Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas friends and readers, and also readers who are friends, and friends who tell me they read but really don't.

And for those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, Happy Tuesday!

I have nothing for you to read here today, so you have no excuse to avoid your family. Spend time with them. They're the only ones you got. Unless of course you are a celebrity, in which case you could adopt a whole new family from Africa in 3.5 business days.

Rock & Tackle

From the fall of 2002 to the summer of 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) hit Toronto. The disease developed first in China and was then carried over via a Toronto woman who was back in China visiting her family.


Less then 20 percent of all SARS cases in Toronto were fatal, yet an even bigger fallout occurred. The city's hotel occupancy was cut in half, tour bus business' teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, and everything from shopping malls to major theater productions were hit hard.

The city was in a crisis and the economy was in trouble, enter the Rolling Stones.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and... those other two guys came up with a plan to headline a massive concert to help revive tourism and the economy within the city. This is where our story starts.

Let me set the stage for you, July 30th 2003. The former military base Downsview Park was played host to 500,000 audience members and fourteen bands for a day long concert.

My brother Will, our friend Dan, and my girlfriend at the time arrived at 6am.

A few hours later we were all let in, going through security checks we rushed the stage, everyone laying down blankets and beach towels to mark their little piece of the park.

The ground was littered with them, with small patches of grass between. This made leaving your blanket for any pricey refreshment or piece of merchandise a difficult maneuver.

Bounding over blankets you felt like something out of some lame, forgotten, arcade game. Atari's Blanket Dodger 3000.

If you made it over beach towels and blankets you had to face another obstacle, what we dubbed the gauntlet. A crush of people in an incredibly small corridor pushing every which way. If you were to loose your footing, as I nearly did several times, no one would see you again until the poor volunteer who is picking up empty water bottles the next day discovers your body, all smushed to a pancake like Wile E. Coyote on a work day.

So truly there was very little incentive to leave your spot under the scorching sun. Waiting some seven hours before the first act took the stage, waiting over twelve before the big ticket acts like AC DC and The Rolling Stones performed.

The monotony and sweating felt like we were part of some mass sauna sit in. We had packed lunches that were quickly disappearing simply because it was the only thing one could do.

Off in the distance, over on the other side of the stage someone had brought a beach ball, throwing it into the crowd it bounced its way around.


I watched it with fascination, suddenly feeling less judgmental of a cats strange love for a ball of string.

I waited and willed the ball to come over, to have something to do, to see how far into the crowd I could hit it, to see what way the wind would take my mighty volley.

Hours went by, but the ball never reached me.

Several feet (or five beach towels) away from us a group of guys were forming a human pyramid.

Now maybe it was a love for Egyptology, maybe one too many viewings of Bring it On, or perhaps just shear boredom from waiting six hours in the hot summer sun... we may never know for sure, but for some reason my girlfriend was compelled to join in.

"Be back in a second!" she squealed, the idea of doing something beyond controlling the rationing the last juice box bringing joy to her words.

Before I could say anything she was off. Bounding over towel and blanket alike she began claiming her way to the top of the tower of human.

She tops off the pyramid. Like an angel topping the Christmas tree. She's my angel I thought, the sunlight causing her to radiate beauty. I was simply lost in thought until...

"Take it off!" shouted someone in the crowd.

"Take it off!" joined another, and before long we were in full blown chant mode. A crowd of the countries most stoned, the countries most drunk, or simply the nations most sun burnt were all chanting for the girl on top of the pyramid, my girl, to take off her top.

Everyone is chanting, and she, the drama class geek, is soaking in the stardom, toying with the crowd. With me.

So I do the only thing I can think of. I take off running towards the pyramid.

Now I haven't put much thought into what I will do once I get there, and 'there' is fast approaching. I am only a couple of feet away, my eyes locked on my girlfriend like bull on matador. Her top is now off, and with it so am I.

My feet leave the ground as I hurl myself toward the human tower, arms spread.

What happens next I like to think of as a tackle, though onlookers may describe it as a belly flop. The human pyramid collapses like a house of cards, a mass of body parts land atop of me looking, I can only imagine, like a game of Twister gone horribly wrong.

Now somehow this made her view me as overbearing, over protective, and just plain over. As she disappeared into the gauntlet I was prepared to give chase, until I noticed that beach ball heading my way. Deciding I had waited to long not to be a part of this I braced myself, connected, and sent the ball flying into another part of the crowd.

By the time I had finished and turned around my girlfriend was swallowed by the sea of people. Yes bouncing that beach ball had cost me the ability to run after her, you know I guess we all give in to the crowd from time to time.

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The Snowball Effect

I never took up skiing till I was thirteen. Call me crazy but in those thirteen years never once did I have the desire to slide two anorexic sleds to my feet and haul myself down a hill towards the awaiting snow covered pine trees.

When I was thirteen though skiing was all I could think about, for there was an upcoming school trip to the slopes, and my lack of skiing ability would not stop me.

How hard could it be right? You go down a hill from side to side, I mean it wasn’t exactly rocket science… or talking to a girl, I figured.

Just to be on the safe side though I decided I needed a lesson, and after some convincing on how important my new found career in skiing would be, my parents saw it that way too.

The lesson was a mere hour long and to my frustration we never got off the bunny hill, still I knew I was ready for bigger and faster things, for in my mind, the ski trip with my school, a mere stepping stone to the Olympics!

And so my first ski trip began with promise. I went up with a pack of friends, but within seconds of arriving at the top they had already started back down.

I on the other hand didn’t see the rush, I stood there at the top of that hill for some time, just taking in the scenery below, trying to figure out which parts of it would hurt less to crash into then the others.

Finally I started down and the scenery grew larger and larger.

It was coming closer at an alarmingly fast rate, as was one skier who had the misfortune of being in front of me.

Our skis were about to touch and as he turned to look at me, an expression reserved for serial killers and door to door Jehovah’s witnesses etched into his face. I knew I had to do something quick.

I swerved.

Next thing I knew I was in a ditch, my skis and my legs in one big knot.

Within seconds I noticed two people staring down at me from where I had fallen.

“Are you okay?”

“I can’t get up,” I said as I tried to untangle my skis.

The two began panicking and calling for help.

“No, no, it’s just my skis are all crossed and…”

They weren’t listening.

Soon I had gathered my own little audience, watching me, discussing me, taking bets on my injuries.

I was about to explain that it was just my skis… about to, till I noticed a small group of girls I went to school with had gathered. I decided paralyses might be less embarrassing then the inability to untangle myself.

It was a good theory, till the ski patrol showed up with snowmobiles and stretcher in toe.

As they went to action saving my life, I wondered when the best time would be to break the news of the mix up to them.

They were well trained, those heroes of the hills, for I was untangled in seconds and ready to be lectured.

I learnt a valuable lesson that day so many years ago… when you are out of control, let the other guy get out of YOUR way.

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Lincoln in the Audience

I am down in the United States right now, doing what I love to do when I am in this country, explore the television offerings from the country that created the medium.

There is one trend I’ve noticed recently, a lot of shows on the History Channel have been showing different theories about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, inspired I assume by the upcoming sequel to Nicolas Cage’s film National Treasure which deals with missing pages from John Wilkes Booth’s diary.

It feels like people have gone Abraham Lincoln crazy, at least on the History Channel, VH1 isn’t exactly running ‘I Love the 1860’s’ but at least on one network Lincoln is in vogue.

The theories range from lone gun man to Confederate conspiracy, each with their very own show. So I got to thinking, why should I miss out on this bandwagon. Why can’t I have a show presenting what may have really happened to Abraham Lincoln?

So I’ve got my diligent researchers here at Cidiot to look this thing up and I now present to you my theory of what really happened the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, a theory which I hope the History Channel will purchase for adaptation into a two hour prime time event.

The basic facts are these: On April 14^th, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln and his wife attended the play ‘Our Amercian Cousin’. It was here that Booth snuck into the Presidential Box and shot Lincoln with a .44 caliber Derringer.

But what were Booth’s motivations? Did he act alone? These are the questions historians have set to answer for over a century.

Submitted for your approval (but more importantly for the approval of the executives at The History Channel) is one such theory. John Wilkes Booth did not set out to murder the President of the United States that fateful day. Instead he merely wanted to take in a performance of a play that was making a cultural impact.

See Booth was born to a family that lived for the theater. His father an actor, his mother an actress, he was raised on Shakespeare and breast milk… as this was a period before there was such a thing as the Gerber Baby and so William Shakespeare and breast milk had to fill a void canned baby food would eventually dominate.

Lincoln as we know also attended this performance of Our American Cousin but because of pressing Presidential business he arrived late. It’s not that he meant to be late, but when you are the leader of a country in the midst of civil war punctuality can occasionally be difficult.

And so poor Abraham Lincoln missed the beginning of the play and was forced to ask those around him in the Presidential Booth what exactly was going on.

“What did I miss?”

“Wait, who is she again?”

These were the questions reported to be whispered by Lincoln, who was by all accounts a loud whisperer, a fatal flaw that irritated many in the audience below throughout the first act.

These loud whispers bothered none more then Booth, a student of the theater who really didn’t appreciate the narrative being disturbed by the lanky man in the balcony. But what could be done? You cannot exactly shush the President of the United States.

During the intermission the President got himself caught up on who was who and why different characters were doing what they were doing. Meanwhile Booth’s girlfriend got him to calm down a little. Eyewitnesses say that had the night ended here disaster would have been diverted. But there were still two more acts in Tom Taylor’s play.

In act two the President revealed another personality quirk, something I have dubbed the Parrot Chuckle. For instance when the character of Lord Dundreary (the 19^th Century Biff Tannen) delivered the mixed up aphorism “birds of a feather gather no moss,” the President would laugh along with the rest of the audience only that mid laugh he would repeat the last half of the funny line, in this instance “gather no moss.” Occasionally this would be followed by a knee slap, a shake of the head, and the words “God how do they come up with this stuff?”

This drove John Wilkes crazy, and eventually he snapped. Raising a finger to his mouth and looking up at the Presidential Box he issued a loud and forceful shush.

The President did not take notice. He continued Parrot Chuckling through the next act and a quarter as Booth’s shushing became louder and more constant to the horror of his girlfriend.

It should be noted that although Booth’s night at the theater had been ruined, he had not been pushed to homicide yet. This would come about in act three, scene two.

When we piece together eyewitness accounts we learn that President Lincoln performed the equivalent to the modern act of the teenager who sits through a movie text messaging the whole time, he began dictating a telegraph.

“Dear Ulysses STOP I am watching that American Cousin play you were going on about STOP You were right man, that Edward Sothern is pretty LMAO funny STOP Some people are coming over to hit the pipe after STOP Major Rathbone will be there STOP Should be off the hook STOP Join us in the west wing smoking room?”

John Wilkes Booth snapped, he got up and stormed off to the Presidential Box.

The timing was unfortunate for two reasons. One, it meant John Wilkes Booth missed his favorite line, "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap..." And two, it meant the last words that Abraham Lincoln would hear were “Sockdolgizing old man-trap.”

And so was the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, killed not for decisions made in office but for a general disregard of theater manners. Perhaps a far less dramatic end than history often leads us to believe, but for anyone who has ever sat near an obnoxious audience member, it’s a relatable tale.

Alright History Channel, my cell phone is on and I am ready to start receiving my residual cheques.

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