Classic Rock Fan Doesn't Get Laid after Cheap Trick Concert.

Baby-boomer Dwight Schmidlapt went home alone last night after being unable to connect with his date at the outdoor Classic Rock concert in London's Harris Park which featured 70s bands like Cheap Trick, Trooper and Pat Benatar.

"This is getting to be a problem," said Schmidlapt after leaving the event. "But at least I had a date this time. Too bad she wasn't there when I was supposed to meet her outside the porta-potties right before Cheap Trick went on as the last act of the night. But I guess that wasn't her fault. I blame it all on the promoters and organizers of 'Rock the Park.'

Schmidlapt went on to explain that he had wanted only to see Cheap Trick and then get laid and so he arranged to meet his date, "Trudi, from accounting" at 9:30 right before the band should be going on as the headliners to close out the night.

"But get this," he points out - "Whoever the assholes are who organized this thing, they put the Trick on second last and chose Pat FRICKIN' Benatar as the headliner! Geez, everyone knows that as a classic rock act, she's no closer. You know, there's a reason that I chose to go down there with only enough time to see the last act. And it's because I wanted to avoid lame-ass crap like Benatar. Same with Trooper. Shit man, everyone knows Cheap Trick was the biggest name on that ticket!

"So I get there and I'm stuck having to listen to Pat Frickin' Benatar - but my date, Trudi, is nowhere to be seen. I found out later that she left with some guy she met dancing up front while Cheap Trick were playing their set at 8:30. Ain't that a pisser?"

Another "pisser" was when Schmidlapt bumped into Yvonne Cooperman who was at the outdoor concert with her husband and in-laws. "What are the chances, eh?" asks Cooperman. "I run into this Schmidlapt jerk at every concert I've been to in the past two months! He ruined my night at Stevie Nicks, Gwen Stefani and now Pat Benatar.

"Patti's up there singing 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' - and I mean really belting it out - and here's this Schmidlapt clown standing next to us and yelling out for her to play 'Dream Police.' I called security."

Schmidlapt remains optimistic despite how the night turned out. "I always try to look on the bright side," he says. "I don't mind getting kicked out of a Pat Benatar concert. In fact, I'm kinda proud of it.

"But the really funny thing in all this is that I DID get to hear Cheap Trick LIVE last night! Ironically, as I was heading down to the concert in my Mazda - at the very same time that Cheap Trick was actually up on stage in the park - I was listening to 'Live at Budokan' on my car stereo! Is that too crazy or what?

"As for not getting laid - again - maybe I'll have better luck at the George Thorogood show in the park tomorrow night. I hear he's 'Bad to the Bone.' Chicks love that kind of stuff. And if not, Rufus Wainwright is coming to town next month. I can wait."

Some Things I've Learned on the Picket-Line

It's now officially a month that I've been out on strike with my OPSEU brothers and sisters against our employer Community Living London which is financed by Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal provincial government.

I've tried to keep my sanity by parking my brain in an idling position. Hence, the shortage of blogging on this site as of late. But I have managed to notice a couple of things that normally wouldn't have occured to me had I not been on strike.

So, here they are -

1. Dalton McGuinty probably doesn't read my blog. Four weeks and two posts ago I issued a challenge to Dalton on this very site, that I was going to smoke one cigarette every time I had to show up on a picket line. But to this date, he hasn't even responded. He either doesn't read this blog or he's a cruel heartless reptilian from outer space who also kills kittens. The bastard.

2. Porta-potties make a nice visual addition to any suburban neighbourhood - especially those new parts of town where the only shade comes from newly-planted saplings. The presence of these bright green-and-yellow moveable outhouses gives suburban streetscapes an almost surreal touch. It's very Tim Burton. Also somewhat reminiscent of Europe after the war.

3. Although most women have an aversion to uttering the swear-word "Muthafukka," if scabs are involved and trying to cross a picket-line to do our jobs, most women are capable of hurling expletive-deleted insults and cussing like sailors.

4. No one under the age of 30 has ever heard of Wally Cox. No one under the age of 25 has ever heard of Marlon Brando (the actor.)

5. That 'urban dance music' stuff gets old real fast. Especially when played at high volume.

6. Any loudmouth parent who tells the media that her developmentally-challenged kid is now being taken better care of by replacement workers and that the home the kid lived in was a pig-sty before the strike is a lousy parent. If that was all true, what kind of parent willingly keeps her child in a place if the conditions are really as appalling as she alleges? Nice try, lady.

7. Never believe anythng you read in the media. Try not to feel too insulted when management is quoted as saying "We are coping quite well, thank you." And conversely, take anything said in the media by the Grand Pooh-Bahs of your union executive with a big grain of salt.

8. The strategy of both sides of a strike boils down to this - each side is waiting for the other to pick up the phone and make the first phone call. In the meantime, the workers who walk the picket-lines wait. And wait.

9. Even after a month, I still haven't become bitter or cynical and as of yet, haven't woken up dreading having to be on a picket line at 8 a.m. Did I mention that I've parked my brain for the past month?

10. I am really enjoying my bike-ride to my picket location on Adelaide Steet South because I can take the bike paths along the river almost all the way there. So far I've seen a snake, a turtle, a blue heron, a couple of bunnies, a ground-hog, baby ducklings, hawks, about 800 squirrels and a DEER. One morning, shortly after I passed Wellington, a young deer came bounding out of the trees along the river, crossed the bike-path, stopped about fifty feet away in a clearing. I got off my bike and we just stared at each other until it finally sauntered off into the woods. I guess it was just waiting to see if I was going to pull a shot-gun out of my purse before it decided that I wasn't a threat. I've never seen a deer in the city before so it was like something out of 'Bambi.'

11. On the same bike-path I also regularly come across some pretty rough-looking characters and neer-do-wells the closer I get to Wellington. I've seen people sleeping under the Wellington Road bridge on the rainy mornings. The other day I saw a young good-looking slightly-rumpled prostitute stepping out of the brush behind Labatt's between Ridout and Richmond. Of course, there's always the chance that she wasn't a prostitute - but who wears high heels on a nature trail?

12. Even if a cement truck is showing no respect for the picket-line and almost runs you down and keeps nudging you with the front of his truck, you don't back down. As it happened to me two weeks ago. You stand your ground. You look straight into the face of Death and laugh. I tell you it was just like Tiannamon Square. Well, without the being-flattened part.

13. Contrary to popular belief, 20 hours a week of picket-duty is harder work than a full-time job. Nothing can be more monotonous than walking back and forth carrying a sign. It's mind-numbing and soul-draining and until you are used to it, leaves you emotinally and physically exhausted. Don't beleive me? Well, walk a mile in my brain, pal.

14. Toronto is the capital of the provincial government. Ottawa is the capital of the federal government.

15. My kid is turning into quite the cook. By disregarding the directions on the Kraft Dinner box and adding too much milk, he makes a great Kraft Dinner soup.

16. I don't care how low the strike-pay is or how poor I get, I'll always be able to find the money for Ding-Dongs. Same goes for my bowling night and my weekly cribbage-match with the boys every Saturday afternoon down at 'Hooters.'

17. You can get just as bombed on an $11 carton of wine as you can off a thirty-dollar bottle.

Breaking News! - Art Bell Retires. Again

For the 23rd time, Art Bell has announced his retirement from the late-night syndicated radio talk show, Coast to Coast A.M., he began a decade and a few years ago.

Bell, who died five years ago, said from the grave that he was leaving the weekend hosting job because wanted to spend more time with his new wife and new daughter after his marriage last year to a 20-year-old Filipino mail-order bride less than a month after the unexpected death of his "soul-mate" Ramona.

Ramona, still stung by the then 65-year-old Bell's lack of respect for the grieving process said she isn't surprised by his most recent retirement annoucement. "What, you mean he's retiring again!?" she asked while sitting as the contents of an urn of ashes in Bell's sock drawer.

"Geez, I tell you - if it wasn't one thing it was another. First he retired because he just wanted to retire after 30 years in the business. Then after no one complained, he came back. Then he quit after his son, Art Bell Junior was kidnapped by a child-molester and thanks to a Toronto radio station, people thought that Art was the molester. So, sure, I can see wanting some time after that. Then he came back, made up some story about falling off the new back-yard deck he was putting up on our trailer-home and started calling in 'sick' four nights out of his scheduled five. And came back again. Then he decided to retire again just because he had turned 60 and thought it was his right. But when his replacement, George Noory started to become popular, Art decided to come back again -
but just for weekends.

"And then I died. On a trip in our new RV to the county seat, no less. Kind of a busman's holiday it was, seeing as we spent the rest of our time living in a motor-home up on blocks in the middle of the Nevada desert anyway.

"But God bless him, he was back on the job three weeks later. Art needs radio. Art needed to work after I died. Art needs to feel important. Either that, or he just loves radio more than he loves my memory."

Bell's new wife and child speaking through a spokesperson for Seance-entology report that they hope to be reunited with Bell soon through astral-projection.

Unfortunately, Bell has never mastered even the basics of travelling astrally.

"Oh sure, I remember when he claimed to have had his first out-of-body experience when we made our trip to Paris back in 1999," says Ramona from her urn. "He said he floated out of our bed, through the window and them hovered over the Eiffel Tower before being sucked back to our bed. Lord knows I love the guy and Whitley Steiber is a tonne of laughs too but even I couldn't keep a straight face when he walked out of the bathroom of our hotel room in Paris and sprung that one one me.

"Take it from me - the only sucking Art did that night was from gasping for air after puking his guts out into the bidet after those crazy French chef's served him an undercooked steak. As he always does with red meat - or white for that matter, Art poured half a bottle of ketchup over top and never had a clue that it was totally pink inside.

"Oh, and as for his other claim about us seeing a triangular craft, possibly a UFO hovering overtop of us on our way home from Vegas one night? Well, I'm dead now and so is Art so the truth doesn't matter. But we cooked up that story ourselves. I'm surprised that no one ever caught on but his radio show had just become hot with 100 stations picking him up for syndication, and he was getting worried.

"So we're coming back from playing the slots one night and he says to me, 'Listen, Ramona - every one of the guests and experts on my show have seen a UFO, but I haven't. It just doesn't look good. Look - we can either go home or head over to Area 51 and spend the night looking for one - or we can just make up a story about seeing one right now and I'll talk about it on Monday - if my back don't start acting up again - if you know what I mean, ha-ha."

"So, NO - we didn't see no UFO that night ... and Art never really hovered over the Eiffel Tower in an out-of-body experience either. We made it all up."

Ramona Bell contined, "And I'll let you all in on another little secret - you know Coast-to-Coast's most popular guest - Richard C. Hoagland - that 'Face on Mars' guy? Listen to his voice really carefully next time. It's really Ashton Kutcher. And I ain't shittin' ya either.

"And another thing - most of the stuff you still hear on Coast, it's all made up!"

When contacted by ouijii-board, many regulars asked 'Is it me?' while they bumped the table and eagerly awaited Bell's patented dead-pan replay of - "Only YOU know the answer to that yourself, sir."

But then, he assured everyone that this retirement would indeed be his last when he stated the familiar reply to any on-air caller who didn't have the brains to turn down his radio when it was their turn to be 'on the air' ---- "Caller, please turn your radio OFF."

It may have took him ten ways to Sunday to actually say it, but - what the heck, we'll miss him. George Noory is great.
But there is only one Art.

Happy retirement, Art.

And we're looking forward to hearing you again before the 'Ghost to Ghost' show at Halloween.

Have a good weekend.