The Better Man

Less is More: A Birthday Lesson from The Thin White Duke

Chris — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:35:40 +0000

About 7 years ago, I went to see a reunion concert by the modestly successful post-punk band Gang of Four. These English blokes once meant something to my friends and me. As effete music snobs, we’d try to distinguish ourselves from the regular high school rabble by the obscurity of the music we listened to. In Saskatchewan circa 1986, where everyone dressed like they’d stepped right out of Heavy Metal Parking Lot, it was hard to find a band more obscure than Gang of Four.

Sadly, the group never played the prairies in their heyday, so this reunion tour …

WHAT I’VE LEARNED: Opinions from a Man Whose Opinion You May Not Care About

Chris — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:10:25 +0000

By now I think we all know that celebrity interviews are complete horseshit. They exist mostly to help the celebrity promote their latest movie/tell-all memoir/Playboy spread/prison release. Illumination is not a part of the design.

Personally, I’ve been party to the most craven of celebrity interviews – the movie press junket. Studios will spend millions flying journalists in from Wichita or Reykjavik, put them up at a four-star hotel, and grant them a five-minute audience with the stars of the flick being promoted. In exchange for their largesse, the studios insist the discussion be limited to the movie, and that …

Words of Hope from a Better Man

Chris — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:44:23 +0000

Vaclav Havel 1936-2011

I’m amazed I still have it – a dog-eared copy of Esquire magazine from October 1993. It was a 60th Anniversary edition, titled “60 Things Every Man Should Know”, filled with essays from big thinkers like Norman Mailer and Ice-T, ruminating on such pressing subjects as boxing and sex doggy-style. It sits in a tin box in my storage unit, along with a stack of somewhat less-distinguished publications, like my signed copy of Playboy with Katarina Witt on the cover, or the low-rent trade journal featuring the first article I ever got paid to write.

To be …

I Got Your Moment Right HERE!

Chris — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:09:00 +0000

For years, I’ve been making myself appear smarter and more interesting than I actually am by quoting dialogue from director David Mamet’s films. At some point, anyone who knows me well has been amused/bored/irritated by some of the following nuggets:

From the movie Heist:

Jimmy: So, is he going to be cool?

Pinky: My motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him.

[In a bar]

Betty Croft: Take it easy, baby, that stuff’ll rot your stomach lining.

Fran Moore: Yeah, but I get to drink it first.

From the movie The Spanish …

PROJECT IRON FIST: The Things You Learn When You’re Punched In The Face

Chris — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:17:22 +0000

It’s now been a while now since I started training with my affably sadistic Muay Thai coach, Derwin. I’m probably a few decades away from stepping into the Octagon with Georges St. Pierre, but nonetheless I’ve improved: my punches come with a nice little snap; I no longer have to remind myself to rotate my hips when I throw punches; I don’t drop my hand and expose my jaw when I initiate a swing kick; and my combinations don’t unravel into series of painfully awkward bitch slaps (as much). Derwin has used a lot of great …

Getting Schooled: Five Things My Infant Daughter is Teaching Me

Chris — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 04:52:24 +0000

I’ve neglected the blog of late. I could tell you it’s because I’m knee-deep in shitty diapers, trying desperately to console a wailing infant and wondering if I’d be criminally liable in a case of Shaken Baby Syndrome. But that’d just be an excuse.

The truth is it’s work that’s keeping me from blogging, not my child. Ava is lovely – quiet, gorgeous, and sleeping most of the night. Admittedly, she does have legendary poos. Baby Mama was recently victim of an IED (Infant Exploding Diaper) – apparently, the force of the dookie blew the diaper right off Ava’s body. …

JACK LAYTON: A Better Man in Full

Chris — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:49:33 +0000

I worked at MuchMusic for almost a decade, and unquestionably my biggest contribution to music that whole time was being producer/cameraman/bodyguard to Nardwuar the Human Serviette. I love Nardwuar like an annoying brother – which is to say I appreciate his merits while admitting that few people on earth can frustrate me as much. Anyone who has watched (or been a subject of) his interviews probably knows what I’m getting at.

In Nardwuar’s defense, the man has no guile. He’s not Sasha Baren-Cohen, playing a polarizing character for laughs. He’s not malicious, or calculating, or daring. Nardwuar is just…Nardwuar. He …

No Country for Better Men

Chris — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 04:47:46 +0000

About a week ago, I was writing a post called “D-Day plus 10”. Essentially, it was a self-congratulatory note on how prepared I was for the imminent arrival of my first child, and how 10 days after the original due date, the waiting had grown tiresome. It was perhaps one of my best – witty, poignant, self-effacing, with a life lesson for any Man on the road to Betterment. I can tell you all of this, of course, because I’ll never publish it. To do so would be moot, since halfway through writing I was interrupted by the arrival of …

The Man Who Knew Too Much (And Other Movie References)

Chris — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 06:29:45 +0000

Baby Mama and I went to a movie yesterday – perhaps the last one we’ll see together for a long time (that doesn’t involve Pixar animations). We saw Horrible Bosses – a benign comedy chosen primarily for Baby Mama’s crush on Jason Bateman. I didn’t mind it, although I had trouble suspending my disbelief for the part about the guy who hates that his uber-hot boss Jennifer Aniston keeps trying to have sex with him. During a scene where the guy feels harassed because she’s wearing just a lab coat and panties in the office, one moviegoer in the …

BETTER MAN BABY UPDATE: Employee of the Month

Chris — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:15:58 +0000

I was discussing my looming fatherhood with the producer of the show I’m working on, a lovely woman and mother of two, when she exclaimed “the Belly is the Boss!” Childless people may regard this as a kind of Tourette’s, but anyone who’s expected children knows my producer was imparting a fundamental truth: that every action you take from the time you’re pregnant – buying the car seat, searching for onesies from Norwegian black metal bands (harder to find than you think), the consumption of banana strawberry donuts – it’s all in the service of a tiny, inscrutable employer whose …