O Superman

Some fun facts about the new Superman movie.

Put him in a brightly-coloured spandex suit with a red cape and a full toupee and Nicholas Cage looks twenty years younger. And 50 pounds lighter.

Even dead, Marlon Brando steals scenes from everyone in this movie.

Superman's secret retreat, his 'sanctom sanctorum' - the Fortress of Solitude where he goes to hide and hang out for years on end, is actually the freezer room in the Baskin-Robbins back home in Smallville.

All of Clark Kent's close friends and co-workers have guessed his secret identity because he's constantly referring to his '63 Camaro as "the Supe-mobile."

Superman has to take back Jimmy Olson's "Emergencies Only" secret wrist-watch communicator, after Supe is getting hot and heavy with Lois Lane and at just the wrong moment is summoned by Jimmy - who wants him to fly around the world real fast to reverse time just far enough back so that he doesn't have to pay the late-fees at Blockbuster on his DVD copy of Debbie Does Daredevil.

Superman teams up with Batman, Neil from The Matrix and that Jesus guy from The Passion to kick some serious Al-Quaida butt.

Superman doesn't let on about his coolest super power and lets Wonder Woman fly him to the 7-11 all the time in her invisible plane. He also doesn't even try to break free when she lassoes and ties him up with that fancy lariat.

Oh sure, he's the Man of Steel. But when he hurts, he breaks just like a little girl.

Spoiler alert: stay until the very end of the closing credits. Turns out the bald guy is still alive and recovering in a hospital.

I Finally Saw One! (Well, actually two.)

After years of anticipation and patient waiting, I have finally seen a woman topless in Ontario. It was in downtown London, at the corner of Dundas and Clarence. Across the road from the Canada Trust building.

And I tell you, what a body, too. This woman could easily get a job in Vegas as a bronzed long-legged showgirl. Didn't smile much tho. And had a kinda bored look on her face as she went thru the motions of working at that particular piece of downtown real estate. And her face had a kind of a cold and hard look to it. Like her body, I thought. The kinda dame you could crack an egg on her breast.

Just the same, it being my first sighting, I can't complain. For many of you out-of-staters, you probably don't know this (because apparently even most of the women in this province are still unaware of it,) but in Ontario, a woman has the legal right to go topless in public if she wants. That may be at the beach, at the pool, washing her Mustang in her drive-way, or even on a public street as the raison d'etre for this law, Gwen Jacobs did as she walked down the street in Guelph one hot sweltering day a few summers back and decided, 'Aw what the hell, it's too damn hot out, I'm taking my shirt off.' And was promptly arrested and charged with public indecency.

It's true. And evidence to the contrary, after Gwen was charged, she fought the matter in court with the financial backing of the feminist movement and Playboy magazine and the Supreme court came to the conclusion that the naked female breast was not a sexual part of the anatomy and indeed, if Gwen or any other woman wanted to go topless in public, then the court was behind her.

The sad fact is that after winning the court case, Ontario wasn't suddenly overrun by women now strolling the streets topless. I had just assumed that once Gwen had done it and gotten the approval of society, then all women would have started going topless. You know what women are like - one starts wearing high heels and then they all are. But it just didn't happen.

However, after taking up this cause, the womens movement then abandoned Gwen. Just tossed her aside. Never even elected her head of the 'Real Now Women of Canada' or anything like that. They never even called once the whole thing was over. Can you imagine how used she must have felt? Geez, even a man wouldn't treat a broad like that.

After the women's rights movement made this court case such a focal point in the media, you would think that women in Ontario would have embraced this new emancipation. Instead, by ignoring the hotly-contested new legislation, they have made Gwen's victory a hollow one. It's like a padded or a falsie-fied win - empty of meaning. The great step forward for women that Gwen had made that hot day on that Guelph sidewalk has become irrelevant and pointless.

The support which Gwen once had from her sisters - which was once proud, pert and standing strong and firm - is now sagging and looking tired. Today, it is time for all women out there (in Ontario,) to heed the call. If it is hot outside - and if you want to - it is your legal right to take off your top. But don't do it for me - or for any man - do it for Gwen.

And remember - when you see men staring, they do not look with lust - but with admiration for your solidarity with the sisterhood. We are applauding your committment to equal rights. We are not gawking at your knockers.

C.S.I. London - Rogue Agents

The O.P.P have finally wrapped up their forensics investigation and have evacuated the premises of Wayne Kellistine's farmhouse property up Shedden way where those eight Bandidos motorcycle gang members were killed a couple of months back in what is being known in some headlines and media outlets as "the Shedden massacre."

You just know the Shedden Chamber of Commerce is going to love that label. Wonderful for tourism and the hick-town mass-murder stereotype. Or so says the Lucan Chamber of Commerce.

Just the same, I think I'll make a little impromptu tourist trip up there myself. Any one interested in tagging along and having ourselves a little look-see?

Because if there's anything I've learned from television it's this - the police can't do it all. Sometimes in order to close a case, they need the help of a freelance writer who works on hunches; or an affable but down-at-the-heels private dick; or a crusty old defence attorney; or a disgraced ex-cop whose only tarnish on his badge was that he once killed a man - the police commissioner's drug warlord son; or even just a bunch of nosy teenagers and their pet Great Dane. You get the picture.

They need us to help discover the murder weapon or an important piece of incriminating evidence they missed or overlooked in their original crime scene investigation. Just think what might have happened had Matlock been on the 'Bernardo/Homolka' investigation. He'd have found those videotapes hidden overtop the light fixture in the ceiling. Heck, Maxwell Smart coulda found them.

As a freelance writer, the police chief is always busting my hump to help them crack a case wide open. The Chief is 'A-okay' by me so I do it for him. But I wish me and my posse got more respect from the rest of the boys on the beat. The boys in blue (actually black) respect us but the flat-foot detectives don't like us at all. They don't like us because we don't go by the book. They don't like us because we don't play by the rules. They don't like us because we have to show them how to do their job. They don't like our attitude. They don't like our hair. They don't like the fact that chicks dig us.

Well, that's cool. I don't care - because the only thing that matters to me and my fellow rogue agents is that Justice be done.

As for the Shedden massacre, it should be a piece of cake. Let's see, eight murders, they were obviously ambushed so I figure an eight-cyclinder weapon. Probably a pistol. Now, where to hide it? Well, judging by the imcompetence, the ineptness, the totally amateur production involved with everything I've read about the ring-leader of this motley crew, I figure the gun could be hidden in only one place: in the bottom of the sock-and-underwear drawer of his bedroom dresser in the farmhouse.

Case closed.

Now for that case up in Toronto involving the 17 terrorists. You just know the Crown is gonna screw that case up and most of them will walk. Not if I can help it. ... Then there's the other southern Ontario hot spot down Caledonia way. If you are a crime-fighting freelance writer, there's never any shortage of work around here.