Just forget the words and sing along

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Workin' On Saturday

I was going to do stuff this evening, but I'm just so tired. Spending all day marching across frozen oil leases does that to guy....

Actually, do you want to know what really freaks me out? Really dense forests. I've run into this several times working with my Dad in the oil patch. You go to this oil lease in the middle of nowhere. And, surrounding you on all four sides are really dense forwards. You can only see about 1 metre into the bush, and then it gets as black as night in there.

It gets freaky after a while. Espeicallly when you reach this point by travelling 5km by quad.


In much happier news, I finally found what happened to Rick Moranis! And no, he wasn't in the really dense forests.

You remember Rick Moranis? The Canadian comedian. He was in such fine movies as Ghostbusters, Spaceballs and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. His best known role is still Bob McKenzie (as in "Bob & Doug McKenzie") from SCTV.

Anyway, he stopped making movies around 1996 and just kind of dropped off the face of the Earth. Well, he didn't disapper completely. Around 1998 or so, Bob & Doug McKenzie became the spokesmen for Molson Canadian in the USA, and Bob & Doug were resurrected for a series of TV spots in the USA. (God bless cable.) And then, he did a voice in the Disney animated film Brother Bear. Needless to say, his career has been decidly low-key.

Moranis is enjoying a bit of a comeback right now. As he's been explaining in interviews, his wife passed away in 1991, and, around 1996, he started realizing that working and being a single dad was too hard. So, since he made millions from all his movies, he retired to be a full-time dad. Very cool.

But now, why is he enjoying this comeback? He actually has a country music album out right now. As he explains in interviews, his kids turned him on to bluegrass, and from there, to country music. And, since he's always been a musician, he broke out his guitar and started goofing around. He ended up writing a whole bunch of country music songs - each with his own distinct brand of humour.

The end result was an album called The Agoraphobic Cowboy. Moranis recorded it independently and sold it exclusivly through his website.

And, it's made headlines because, despite this very limited release, it's gotten a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album. Because of all this added hype, it's getting a mainstream release this Tuesday.

After I heard all this, I had to go looking. In case you're curious, here are this year's nominees for Best Comeday Album:

the Agoraphobic Cowboy - Rick Moranis
Family Guy Live in Vegas - The cast of Family Guy
Luther Burbank Performing Arts Centre Blues - Lewis Black
Never Scared - Chris Rock
the Right to Bare Arms - Larry the Cable Guy

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