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The Nylander saga continues and it’s holding up the continuation of serious blogging and book writing. So in the spirit of the wait, I decided to recall a story from 1979 relating to cars and other things guys like to think about.

I hated automobiles. Dad was an ace mechanic who in the early 60’s with the assistance of an English partner began a repair garage. The two met whilst employed by International Harvester, a renown farming equipment and trucking firm. We didn’t specialize because there wasn’t a truck, car, transmission, engine, import, domestic or humpty dumpty that we couldn’t put together again. Come later, I’ll expand. On this day it was a hot sunny clear afternoon and the beginning of a summer weekend for me and all the other late teen to early twenty Travolta boys. The strip mall that housed our billiard hall was lackadaisically surrounded by factions of the Sabbatini, Napoli, Abruzzi, and other commonly notorious Calabrese and Abruzzese. Scattered amongst them were offspring of former elements of the Greek and Yugoslav, infantry and partisan army. We were friends or by extension acquaintances and in general a good bunch of mis-guided boys hanging around our cars. Dominic and I were athlete’s, and hungry as per normal, had picked up a couple of excellent tasting slices of pizza from Mama’s. It’s strange as to what the memory retains as relevant. So when Bruno and several of his friends in tow, approached with the sun blazing behind them, we were leaning on the side of my car trying to devour this oozing with cheese and meat slice, and more than anything were perturbed that someone would find this time to intrude. I recall Dom stretched left and myself to the right concerned that some of the topping was going to fall onto our pants and shoes. With our mouths stuffed full, eyes squinting, we glanced sideways as we ate, at the silhouette of arms crossed Bruno and a number of his cohorts.

Some months earlier I’d gotten to work and Dad took me out to the back of the shop to take a look. Disinterested was I, of this colour faded ugly lime green, with patches of rust, 1972 Buick Skylark. I was foreshadowing destination scrapyard and prayed I wasn’t required to work on this customer’s car. “I think you should buy this car for $400.00 with your next paycheck”. Was he serious? I was in a private school, be it a cheap one and now I was to be seen in this! We had a Chrysler Newport, slash yacht, plus two T-birds with choice of black leather interior and the other some kind of red velvet, drive me crazy felt, virtually new and most definitely fresh. Plus as mechanics we had unlimited access to a multitude of insured exotic vehicles. Only dad and I drove in the family. Would I be required to pick up my dates in something this unbecoming. Certainly not. I was having a hard enough time anyway, so why contribute to my detriment. Days later with little additional work we passed and signed our own safety inspection and it became road worthy. Only God knew why was I driving this monstrosity. I found it irksome that when stopped at a red light I needed to be cautiously gentle with the gas peddle as the car would hop forward potentially rear-ending the vehicle in front. Of course I kept this thing away from my female persuasions.

Dominic and I had finally gained control over our pizza slices and were now operating on the main body of our tasty treat. We were kind of beginning to wonder why the fellas had approached us at this inopportune. Bruno was more so Dominic’s friend, although he and I exchanged money frequently, with me likely to lose to him in table soccer, Ramino and Briscola and him to me, shooting pool. At times he’d be condescending but never anything approaching malicious or threatening. “That’s a piece of crap”, “it’s a piece garbage”, “it’s shit”. Honestly I had no idea what he was on about. Certainly wasn’t my pizza. It took me a few moment’s to see he was looking past me at my car. For goodness sake,  I said,  “yes, yes, your right it’s a piece of garbage, crap”. I was in full agreement of his analysis. In the way the conversation began and because of complete ignorance, I thought we were bonding by agreement. Our minds were melding with his mutual support and insight of how I felt about this uninteresting, from hell, pile of steel junk. It was considerable before I realized he was intentionally slighting and even then was inconclusive of the direction we were heading with this. “Bruno your right, what do you want me to tell you, yes it’s a shitbox”. I wasn’t about to tell him to leave me alone, so on he went. I deflected and he attacked. Without design or speculation and unwittingly, I suddenly had enough and blurted out “Okay I’ll race you”. Bang, without hesitation he throws out the time and place.  It’s been forty years but I believe it was at eight the same evening, some four hours after his contrived and my unanticipated negotiation, at either Pharmacy or Warden north of Finch in T.O.

Bruno had purchased a fully loaded 1980 Mustang Cobra which I’d never seen, as if I even cared, for something in the neighbourhood of $38,000.00. I came to suspect that I was to serve as his first victim before he’d moved up to the Camaro, Trans Am local street circuit class. Upon arriving at his pre-determined racing destination, had I permitted, my jaw would have surely dropped to the ground. Both sides of this freshly paved street to nowhere, eventually turning into a dirt farm road, were bodies lined several deep, in the hundred’s and could easily have topped, a couple of thousand, youth. I was stunned. Who knew? Certainly not I, because I for one, was sick of seeing, smelling, touching, burning and tearing my skin on the inner guts of cars. I just showed up to lose, save face by accepting the challenge and to halt his incessant yapping. I was thinking him and me and a couple of friends. The event was a blur. We lined up on the starters line with our respective best friends in the passenger seat. Shock was the operative word as we reached 60mph and found I was a half car length in front. Dom was laughing and freaking because he liked speed and enjoyed winning, especially when all initial signs pointed to certain defeat. At this point I became confident that I could maintain or grow our lead to about the 110mph mark and my concern by trial was, that my car would stop stroking and kicking and begin to level off in that speed range. Luck would have Bruno bail and I kept going until I hit the first dirt road west, leaving a horseshoe trail of dust behind. Dad had that car purring like a kitten. Am I allowed to say that. That was my only competitive race. I hated cars and still do.  

Tracy Chapman———-Fast car

The Cars———————Drive

Gary Numan—————Cars

Linda Ronstadt———–Hurt So Bad

Blondie———————–Call Me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As an avid Hockey Fan and former amateur player that had considerable training in the sport I loved, I felt compelled to address the injury to Auston Matthews. Arm-chair critics are part and parcel of enjoying professional sports. Remove the crazed devotee’s right to analyze the preferred route to victory and I’ll show you empty stadium’s. It may seem that a patriots banter has non-existent or infinitesimal impact on the final outcome of his teams success. I beg to differ. The collective hum that crescendo’s during a foyer into the playoffs is a result that can be directly attributed to 100’s of thousands, upon millions of conversations that take place among fellow citizens during the course of a year, years, decades and in some of our (head)cases lifetime. We don”t care hockey is a business and we feel we deserve to win because, well, Toronto fans know hockey better than anyone on Earth and I’ll give Montreal fans maybe a close second. You can take-up the fight for second with the Boston fans.  Say Whatttttttttttttttttttt? Yes I’m saying it! We know hockey like nobody else. Therein lies the problem with Toronto ownership and management, it simply isn’t interested in appeasing it’s customer base because they believe they’re smarter than their fans. To them we’re mere dolts. It’s either that or they’re simply not trying to win as a way to irritate us, going on now for over fifty years. Which stigma do they prefer to live with. I’m seeing serious cases of sports related PTSD in our population. Thank God for Cito Gaston and the Blue Jays two World Series wins. A smidgen of relief. We want Stanley. We deserve Stanley. We need Stanley. And Repeatedly.

My two sense(cents) on this particular occasion, in the off chance there may be other times I need to express myself in the sports arena, finds it’s beginnings as a busboy at George Bigliardi’s in the late 1970’s. This restaurant unknown to today’s era of enthusiasts had a location up the street from the old Maple Leaf Gardens and was frequented by leaf players, most notable being Borje Salming. I delivered many orders of pickles and garlic bread with cheese to leafs eminent attackers and defenders. A decade earlier, my father a thriving business owner and a lover of a sport he never witnessed or having knowledge of prior to immigrating to Canada, would dress me up in Sunday church, tailor made, best suits and ties, make our way many an evening with Gold, Red or Blue tickets in hand, to the shrine on college street, to see our hero’s. Dad would often attempt to  upgrade with scalpers because he found it thrilling to barter and loved being on top of the action. I remember my awe, as a child who didn’t play a musical instrument would, approaching the Gardens, snow falling in full darkness, anticipating the lighted hollywood like marquee, denoting which great team we were playing. We would park blocks away and funny it was, the chaos of attendant’s seemingly begging to usher our car into their already full spaces. As we walked with a quickened pace closer to the epicentre the crowd grew in volume and momentum, the excitement became palpable, the expected euphoria, the worshipping and the end game; “the agony of defeat or the thrill of victory”. I saw plenty of spilt blood during those times when helmets weren’t in vogue. Gladiators all, speed demons, Tim Horton, Bauby Baun, and Dave Keon became my idols. My bad. That’s the way it was.

Later came those period’s of extreme losing and I found it necessary to adopt a foreign team to shelter myself from the constant bombardment of our inadequacies. The North Stars during the Craig Hartsburg years, Oilers and Coffey, Chicago and Toews, New Jersey and Scott Stevens, and most recently the Bruins and Lucic served as temporary replacements in an attempt to prolong my season and love of game; but I’ve been left wanting since 67.  The guilt I’d feel, employed as a waiter, serving leaf Captain’s including Clark, Gilmour and for several years Sundin, secretly believing they had no chance, was sometimes overwhelming. I’m a practical person and it’s impossible for me to lie to myself when evidence and experience suggest particular outcomes. I coached Bantam boys for several years and the ability to asses your teams strength’s and weaknesses, relative to the opposing force is critical if your expecting to win. In Sundin’s case I reverted back to being a leaf fan because he made everyone in his orbit feel like a part of our team. No better a human being, always respectful, a leader, loyal, sincere, intelligent and able to throw around and receive humour, clean and with effect. Had the Leafs been serious about winning, they’d have thrown something extra into the pot, to put us over the top.

Calgary, Leaf game start’s in 20 minutes. First game this year without one of our stars. Wait, what am I on about? Nylander. He hasn’t played a game this year. Is this guy injured? No, no he’s not. Management has decided to play head games with my favourite Leaf. It’s not just me. Went out a few days ago to watch the game at a local (The Congress) and was surprised to find many, of likeminded opinion. I see our sports columnists are at it again. Trashing the wrong guy. Let me sum it up quickly. Tavares isn’t worth 11 and we have to live with it. As an upgrade in the face-off circle and playing in the dirty areas he’s a justified replacement for Bozak and van Reimsdyk. He adds skill and speed in the neutral zone and does well along the boards. However, without a strong line above him he can be easy to isolate and liquidate. Right about now he must be getting nervous because without Nylander and Matthews last years Islander team was stronger and went nowhere. Matthews has a fresh reality facing him and I myself, until this recent injury, thought he would  be an independently elite player. The guy has the fastest and most accurate hands I’ve seen on any hockey player and likely the working of his shoulder joints are in part responsible for this skill set but also leave him prone in that area of the body, to easy injury. We need to recognize his worth as a sniper and field marshall and that he volunteered himself for hand to hand combat with Trouba is admirable, but ill advised. Matthews is also a superior high-speed tactician, capable of reading the game in totality, all over the rink. His defensive acumen equals Boston’s Bergeron-Cleary and for this reason I’d argue against spending expensively for a right handed defenseman. Again, however, “no man is an island” and a “man needs to know his limitations”. I love Western’s and analogous to Matthews situation is an obscure movie I haven’t seen in a long time. If I remember correctly two sheriff’s or two friends, debilitated by injury, are naturally, pursued by three evil cowboys who want to send them to Boot Hill. Their conundrum, a fire has rendered one man without the use of his hands and the other blind. Individually or together the two gunslingers would have little difficulty disposing the violence in pursuit but their injuries leave them vulnerable. In mulling their predicament, they hatch a plan , with one friend as the eyes and the other as motion. For days, prior to confrontation, they stand side by side, shooting practice with one telling the other the position of targets on an imaginary clock inside the visionless gunslingers mind. High noon arrives on an open field and finds the three villains incredulous as to the gumption of their two disabled nemesis. As the three spread out to engulf them, the sheriff  with vision, maneuvers his blind cohort and adversaries, calculating the variable fluidity of motion to a position that presupposes one enemy combatant to stand at directly 12 o’clock . The other two, soon to be victims are trickier, as one is stationed a little after two o’clock and the other a few minutes before ten, the position of death taking into account depth perception. Elevation is naturally above belt high in the gut or chest area. Good movie and viable!

“Dance with the one that brought you”. Before Leafs went and picked up Tavares they should have signed or understood what it would have taken to sign their core players. Leafs were a Stanley Cup Team last year. Of course we are on some kind of scheduled help program and in our infinite wisdom picked up Plekanec. We wouldn’t want to win too soon, like when the opportunity presented itself. One fast, heavy forward and defenseman of similar quality,  not capable of scoring and I couldn’t care if they knew what building they were in, but could dole out a timely, clean, thunderous body check was all we needed. When the hunter becomes the hunted.  Khamarov and Polak were the right concept but a bit too slow in their respective positions to execute the needed threat. We had the money. Am I right, didn’t we have extra money, under the cap? Plekanec? When Toronto has to pick up a rental from Montreal, well you know it’s just wrong. We already had plenty of Plekanec on the team, that are multiple times better and younger. Anyyyyywayyyyy that’s done. Nylander, Nylander, wherefore art thou Nylander? Matthews and Nylander with Hyman or Marleau or Ginger Rogers truly wouldn’t matter who’d be the third. Marner, Kadri, Tavares, Matthews, Nylander, Gardiner and Captain Rielly. None of them are a Crosby or McDavid, but together they could be a work of art. Figure out the money and live and win together or lose separately and alone. Worst comes to worse I could be a Carolina Hurricanes fan soon. Where Nylander goes, I go. It’s just wrong, wrong, wrong. Prediction: Washington repeat, unless Nylander comes home. Spring is just around the corner and no better time for my team to be in the heat of battle, at long last. Hey Nyllie, my friends and I want some Stanley tickets and we like taking the subway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I awoke a recent morning without agenda and turned to contemplating purchasing additional property as investment for my young daughter. You know how that is!? Can’t get enough of nature’s bounty or maybe someday require shelter; buy Real Estate. Especially exhilarating is competing for a swath of land on an over-populated earth, inundated with imaginary excess cash-flow. This is how things get started when dad needs to feel useful.

So I began, as per normal, theorizing the necessary steps and potential needs and places of information and types of examination and absolute necessities and hypothetical outcomes and intense analysis . . . . . . . . . . Whereupon I began envisioning political situations, religious fanaticism, environmental decay, ozone depletion, nuclear fall-out, tsunami, famine, pestilence . . . . . . . . . . I drew a list, of expecting to mobilize, agents I knew or know and brokers, lawyers, financial advisers, property tax specialists and even bless his soul my favourite shoeshine guy. So I narrowed my choices to cottage country, farmland, bungalow in the suburbs, high density condo, converted boxcar, or igloo on ice patch.

The result of speculation and a deep look into the future, probably on behalf of relatives that don’t as yet exist, if they ever will, is that I need a tailor made investment vehicle. Can I purchase property on a Planet? Actually can I buy an entire Planet? Good Lord, a Galaxy, allow me to sign on a dotted line. (they still do that?)  Like, right now! I don’t want to make the same mistake as I did with Apple, when I had it available to me at a pittance of it’s current worth. I want to buy a couple of acres on Mars, just for starter’s. Maybe Saturn next and a volume of gaseousness. The condominium I’m currently living in occupies a place in H2O, eighteen floors above ground. Might discover atmosphere that would seem uninhabitable, simple to manipulate for the sustaining of life operating as an external lung. Is there currently a future’s market with legal standing whereby I can receive a deed, on a celestial body and particles within? This could be an opportunity for Bitcoin or Ethereum as a transitioning to legitimacy.  I’m clueless as to the benefits of an imaginary currency and what else can one call it, if I can’t relate it’s use, relative to buying a can of pea’s at my neighbourhood supermarket. However, I can by guessing, that in eliminating the sophisticated math the simple equation probably reads something like, Promise+Effort=Benefit and in the end game, everyone can ask themselves if it was all worth it or did I get ripped off again. Mining for cyrptocurrency and the concept of chainblocks may become the perfect medium for a civilization that includes the galaxies. For Capitalism to thrive  it requires a playground, choice and taxability. Cyrptocurrency transactions in space related to protected property rights may find transitioning to earthly hard currency with a separate domain. The universe is an oyster and Space Force will be the authority and security of property rights in space.

 

I direct your attention to Boston Dynamics and it’s product list: Big Dog, Cheetah, PETMAN, LS3, Atlas, SpotMini and Handle. You Tube, to visualize the meteoric rise of Robotics and ask yourself; Where are we going? Well for myself the future is self evident and it”s just a matter of time before it becomes space. I believe in buying into a piece of that action on the ground floor. The ground floor has always predicated considerable worth to location, location, location. Therefore, I’m assuming that potential start up industries will place emphasis on research of planets and spaces that may deserve our energy. We will mobilize to accelerate and motivate with entities, collectives, organizations, clubs or highly industrious individuals willing to commit thought and effort to discover the necessary elements and conditions for a successful foray into the unknown. Certainly more productive than driving your car to and fro, aimlessly all day, without objective, just to fray your nerves. A recent concept of intrigue and potential is Solar Sails and if successful would add influence to exploring the universe and other applications, similar to miniature cameras that navigate our bodies detecting cancers or administering repairs in unison with microbotics.

I am in admiration of Yasaku Maezawa’s and his conceptually brilliant purchase of a private spaceflight around the moon, with an invitation to voyage in his company six to eight prominent artists, at his expense. The #dearMoon project initiates our universe to be explored by humans other than flight and science technicians. A viewpoint of space that at times seems hostile and unreachable to be bridged with divergent examination is a significant ticket towards success.  I believe that space will be a palpable, natural, erotic and dynamic future for mankind. Where’s my boarding pass?