Ok, I have given everybody a break for a good long time now. It’s time to talk about the new season of Trailer Park Boys. It starts on Sunday, 9pm on Showcase as usual. This is the fourth season, and it should only get better from here.

Showcase.ca has some updated stuff on the show, some of it is quite good. One thing they have is a characters section, with an actor’s bio for each. One thing I never noticed is that the actress playing Sarah is actually Jim Lahey’s daughter. Also, Randy still holds down a full-time job as a bottled water sales rep, if you can believe that. Who would buy anything from that dude?

Anyway.

First episode description:
Never Cry Sh–wolf (my edit, not theirs):
Julian gets out of jail only to discover that Ricky is the new supervisor of Sunnyvale Trailer Park. Ricky and his assistant, Bubbles, have been carrying out various illegal activities.

absolute gold.

A nice little postscript to my post of a little while ago.

This is from the liner notes on “Nashville Skyline”, a Bob Dylan album of country songs, on which Johnny Cash was a guest artist.

“Of Bob Dylan”

There are those who do not imitate,
Who cannot imitate
But then there are those who emulate
At times, to expand further the light
Of an original glow.
Knowing that to imitate the living
Is mockery
And to imitate the dead
Is robbery
There are those
Who are beings complete unto themselves
Whole, undaunted,-a source
As leaves of grass, as stars
As mountains, alike, alike, alike,
Yet unalike
Each is complete and contained
And as each unalike star shines
Each ray of light is forever gone
To leave way for a new ray
And a new ray, as from a fountain
Complete unto itself, full, flowing
So are some souls like stars
And their words, works and songs
Like strong, quick flashes of light

From a brilliant, erupting cone.
So where are your mountains
To match some men?

This man can rhyme the tick of time
The edge of pain, the what of sane
And comprehend the good in men, the bad in men
Can feel the hate of fight, the love of right
And the creep of blight at the speed of light
The pain of dawn, the gone of gone
The end of friend, the end of end
By math of trend
What grip to hold what he is told
How long to hold, how strong to hold
How much to hold of what is told.
And Know
The yield of rend; the break of bend
The scar of mend
I’m proud to say that I know it,
Here-in is a hell of a poet.
And lots of other things
And lots of other things.
— Johnny Cash

Nicely done. I stole this from bobdylan.com, by the way.

Keen readers of this blog (which is sporting a new name today, both of you will notice) will know I have been on a reading binge lately that focusses on musical heroes of mine. I have been reading biographies of the normal and the auto variety. There were two different Dylan books, a Stompin’ Tom book, and most recently I finished reading Johnny Cash’s autobiography, I think it was just called “Cash”. It was written and published sometime in 1997 I think.

I’m a casual fan of his, I enjoy most of what I hear but I will admit I know only a very few songs well. I really didn’t know how much of his own stuff he wrote, or how long he had been singing, or anything like that. His early career I knew nothing about. So this book was a fun read in that respect. There is some good stuff in here about how he was around at Sun Records at the very beginning of it all, Elvis was there, Carl Perkins was there, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, a bunch of others, and Cash. All by itself that’s news to me. Also, some interesting tidbits according to Johnny:

– Elvis started refusing to be onstage following Carl Perkins after he got completely upstaged by him at a show. The audience was calling for Carl to come back onstage during Elvis’ set, and he had to stop playing and let Carl come back. Now that’s kind of neat.
– Cash’s big vice was amphetamines and of course they almost killed him before he kicked them for good. Some of the stories around the drug addiction are amazing and yes, funny.
– On Ring of Fire, the record company almost didn’t let him release the song because it used horns. That wasn’t considered very country at the time. John was adamant though because he heard the song in a dream and it had horns, so that was how it had to be.
– Johnny also lists some of his favourite songwriters, and you’ll never guess who is in that very short list of luminaries. None other than Mr. John Prine.
– On his list of desert island records is The Freewheeling Bob Dylan. Cash and Dylan corresponded for a while once they met and said they were fans of each others work.

Lots more neat stories in this one. It’s also very clear that Cash is a religious man, which I guess you would have to be after what he’s seen.

Anyway, a good read if anybody wants to borrow it…..

My my, time flies when you’re nuts.

What’s new folks? Well I’ll tell you what’s new.

We put a major bee on this month to get the basement drywalled. I have Robbie and Kyle to thank for that, they did the heavy lifting for scrawny old me to run the drill. Much appreciated, and you guys know you banked a big favour there. As a matter of fact the mud/tape guy just started working in the basement today to finish it all off this week, with luck. Very exciting. Well, it is for me.

Also, Nikki and I have been alternating doing the painting in Jordy’s new room. We did 2 coats of blue from floor to ceiling, measured and marked off the stripes, and put three coats of yellow on those. This week will be applying a glaze to all of this that will hopefully finish the painting of the walls once and for all. Then it’s put up the chair rail and paint the trim. That’s a lot of painting in one room, folks.

Also, I have cleaned out the garage (that was a while coming), and put up the Christmas lights. Soon it will be decorate the inside of the house for Christmas. It’s all about the chores lately.

But that’s not what I came to tell you today. I had the pleasure of seeing John Prine at the NAC on Thursday (the 20th). It was a real treat, let me tell you. There’s a guy who can hold my attention forever. He’s a great combination of humour and good songwriting. I urge you to give him a listen yourself. His website and record company is OhBoy.com. Or you can email him yourself at johnprine@ohboy.com

If it wasn’t too late to get my letter to Santa, I might ask for “The Full Johnny“.

Later kids.