The Home of Todd Van Allen
Christmas cheer with Sean Cullen. Sean swings by the studio to have a chat about comedy, Christmas and chocolate-covered ants (one of these items is not discussed). Join Sean and...
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Checking out with Andrew Chapman. Welcome to Season 11. It’s been our pleasure to bring you ten seasons of the show and we start our eleventh with a returning guest,...
Read MoreYesterday was my birthday. I celebrated 46 years on this planet by driving to Toronto from Ottawa and eating large amounts of small-town pizza from Greko’s in Gananoque. For those of you not in the know, Grekos, in spite of having a fantastic website make a slice of pizza that is loads of crust, cheese and heart-attack creating stomach fun. Okay, they’ve got a new one.
But my birthday was just that…a day. Some people decree they are having a “Birthday Week” in order to hide their day-drinking. Others will announce they are having a “BIRTHDAY MONTH!” These are the people in the office that show you pictures of their pets in costumes, demand mandatory participation in Karaoke, and refer to Tim Hortons as “Timmy Ho-Hos” during the Christmas season. Only.
I just wanted a day to celebrate my birthday, not a cluster of them. However, the entire week leading up to it, turned out to be wicked great. Here’s why:
At around 10pm last night, my wife asked me why I seemed down. And I was. I wasn’t “Can’t Pay the Mortgage” down, or “[Favourite Sports Game Team] Suffering Crippling Loss to [Least Favourite Sports Game Team]” sad, or even “Lost eBay Auction for ‘The GoGo’s ‘Vacation’ Whiskey Tumbler Set'” depressed. David Letterman’s last show was about to take to the airwaves and it was to end an era. After 33 years and 6028 shows, he fiddled with his last two-erasered pencil, signed off, and walked out the way he came in. He was and is the same gap-toothed, self-effacing charmer that really had no business being there in the first place. He made his mark and let the people come to him. Everyone I’ve talked to about this had their rituals around watching his show. Mine was this.
* Title from a previous status update of Facebook
I love waking up to news that shouldn’t matter, but does. Typical fake outrage comes from seemingly drunk politicians, Bill Maher or drunk politicians talking to Bill Maher. It’s pretty simple. Today, we were blessed with the #FRHITP hashtag blasting everywhere from an incident that occurred Sunday. I was at the TFC game in question, where City News Reporter Shauna Hunt attempted to interview TFC fans post-usual-crap-game and got a FHRITP for her troubles. You can see it here if you don’t know what that particular acronym means.
Firstly, hats off to Shauna for taking the idiot to task. People much smarter than I have equated to the lad’s utterance as ‘sexual harassment’ and I tend to agree. This goes beyond a boyish prank. Let’s call it what it is; childish and vile. I’m ashamed to call him a “fellow fan” of the team that I enjoy watching fail at football week after week after week. I applaud Shauna for not buckling and brushing this event off and I thank her for her bravery. Now, people are coming up using #FHRITP and “freedom of speech” in the same sentence. They’re wrong to do so. Here’s why.