Manda Bala Update

I reviewed this 'just about to be released' movie a few days ago. It won big at Sundance, and has made it to a limited mainstream run in New York, and more cities soon. This is a super high class Indie production. Impressive all the way around.

Anyway, I get to interview Jason Kohn the director and force behind this movie tomorrow. It should be fun! I have some interesting questions for him. I have high hopes for this one.

If you see Manda Bala advertised in your city, go out and give it a try.

Stackridge News

You just have to love this reviewing business. I recently reviewed a DVD by a British band Stackridge. These guys are true entertainers, and I really enjoyed the DVD, I guess that was reflected in my review.

This morning I noticed that someone had left a comment on it, and had signed it Mike Tobin. Well on a whim I decided to 'google' Mr. Tobin, and I discover that a Mike Tobin was the first manager of this band back in the early 70's, co-incidence? Well I can never resist a mystery, and although his email is address is hidden from public view, I as an editor can dig it out, and that's exactly what I did.

The answer is yes, it is the same guy, and better still, he is back as their manager! So we have an interview in the making! ya got to love it.

Hold The Presses! Canned Mutton rules!

I was minding my own business, but of course Jan wanted to help mind it for me! "what have you been doing?" she asked, I of course said "nothing", well she beat it out of me. I put up as must resistance as I could, but Jan is a Pro! This woman would make a great torturer for the CIA!

It is not often that you get a #1 hit in Google but I seem to have one with the "canned mutton"!

This could well be Mutton Central!

I am looking into registering www.cannedmutton.com

This could be the next 'big one'. I can see the headlines already, "Simon flips Mutton.com for $50 million".

Even better would be the New York Times....

"Simon Barrett, businessman turns a fifty cent can of potted meat into a multi million dollar deal! Simon makes Spam look like, well Spam. Canned mutton is where we need to be"

Jamie Oliver was heard to say "Bloody hell! I have been been spending all my time playing with Italians and school dinner ladies. I had no idea that canned mutton existed"!

In between beating his chefs and chefettes for Hells Kitchen Gordon Ramsey remarked "What the F*** is this? I wouldn't serve this shit to my dog!" Gordon does have a cute way with words.

I might be in big trouble here, I am pretty certain that Jan reads this blog! OH SHIT!

Canned Mutton Recipes

I hate being blind sided, so I thought that in anticipation of the arrival of the canned mutton I would do some research on recipes. The Internet is such a great resource, you can find the most interesting stuff. I teach a class about the Internet, and one of the numbers I include is that the last time Google quoted hard facts, it claimed to have in excess of 8.5 billion web pages in its database. That was over 2 years ago, I am sure that number has tripled by now.

So I climbed onto Google and went searching! I started with a simple "canned mutton" search, and was blown away by the results!

I just assumed that Google loves me, and the problem was with my search terms. I was actually looking for recipes, so I did a search on 'Canned Mutton Recipe'. It got better....

I got to move up to # 3!

It was right about then that I realized that there are no recipes for canned mutton! In fact few people have even heard of this delicious offering. I am excited, if the 'mutton fairy' delivers I may have the only can in Canada.

One wonders why canned mutton is not already a big hit? Then I discovered what may provide the key to the problem.

I guess the stuff smells!

I am not daunted by this, in fact it excites me, I think the recipe potential is huge. From a simplistic canned mutton hash, to a version of the french classic Boeuf Bourguignon, the potential is almost endless. My plan is to try it in as many ways as possible, I can already see Japanese Pot stickers, Spanish Risotto, Chinese Sweet and Sour, and maybe even an Italian dish or two, some stuffed tortellinis, or even a lasagna.

I am also wondering how it would work in a Sushi application? I suspect that it would be a great filler for a 'Mongolian Roll'.

All in all, I am jazzed about this opportunity to take an unusual ingredient to new highs. I am expecting a call from the 'Food Channel' in the next couple of days.

The Ultimate Swap Meet Meat Swap

I am always eager to help my friends in far flung parts of the world. I was chatting with Outer Mongolian Mark recently and he is suffering from a distinct lack of Spam. I did try a Spam drive, but it seems like all of my efforts have fallen on stony ground. I can only assume that there is a Spam shortage everywhere but here in Canada.

In order to satiate his craving for Spam I am personally going to ship him a can next week. He was so happy that in a token of appreciation he is shipping me some canned mutton! I am excited, I have never tried canned mutton. I guess that a quick 'google' with turn up all sorts of neat recipes though.

The one 'wild card' in all of this is the various customs checks that these packages are going to have to go through. I am wondering if importing canned mutton is permitted here in Canada? Or for that matter what Outer Mongolia is going to make of Spam?

Oh and just for anyone that does not know Spam, I managed to dredge up the Monty Python skit.

I love an adventure!

Whats A Reviewer To Do?

It is 2:30am, we couldn't sleep and so with it being Friday and my day off, why not get up and get some reviews done? Well I looked at the To Do pile and I am not a happy camper. So instead I opted to to listen to Dave Cousins again (well hell I like him!).

Of course this is doing nothing to deal with the backlog. And even worse, I just received an email from my good buddy about a whole schwack of new DVD's they are releasing soon. I guess I am just going to have to knuckle down and deal with 'the pile from hell'.

It is a rare treat to actually get to listen to something that you like in this game. Some people are envious when they hear about what I do. But the reality is its a lot of bloody work.

Oh well, off to the world of music purgatory...........

Monitor Abuse

My good buddy Bruce left a comment on one my TV problem story, and I feel that the question has to be handled thoroughly, so that everyone understands Monitor Abuse.

I am an old hand at Monitor Abuse, you really don't need any special equipment, just grit, determination and electricity.

Take a computer outside in a rain storm, and plug it in, now thats one of my favorites!

Alternatively turn the screen saver off, and leave the same ms word document on for 6 weeks, the results are great! You can read the document even when the monitor is switched off. This is the ultimate data storage method.

You can play this same trick with images, and I have been considering starting up a service for companies, I'll burn their logo into the phosphor coating! Now how cool would that be? Just think how happy almost every company would be? Now that is what I call value added.

I am also thinking of pioneering a similar service with these flat screens that are so popular. I suspect that using a sharp knife and a steady hand you could remove some of the pixels to reveal an everlasting image!

Jan on the other hand is just a beginner. She prefers the more physical approach, she just slaps em till they break. This is an art that she perfected on our digital alarm clock. She has broken the minute adjustment function, so every time we need to reset it, we have to plug it in and wait for 12 noon (the clock flashes 12:00 just like a vcr) and at noon you hit the set button, and its good to go!

I have high hopes for Jan though. I think that now she has mastered the Ninja slap, she may move on to more creative methods, rum and coke poured in, or maybe using a carpet 'steam cleaner' to give it that showroom look.

Another Thursday Evening...

That means it is the start of my well deserved weekend, which usually starts at 'dark thirty' Friday morning. Tomorrow is shaping up to be a cracker. I have a large box of DVD's that I just know I am not going to like, but have to produce reviews for.

My punk rocker, tattoo and piercing expert daughter dropped by for a quick visit last night, and gleefully informed me that one of the DVD's in the large 'to do' box is from a guy who likes to defecate on the audience! Boy I can hardly wait to pop that one in the player.

Manda Bala Is A Go!

Ok folks, the powers that be want this one to get some pre-release advertising. Manda Bala is a pretty disturbing documentary that hits at the very moral fibre of Brazil, crime, violence, corruption and just general bad shit are all covered in this Jason Kohn movie.

I have the review up, and I am waiting 'for my people' to talk to 'his people' so that Jason and I can do an interiew.

And the best bit so far has to be this picture, it just shows that we live in a Frog Eat Frog world!

Manda Bala

I get the strangest stuff for review, but it's likely my fault because generally it is me that asks for it. Manda Bala is opening in New York on the 17th, and other cities the next week. Oh, it's a movie, well actually it is a documentary, all about corruption in Brazil, and according to this movie there is lots of it.

Manda Bala won two big awards at the Sundance Festival, so I knew it would be good, and I was not disappointed. I am not sure when they want the review to go live, so I can't tell you too much about it. I deal with Sony, and a couple of other big studios and they will castrate you with a blunt butter knife if you publish before the day it streets!

Keep an eye out for this one, it is disturbing to say the least, and apparently it has been banned in Brazil! Generally the only reason people want to ban something is to prevent embarresment...

An Apple A Day......

....keeps Simon grumpy...

No, not that kind of Apple, the iPod, Mac, iPhone kind of Apple.

The heart of our home entertainment system is an old Apple Macintosh Performa. I would guess that it has a street value of about $5, but it works great for us. It has a TV tuner card in it, and a remote control. Yup I can actually power it on, switch to TV mode, change channel and sound volume from the remote! It's a great party trick.

Up until a few days ago I had a really nice 19 inch Mac monitor to go with it. I was at work, so I don't exactly know what Jan did, but when I got home it was broke. I suspect that she abused it!

"No Problem" I said, I pride myself on having a plan 'B', and my plan 'B' was to use a 17 inch Apple monitor that I had kicking around. After much grunting and hernia inducing exercise I got the 19 inch on the floor and the 17 inch in place. I powered it all up (and grabbed a beer), the Apple booted up with no problems. So I switched to TV mode, and got a rude message that the monitor was not compatible with TV mode.

Now it should be pointed out that I do not give up easily. My next plan 'B' was the 15 inch Apple monitor that I have. So, a couple of hernias later I have the 15 inch installed. I did have some nagging thoughts that their was a problem with this monitor, and I was right! The red gun in the tube is on the fritz! But at least we had a TV again. The lack of red does lead to everything being shades of green and blue, so it is not exactly ideal.

My next plan 'B' was to figure out how to lash up a regular PC monitor to the evil Apple. I found out pretty quickly that Apple monitor to PC is a walk in the park, a $5 adapter is all you need. Going the other way is a whole different deal.

Well, as luck would have it, while I was looking for some White Out for a client, what do I stumble across? Yup, you guessed right, the very adapter that I need! Of course there is a catch, you have to set 12 micro switches to get it to work, but I don't scare easy!

Not knowing exactly how many more hernias I can endure, I take the wimpy way out. The TV is very close to my computer, so to test my theory I just move the cable from my 19 inch monitor. WooHoo we have TV, and the colour looks good.

The next step is to move the blue/green monitor to the the ever increasing pile of useless Apple things that is begining to take over the entire living room. I have a nice Gateway 17 inch monitor, so risking further injury I muscled it into place. By this time I am feeling pretty damn good! I have the problem cracked, and Jan is going to think I am a hero! (which I am hahahahaha)

I know that this will come as no suprise, It did not work! So we are still watching everthing in shades of green and blue!

The Art Of Interviewing

It is most definitely an art form. I probably have done close to 50 in the last 6 months. And it gets harder and harder. Although the victims change, many of the readers do not. What could be more boring than reading the same questions time and time again? It really does become a challenge to come up with new stuff to ask.

That is where I find myself right now. I have the green light to interview a musician that I have admired for over 30 years, and I have been wrestling with the questions for 2 days. An absolute key is keep the questions positive, no-one (myself included) wants to field "so what went wrong in the late 70's?". Yet it is a question that I really want to ask.

Sometimes interviews just fall into place, in fact most times that is the case, but not this one!

My solution...... have another beer!

Blogger Eats it's Young!

If it's not one thing it's five other! For some reason only known to Blogger it decided to eat a couple of my articles! The good news is that Google had one of them cached, so I was able to recover it.


I was already pissed off with my computer that seems to have developed an aversion to running Internet Explorer, now I have Blogger acting up!


It was only 3:30am and already my day was going downhill. Maybe I should have just gone back to bed and tried this day over again.

Life can be tough sometimes!

The Week In Review(s)

It must be the summer, and I must be on vacation! I really have not done very much this week at all, well nothing up to the usual rate.I completely ran out of books, and had to dip into my pile of books that are old, but have been on my ‘to do’ list for a long time.First off I tackled Sibir by Farley Mowat, Farley is probably the most famous Canadian author of all time, he may not write great sweeping novels, but he sure writes with humor. Sibir is Russian for Siberia, and it is an account of his ventures into this frozen world in the late 60’s. The Cold War was in full swing, and certainly we in the west were led to believe that everything to do with Russia was bad. Farley is an entertaining writer, and the book basically chronicles a drunken adventure close to the arctic circle. Actually this is a very interesting book, and had more people read Sabir when it first came out (1970) maybe the Cold War would have thawed earlier.

I have had a fascination with the art of Spying for I don’t remember how long. I have read at least a dozen books about the famous ‘Cambridge Five’. One book that is often cited by authors is ‘The Second Oldest Profession’ by Philip Knightly. This book has been out of print for a million years! I snagged a copy a few months ago but I have never had the chance to get into it. I am only about 100 pages into it, but yes, it gets my recommendation!

The only other literary adventure was an interview with the Colwell Brothers, as in Up With People fame. Interestingly enough very few people know of this movement, yet they have performed 4 times at the Super Bowl half time show.

Actually I did have one other literary item, I know I am not alone in wondering what the real story was with the JFK assassination. An event that happened over 40 years ago still garners great interest. A new book is about to hit the stores. The author Dan Robertson relies on a new digitally cleaned up version of the very famous Zapruder home movie of the event to offer yet another slant on this world changing event. When I read the press release I knew it was a book that I had to read, what surprised me was that Dan phoned me the next day! Now I am no expert on the JFK story but I have read a fair amount, which was a good thing, because we ended up having a 45 minute conversation on it. The good news is that not only is he shipping a copy of his book but also a copy of this new cleaned up version of the Zapruder tape. Good times!

On the movie front I had the opportunity to watch a preview copy of The Contract, staring Morgan Freeman. Great movie, and for once Morgan plays the bad guy, in fact he plays a hit man. I have nothing but good things to say about this one, next time you are in Blockbuster pick it up.

Dave Cousins of The Strawbs has just released a solo album The Boy In The Sailor Suit, for any Strawbs fan this is a must have item. I have to admit that I was not sure what to make of it on the first listen, while it was certainly Dave Cousins singing, it did not quite seem to be the Dave Cousins I remembered, I guess that is what happens when you don’t listen to someone for 30 years! However it is an album that grows on you, I listened again to it last night and I was greatly impressed. Better still, when I checked my email this morning there was one from his management company granting my request for an interview.

I have to admit that this reviewing business is fun, I should have got into it years ago. Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would ever get access to the people that I now have access to.