Dog On A Root

- jim Young “The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.” - Dylan Thomas In the interest of time, I caution my readers to first read Paul Hond’s excellent article The Story Behind the Most Famous Christmas Poem of All   that my nephew, Kory recently shared with me. My article here won’t mean much to you unless you do. And thus begins the dilemma in trying to determine the true credit for A Visit From St. Nicholas. As a writer, I would hate to have any of my original works credited to another author. BUT and it's a big BUT - I would equally hate to have anyone else's original work credited to ME. Of course my feelings on that subject do not necessarily reflect either Clement C. Moore's or Henry Livingston Jr.'s feelings on the matter. However, when you consider Moore's background, as described in Paul Hond’s article, The Story Behind the Most Famous Christmas Poem of All one can't help but view Moore as an honourable individual and wonder...

- jim Young “Sometimes you can have the smallest role in the smallest production and still have a big impact.” - Neil Patrick Harris “Lights! Camera! Action!” And the fantasy world of Hollywood begins filming another scene for what everyone on set hopes will be the next big Christmas blockbuster. Except it’s North Bay, not Hollywood.  And it’s not “Lights! Camera Action!” anymore, it’s “Rolling! Background! Action!” now. “Rolling!” indicates the cameras are operating. The cameras are all digital now of course, but the direction refers to the old days when the film literally “rolled” in the cameras. Mostly it is a call for everyone on the set to “Pay attention and shut the fuck up!” “Background!” is the direction for the background actors, formerly known as “extras”, to start doing whatever they’ve been directed to do. “Action!” which has remained unchanged is still the direction for the main actors to begin pretending to be whoever they are pretending to be. But on the first s...

- jim Young “Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don’t have any surface noise.  I said, ‘Listen, mate, life has surface noise.’”  - John Peel ( the longest serving of the original BBC Radio1 DJs) Music today has changed. I think that’s pretty obvious.  But I’m not talking about the songs or the artists or even the genres, I’m talking about the medium in which we listen to our music and more specifically a medium that was once almost lost in time, vinyl. I have a collection of between 400 and 500 albums. That doesn’t count the few hundred I have for sale nor the hundreds and hundreds I have sold in the past.  This is just my personal very eclectic collection of the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Who, The Guess Who, The New Vaudeville Band, Gordon Lightfoot, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Ten Years After, Dylan, The Rollings Stones, Liberace, The Carpenters, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Led Zeppe...