The Dalton Pixie Returns Again!

It's Family Day here in Ontario - and that can only mean one thing as far as children are concerned. Did the Dalton Pixie come last night and leave them a present?

This is the second Family Day. The first one was last year, courtesy of Premier Dalton McGuinty's election promise the previous fall to give us all an extra day off work if we re-elected him to power. The cynical may think of it as a blatant bribe. And I am a cyncial sort, but I'm not one to look a gift-horse in the ass. I'll gladly take the day off.

As for the still-innocent children of Ontario, they look forward to the yearly visit of the Dalton Pixie.

For those out-of-staters out there, on Family Day, a magical creature called the Dalton Pixie sneaks into homes all over the province while everyone is fast asleep and then picks the pockets of grown-ups and leaves a present for all the good little boys and girls who have not yet reached voting age.

But that Dalton Pixie is a mischievous little imp. He only brings hot air, empty promises and useless gifts. Last year when the Gnut unwrapped the present he found on the kitchen table, he found a can of mushrooms. Gnut doesn't like mushrooms. Won't eat them. Not fresh, not canned and certainly not ones in a tin marked 'Pieces and Stems.'

But I'm proud to say, he took it like a man. "Oh, that Dalton Pixie," he chuckled good-naturedly, "He's done it again!"

This morning, he was up at the crack of dawn, woke us all up and while his mother and I made coffee (accompanied with the traditional Family Day shot of Baileys,) he unwrapped the latest dropping from the Dalton Pixie.

A jar of sliced pickled beets.

Needless to say, Gnut wouldn't eat a pickled beet if it was the last thing in the pantry. No matter how many times you tell him that they're really called 'sweet' beets and loaded with sugar.

Funny thing, though. His mother and I both love pickled beets. Especially first thing in the morning and washed down with an Irish coffee.

Thank you, Dalton Pixie. You've done it again!

Things I've Learned from Ringo Starr

NUMBER TWO IN A CONTINUING SERIES

Took the little woman to a 'rock' concert the other night. Kathleen Edwards was playing a sold-out show at the Aeolian Hall. She's one of those country/folk/rockers who get tagged 'alt-country' even though you can see her videos on the country-music video channel on the TV.

The opening act was 'Hunting Horns' - a very likeable foursome who described their sound as "chamber death folk." An apt description judging by their song titles - 'The Vulture,' 'Open Up Them Doors to Heaven,' 'I Know I'll be Delivered,' 'Ghost Town Waltz' and 'The Gravediggers Lament.'

And maybe it was because they were the opening act with limited set-up space on the stage, but something seemed amiss here.

NO DRUMS.

Of course, when you are a quartet comprised of a lead singer on acoustic guitar, a mandolin player, a stand-up bass and an accordian, well, maybe you don't need a drummer. Although that line-up kinda begs for some congas - or at least some cat in a beret slapping a pair of bongos. But at the moment, I didn't really think anything of it.

And then Kathleen and her band came out. She plays guitar and harmonica and sings. There was a lead guitarist and another fellow on guitar and keyboards. Only the three of them but they put out a pretty dynamic sound when the song called for it.

But again, NO DRUMS.

I paid $22 a ticket so I was a bit concerned. Ever since I saw The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, every band I've ever seen had a drummer. Certainly the lack of a skins-thumper didn't affect the quality of the music being produced up on the stage. But still, I had to wonder - maybe some guy in a skinny tie with a ratty old snare drum might have added something. Then again, it might have made it worse. At any rate, I was pretty damn sure that when Brad Paisley comes to town in a day or two that he would have a drummer sitting behind a big set of drums. Maybe on one of those hydraulic lifts so everyone can see his late-set solo. Or maybe even TWO drummers.

So when we got home, I called up me old mate, Ringo Starr to get his opinion.

"Noooo, Sonny," came that familiar thick-as-mud Liverpudlian accent over the trans-Atlantic cable. "No, Brad isn't travelling with a drummer on his current tour."

"You see, Sonny - during a recession or depression or 'economic downturn' or whatever they're calling it these days, for a travellin' band, the drummer is the first to go. Or to be left behind, so to speak.

"Blimey, it's bad these days - oh sure, they want us there for the recording sessions but as for touring, the big acts usually just bring along a drum-machine. Their excuse is that it cuts down on space in the tour bus - especially those big bands who once used to be able to afford a timpani player. But really, it's just because at the end of the night there's only so much of a door to split and so they leave the drummer at home.

"It varies of course from band to band. And sometimes the whole rhythm section can be afffected. If the drummer is cuter than the bass player, he gets to tour and one of the guitar guys just takes up the slack of the bass lines."

Then in a typical moment of candor which reminded me why I love The Nose so much, Ringo admitted that this recent economic trend has even left its mark on his own band. "Ya, I had to lay off me own drummer from The Ringo Starr All-Star Band. A lad named Zak Starkey. Well, it's about time he got a real job anyway. Even the Max Weinberg Band had to lay off their drummer - and those blokes have a regular gig every night of the week. No Sonny, times are hard for us stick-men in this current financial climate."

... But then again - maybe this could be the best thing in the world for drummers. When life gives you lemons, make lemon meringue pie. So as a personal challenge and tribute to my old friend Ringo - I'm thinking of forming an all-drum band.

Lord knows there are enough out-of-work professional skin-thumpers out there, I should get them for a song. Nothing too ostentatious. We don't want to be like Buddy Rich. I'm thinking of a simple quartet - just like Ringo's first band.

So far I have it narrowed down to the one-arm guy from Def Leppard, that Neil guy from Rush, myself on bongos - and either one of the two 'Chris's from The Partridge Family or that black guy who played 'Sticks' in Potsie's band on 'Happy Days.'

Even got a name all picked out - The Four Skins.

Chick Flick Nabs Best Pic Oscar

Your attention please Misters Ledger, Bale and Nolan - come the Academy Awards presentation in a couple of weeks, 2008 will go down as The Year for the Girls. Sorry gents, but this one is for the ladies. Especially when it comes to Oscar's choice for Best Picture.

This past summer while everyone else was talking about Batman and the Joker, the other half of the movie-going public were flocking to the feel-good hit of the season and grooving to its retro-cool soundtrack while bonding with their 'sistas' to a story of female empowerment about a slightly-older blonde lead character who happens to be a throwback to the Free Love days of the 1970s.

And if they couldn't get in to 'Mama Mia,' they went to their local art-house cinema and saw the same thing but in more cerebral form in a little independent film called 'The House Bunny.'

Starring Anna Faris, it's the story of a downsized Playboy bunny who becomes house-mother to a sorority of 'geeky' college girls. As such, it is a compelling tale of alienation and misfits, the likes of which has not been seen on the cinematic screen since 'Revenge of the Nerds' and 'Animal House.' Or Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita' for that matter.

Faris is Shelley, an unwanted orphan who has no sense of family or belonging until moving into the Playboy Mansion upon becoming of legal age. Living in the apparently sexless version of Hef's personal Shangri-La is one reason she is an eternal optimist. With her sunny California blonde disposition and endearing naivete, Shelley is the most popular of all the resident Bunnies - until she receives her pink slip on her 27th birthday. It's a house rule - "Twenty-seven is like 59 in Bunny years." And she finds herself again without a home or family.

She's a laid-off Playmate in a world where Playboy is no longer relevant. A world that no longer cares about how Hef kick-started the Sexual Revolution almost half a century ago and then rode it to its peak in the mid-1970s. Her career skills include smiling and flirting. That's enough to get her a job as a sorority house-mother to a group of girls who are even bigger social misfits than herself.

In the time-honoured tradition of all great college-rebel cinema, these girls of Zeta House are under a deadline to get more recruits in order to pay their bills or the mean old college Dean will close them down and they will lose their house. Also in keeping with the conventions of the genre is the fact that the rich snooty girls of the Popular Sorority have come up with a scathingly brilliant plan to ensure the Zetas are kicked off campus.

But if the Zetas can somehow become popular themselves - and attract some cute guys, then other girls will want to join their sorority and hence Zeta House will be saved. Yeah, 'hence.'

And that's where Shelley comes in. As a former Bunny, she knows what boys like and she transforms the Zeta 'nerds' into the equivalent of those hot college girls you seen in the four a.m. 'Girls Gone Wild' infomercials. Except they never lift their tops or neck with each other or have nude pillow fights.

You can probably guess what happens next - but you would be wrong.

Oh, sure, the Zetas inevitably learn the moral taught at the end of pioneering chick-flicks like 'Grease' and 'Dirty Dancing' - that if you dress and dance and act like a slut, then you will become popular and get the boy of your dreams.

But 'House Bunny' goes this lesson one step further. Because ironically, in becoming 'hot,' the girls of Zeta now all look the same and have lost the individuality that made them interesting in the first place. Misfits that they were. After Shelley's well-intentioned help, they appear no different from any girls you could see any night of the week in any bar along Richmond Row.

In the end, they do learn that it is possible to be popular and still collect stamps or used chewing-gum as a hobby. That being hot and being uncool can easily co-exist in the same body.

If I remember my own college days correctly, one of those ancient Greek philosopher guys once said, "To thine own self, be true." Over the years that concept has been slim-fasted into "Just be yourself." 'The House Bunny' reinterprets all that into "Be who you are."

That's NOT a message you will hear in 'The Dark Knight' - considered to be House Bunny's only serious competition for Best Picture. For Pete's sake - the two lead protagonists, 'The Batman' and 'Bruce Wayne' both have secret identities. Heath Ledger's 'Joker' character changes his origin story every time he tells it. And the name 'Two-Face' says it all.

And that's why 'The House Bunny' will take home the Best Picture hardware. The fact that it's also a celebration of virginity and Aztec culture doesn't hurt.