JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

While cleaning out a box that had been buried in the depths of my bedroom closet, I found several clippings from the year I was arts editor at the Ontarion . The piece above, printed in the fall semester's edition of the Contrarion (joke issue), was a poke at one of my least favourite duties: editing album reviews. While there were many reviewers who did a good job of assessing the pros and cons of a given album, others made me believe they had no opinion at all. These reviews either pulled out the cliches listed above or, worse, simply listing the tracks without any indication of whether they liked the disc. I knew there were people just wanted the CD and had to go through the formality of writing something...but still. Even "song two had a nice tambourine solo" would have shown some thought.

Before reading this post, check out the related article on Torontoist. And now, for your eager eyes, the seafood platter at Danakas Palace that Pierre Trudeau (pictured on the left) liked so much the owners renamed it in honour of his position. Whether the story is true or not, it's not surprising a seafood platter would receive such an honour, as restaurants in the vicinity of Danakas Palace loved showing off their ensembles of lobster, shrimp and other sea creatures in full-colour ads targeted to business executives and tourists—a show of hands from anyone who's ever actually eaten the "award winning" seafood platter showcased in every Toronto visitors guide by Fisherman's Wharf since the dawn of man? It often seems like a seafood platter is designed to look attractive and draw as much money out of a customer as possible. I won't deny having succumbed to the allure of a broad sampling of delights from the deep. During my university days at Guelph, t...

I recently flipped through a long-abandoned index of mix tapes and stumbled upon a milestone that happened ten years ago today—the last weekday afternoon radio show that I hosted in Guelph. The excuse I need for a long entry on my broadcasting days... *** You might say I would wind up on the radio one way or another. As a kid I taped mock radio programs on my Fisher-Price cassette recorder, complete with fake ads and song intros. I imagined it would be fun to have a studio at my disposal, with an endless tower of records to play in a WKRP in Cincinnati setting. The radio station was always the same (CHJZ - no idea what the letters stood for), as was the advertiser ("Harrison, we're the quality people"), who sold ACME-like products with a gravelly-voiced pitchman named Doc. *** I first volunteered at CFRU early in my first year at U of G. I figured that organizing the scattered stacks of vinyl in the station's record library would give me a good idea of wha...

Looking for fun old photos to throw on the site, I dug back in the archive to my university daze. The wayback machine has been set to the fall of '95, with Mr. Buchanan (our dancing king from a few months back) proudly displaying two items. The red pepper came from a clown show we went to at either Tarragon or Passe Muraille as part of a script analysis class. The box in background still pops up in discussion among the gang - if you ever hear any ex-Arts Hausians refer to the Rent-a-Monkey Fund, this was the collection box. JD and Brad had the brilliant idea that if they could collect enough money, we could rent a monkey for a day. Who doesn't like monkeys? They pitched the fund at several house meetings, but alas, the fund never made much headway. It was a terrific idea, but its time hadn't arrived. Hmm, maybe I should start the 10th anniversary monkey fund... - JB

I'm finally starting a long overdue task around here - sorting through my cassette collection to see what stays, what goes. While going through the first rack, found a tape of the "house band" in my residence during my third year of university, BMX. They were essentially a joke band, but managed to play a few fun gigs before petering out. Consider this a lost chunk of the rich musical history of Guelph in the past two decades. The core members of the group were Beastmaster X (vocals), DJ JD Masta Snack Cracka (guitar), Doctor Renfrew Boney Row-Row (bass), Punk Bitch (cello, vocals), Gary (drums) and Bonhomme Carnival (interpretive dancing). Slam dancers were often on hand to liven the crowd up. Their repertoire was mostly covers, such as the two songs featured today (in their original forms - the only BMX material I have is on tape, and let's just say CRMW central doesn't have the transfer technology yet). Beastmaster X belted out the Martian tune, while ...

More fun with the BloggerBot. Dancing around fireworks in suburban Guelph on Canada Day, 1997. 

Halloween is in the air. From highly decorated lawns to the candy displays in grocery stores, it will soon be time for the little ghouls and goblins to wander from house to house. For adults, a time to go a little crazy, step out of the day to day, to let creative impulses go wild. Sure sign we're getting close - CBC is digging out all the old Universal horror flicks from the 30s and 40s...right now, Son of Frankenstein , Boris Karloff's last appearance as the Monster. I've been going through the seasonal flicks in my collection over the past couple of days. Seems like the right time to watch them. Evil Dead, Ginger Snaps, Tomb of Ligeia ... Halloween was one of many things I rediscovered in university. Wasn't too keen on it as a kid - liked the candy, hated the dressing-up part. By the end, I was either going out in my sports uniforms or, the last time I went, around age 11 or so, deciding to go out at the last sec by borrowing part of my sister's cost...

( full size version ) A selection of photos taken around Arts House circa 1995.