans to build a golf course on the site of an ancient burial ground, Bedard chimed in with the following: “You go in there with the army, then you clean up all that. Fifty dead, 100 dead, 125 dead, that would put it out. We bury it and life goes on.” Dion again stopped the campaign bus, told Bedard that it was just a half-hour rest-break, and then ran back on the bus and hit the gas the second Bedard was out of sight.

Ricardo “Send ‘Em Packing” Lopez (Quebec): Another Liberal candidate who resigned after it was discovered he was of the “Let’s put them all on a big boat” school of settling cultural disputes. Lopez said: “I think all the Indians should be sent to Labrador [a region in Atlantic Canada], to go live together and have peace and leave us in peace.”

Garth “Now we’ve never met before, right?” Turner (Ontario): The leader of the Liberal Party appointed Garth Turner as his special adviser for riding and constituency outreach – bad move – and in a profile on Canada’s parliamentary channel [kinda like C-Span and with a comparable audience--those who've had their flights delayed, cranks, shut-ins], Turner was featured in a segment showing what it’s like to go canvassing door-to-door for votes. Cameras followed him to the door of a supposedly random voter in his riding, and he was met with a reception that was uncharacteristically warm coming from someone answering a knock on the door and finding Garth Turner on the front stoop. (Turner was booted out of the Conservative Party’s caucus basically because they found him annoying. This is a party headed up by a man who seems like the kind of guy who would fink you out for smoking on school property, so just think of how truly annoying Turner must have been).

One of the parliamentary channel’s 37 or so viewers recognized the “random” constituent as the son of Turner’s own campaign manager. Turner himself apologized on his blog, though not without some slippery words protesting that he did not intentionally involve himself in such a carny-like deception.

Andrew “I said what now?” Telegdi (Ontario): Admittedly, this was a fairly minor gaffe in comparison to the others here, but it was also one of the funnier ones. In an all-candidates debate, Liberal Telegdi misspoke in a speech, and thrilled every Conservative in the audience by announcing that his “Number 1 job is to elect Stephen Harper.” Wags in the crowd were quick to pounce on that and say that the Libs were well on their way to mission accomplished in that regard, and Telegdi for his part, once he realized “in horror” what he said, posted his own YouTube video in which he cleared up the mistake – he meant to say “eject.”

(CLICK HERE FOR PART TWO OF THE SHARK GUYS ELECTION ‘08 BLOOPER REEL)