The Great Toronto Tim Hortons Near Riot!

On 26March2024 I received an e-mail from “Your Friends at Yorkdale VW” showing how much they appreciated me being part of the VW family. Golly as Sally Field once said at the Oscars, “You really love me!” So nice to be loved by a large German corporation!

I was so loved an offer was made to enjoy food on 27March2024 at a Donut Emporium loved by many Canadians known as Tim Hortons. Volkswagen Canada would pay my bill at two participating Tim Hortons locations up to $30 and “To claim, simply drive your Volkswagen through the drive through or show your VW keys at the counter.”

How nice of Volkswagen Canada! “We hope this small token of appreciation will help brighten your day!” So I planned a special trip to the participating Tim Horton’s location arriving there at the noon hour and was crestfallen and more than a bit aggravated to see a sign on the front door, “Volkswagen event has ended.” Upon a query I was told by the exasperated store manager they had “run out” in 40 minutes. Someone from Volkswagen had put $500 on their credit card in favor of the Tim Hortons store to pay for the promotion. That would pay for 16 customers. As I was discussing this state of affairs a crowd arrived waving their phones and printed copies of the e-mail and expressed their dissatisfaction with as one customer said was a “misrepresentation”. One disgruntled and donut deprived was on her phone arguing with Yorkdale Volkswagen which refused to compensate the irate VW customers who did not feel appreciated about being in the Volkswagen family! Anger and frustration was mushrooming and to avoid a barrage of tear gas from the guys who were not defunded I made a hasty escape. Being close to Yorkdale Volkswagen I dropped in to have some bolts tightened and ran into my service contact and told him the story joined by another disaffected customer. Instead of a $30 gift certificate I was given a $10 one by a manager who was running a handful of $10 Tim Hortons gift certificates to he swelling mob at the Tim Horton’s location.

There was a disclaimer that the “activation” (whatever that means) was subject to available quantities per restaurant. My goodness there were vast quantities of donuts available! As someone in the unhappy crowd at Tim Hortons said the offer was too good to be true.

No I have no plans to launch a class action lawsuit. A poorly planned goodwill scheme obviously backfired. My next car will be a Bentley! Now if this event shows the appreciation of Volkswagen of its customers in their family I fear what happens if they don’t appreciate me being in the family!

RKS 2024 Wine:  A Failed Recovery Attempt from a New Zealand Pinot Noir Disaster

The last Zealie Pinot Noir I tried was bordering on undrinkable as it “stunk” of oak. New Zealand, in my past experiences, does much better than a stinky Pinot Noir!

So hopefully it is redemption time with a Paper Road 2021 Pinot Noir from Borthwick Vineyards family owned and established in 1996. Ancient stony, alluvial soils, a cool climate, sustainable practices and minimal intervention in the vineyard and winery.

Aroma: This wine is not suffering from oakasis majoris! 85% French oak aged for 8 months with a mixture of selected cooperages of which 15% were new but still too much wood barely within an acceptable range that is if you like an oaked Pinot Noir. Black cherry, black raspberry with a touch of milk chocolate.

Palate: Not one of those delicate and dainty Pinot Noirs leaning towards full bodied and almost aggressive perhaps to the stony soil composition. The acids are cutting and distracting on the verge of annoying. Black cherry, cranberry and pomegranate with a gruff peppery finish.

Personality: I am very rough and zippy around the edges.

Food Match: A Zealie meat pie.

Cellarbility: Don’t bother. Drink now.

Price: $26 CDN (Ontario).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 72/100. Decanter 2022 World Wine Awards 95.

(Paper Road 2021 Pinot Noir, Wairarapa, New Zealand, Borthwick Vineyard, Gladstone, New Zealand, 750 mL, 13.5%).

Comments from the Peanut Gallery: Too much oak aggravated by too much acidity. “Drinkable” is not something you should have to settle for. Three strikes and you are out New Zealand.

RKS 2024 Film: “Velma”: An Elusive Attempt to Find that Special Man: “Moon River” Meets Ted Bundy

Shot in a rich 1960’s motive (with a touch of Fellini) including food, dress and music Velma (Scarlet Moreno) searches for that “special man” but Velma is locked into a pattern of feeding then bedding a man regretting her unsuccessful endeavours of willing if not compulsive behavior. It is not regretting or being ashamed of her sexuality but of its failure to progress past the carnal into the canal of true love.

And finally the perfect man, yet again, is not the perfect man. So unfortunately just another notch on the broom for Velma and even greater regret of the perfect man who was not perfect.

Back to the routine Velma goes in her search for the perfect man leaving an unsavoury wake.

A role reversal of Norman Bates and Marion Crane.

This American short will be released on VOD on 26March2024.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 93/100.

RKS Literature: A Corporate Executive Expresses His Love for the “Common People” After Many Highballs (Vonnegut)

“It was a generalized love-particularly for the little people, the common people, God bless them. All his life they had been hidden from him by the walls of his ivory tower. Now, this night, he had come among them, shared their hopes and disappointments, understood their yearnings, discovered the beauty of their simplicities and their earthly values. This was real, this side of the river, and Paul loved these common people, and wanted to help, and let them know they were loved and understood, and he wanted to love them too.”

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., “Player Piano”, 1952

RKS 2024 Literature: The Spirituality of the Corporate Mission (Vonnegut)

“The faith of Kroner’s had a lot to do with Paul’s getting to be manager of Ilium: and now that faith might get him the managership of Pittsburgh. When Paul thought about his effortless rise in the hierarchy, he sometimes, as now, felt sheepish, like a charlatan. He could handle his assignments all right, but he didn’t have what his father had: the sense of spiritual importance in what they were doing; the ability to be moved emotionally, almost like a lover, by the great and omnipresent and omniscient spook, the corporate personality. In short, Paul missed what made his father aggressive and great: the capacity to really give a damn.”

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., “Player Piano”, 1952

Opera Revue: Pesky Operatic Danger Attacks the Sanctity of Opera

As disclaimers and “transparency” are soothing words spouted by public relations firms desperately trying to “manage” the transgressions of deep pocketed corporations I must disclose that I am President and Chief Executive Officer of “The Pan Canadian Society for the Purity of Opera”. Our goal is ensuring operatic performances maintain minimum standards including “proper management” of audiences. Unruliness of operatic performances and of audience members must not be tolerated.

I attended my second performance of The Opera Revue recently at the Granite Brewery in Toronto. One simply must not give performances at a brewery when we have a plenitude of more “appropriate” venues in massive concert halls that make an audience member cower in awe and respect. Really now drinking beer, eating supper and listening to opera is against all basic standards of the opera.

Opera Revue performers misbehaving in their dressing room

Listen to the rules announced at the beginning of Opera Revue’s performance.

  • Talking permitted
  • No need to turn cell phones off
  • Dressing up for the “opera” as they call it is discouraged
  • Drinking more improves your experience

OUTRAGEOUS!

No talking is a cardinal rule of a “proper operatic” performance. An operatic audience is best managed with a silence rule and schussing upholds the purity of a performance.

Masticating food during performances reduces opera to a dinner theatre as please one must not confuse Toronto with The Catskills! Imagine hearing a bottle of wine being opened in the middle of a song or watching some patron gobbling greasy chicken wings leaving a greasy chin for all to see. If there is any food at the opera a $23 glass of wine and a $32 ham and cheese on a croissant from one of Toronto’s best bakeries (COSTCO) is the way to go. Opera patrons are all barons of industry and Muskoka cottage owners so what is a “little premium” on food.

Not turning off your cellphones is a slap in the face of decorum.

Bathroom breaks a la volonte? If you can’t hold it in and suffer there is no place for you in a proper operatic audience.

Do you know how many people were wearing jeans at the performance I attended? A pair of jeans at an opera! What moral decline! What an affront to humanity! What next, pets at the opera or Loonie hot dog performances. Is Opera Revue offering “discount opera” in the nosebleed section. And the performers dress style? Best not delve into that but that baritone guy in a T-shirt. Ooooh!

Opera lovers know all the plots and acts in an opera but The Opera Revue explains the numbers before performed. Ignorance is bliss in opera. To explain destroys mysticism.

You are getting the picture right?

The biggest violation of operatic rules absolutely “beyond the Pale” is Opera Revue’s insidious attack on opera by performing numbers from popular musicals such as “Guys and Dolls”, “South Pacific” and “Music Man”. And the jokes made by the performers themselves is unconscionable.

In the call of duty I attempted a citizen’s arrest of a couple of the performers but no one in the audience assisted and in fact treating me like Professor Everett Scott booed me!

I will leave it here with a promise to return to the next performance with a team of picketers demanding the shutdown of Opera Revue! There is no room for fun at an opera. It is all about duty!

As a last observation a dog behind me breathing dog breath al over me!

A replica dog that was breathing down my neck at Opera Revue performance!

Note that the author is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Pan-Canadian Society for the Purity of Opera and holder of the Chair of Operatic Deviance Department in the University of Tirana. He is an inductee at the Everett Scott Hall of Fame for Patrons of the Lofty Arts. Nominated “Vindictive Critic of the Year” by the Romanian Journal for Esoteric Arts.

Interesting in further corrupting yourself here is a link to their website and you didn’t get it from me https://operarevue.com/

RKS 2024 Wine: The Berlin Wall, DDR Memories and German Pinot Noir

I was in Berlin in the days of yore when the Berlin Wall was “up and running”. At night lit up it was particularly eerie with bright lights and East German soldiers with dogs patrolling and East German soldiers patrolling the patrolling East German soldiers for fear they’d somehow make a break for it. And at the British Officers Club across the river was East Berlin. Many an Eastern Berliner had been shot dead in the water trying to escape to West Berlin. How I ended up in the British Officers Club in the British sector of West Berlin is a good story as well having my Canadian passport thrown in my face by DDR border guards. My middle name is Kennedy not a name favoured in East Berlin. Ever thought your middle name might propel you into a gulag!

East Germany (DDR) watches you!

Has there been a wall in Germany preventing any wine but Riesling making it to the shores of Canada? Over the years a few German Pinot Noirs (aka Spätburgunder) have trickled into Canada. There is an increased trickle of Spätburgunder limping into Canada and they are usually good and attractively priced.

We try a Tugana Estate 2019 Pinot Noir with a rather unGermanic name and label.

Aroma: A couple months ago I tried a New Zealand Pinot Noir absolutely decimated by oak. If you are going to oak Pinot Noir do it with second or third fill barrels preferably French. Like do you want to give a ballerina the same amount of steroids as a weightlifter? I had that bad too much oak feeling but gave it 20 minutes to breathe and most of the oak vanished leaving too much oak to my liking but the fruit emerged. Blackberry, black raspberry, cranberry and milk chocolate.

Palate: Grainy tannins. Disciplined acids. Long lingering finish. Blackberry and cassis. Aggressive style of Pinot Noir.

Personality: Hefty, blunt and to the point. Please don’t call me a “Woody the Woodpecker”! I feel there is a noose of too much wood awaiting me.

Food Match: Hefty enough for pig knuckles.

Cellarbility: Will further confinement in the bottle soften this hardliner if not polemic Pinot Noir? I don’t think that the case.

Price: $23 CDN (Ontario).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 76/100.

(Tugana, Spätburgunder 2019, Baden, Weinhaus Tugana, Gottenheim, Germany, 750 mL, 13.5%).

RKS 2024 Wine: Ontario Merlot: To Dream the Almost Impossible Dream

Wine writers must suffer boredom reviewing wines if they have no passion. You might want to say I am passionate about discovering good Ontario Merlot despite the fact it might be a Sir Edmund Hillary climb to find one. The majority taste neutered with little power to impress. Sure you can point to terroir to defend an Ontario Merlot. Terroir only goes far but don’t use it as terror to baffle and intimidate wine drinkers. The ignorant amongst us think simplistically. Either a Merlot is good or it isn’t.

The grapes were machine and optically sorted to separate the ripest grapes. Aged in 100% French oak barrels from Tonnellerie Sirgue-Nuits Saint Georges (25% new) for 10 months. 499 cases were made. The winemakers were David Johnson and Kevin Chuan Qin.

Featherstone Estate in the Niagara region makes a superb rosé perhaps the best in Ontario and perhaps in all of Canada. But Merlot?

Aroma: Ginja D’Óbidos, black raspberry, black cherry all in an austere framework stubbornly refusing to open raincoat flash its oak instead managing to keep it integrated into the wine.

Palate: Gentle and smooth tannins with acids way back in the cheap seats. Raspberry, cocoa and freshly picked early season strawberries. Precise with no flab so no way can it be called rich. It is bordering on elegant and with just a bit more fruit showing it could be.

Personality: I am light on my feet but if RKS 2024 Wine says I am neutered they can go to hell.

Food Match: Japanese cod curry. Try the S&B or Glico curry mix.

Price: $20 CDN (Ontario).

Cellarbility: The winery says 5-10 years cellaring potential. I would say drink by 2026-year end.

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 90/100. Rick VanSickle 92.

(Featherstone 2021 Red Tail Merlot, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Featherstone Estate Winery, Vineland, Ontario, 750 mL, 12.5%).

Comments from the peanut gallery: In this case this is no neutered Ontario Merlot. No impossible dream involved here. A good Ontario Merlot.

RKS 2024 Film: “Carol Doda: Topless at the Condor”: Artistic Exploration Sputters to Nostalgia Act

Carol Doda (1937-2015) has been recognized as the first “legal” topless dancer in the United States. Using archival footage including press interviews we trace the history of Carol Doda and perhaps of more interest the evolution of American attitudes towards sexuality and the feminist movement. The film also delves into (although not expressly) the American obsession with celebrity status and a relentless drive to obtain and maintain it.

Carol Doda burst onto the scene in 1964 with her topless dancing in the North Beach area of San Francisco where she descended from a white Baldwin piano lowered from the ceiling onto the stage at the Condor. It was novel and fresh drawing huge crowds to the Condor. Topless dancing spread and when that saturated the market it was bottomless dancing, interracial dancing, topless dancing with animals, topless co-eds etc. etc. Any offshoot of nude and semi-nude dancing that would keep patrons flowing in. As with any trend it began to fade with more emphasis on the explicit than on the artistic.

Carl Doda rode the waves with various merchandising and artistic endeavours without much success. Her numerous silicone breast augmentation treatments attempting to add a marketing twist to her topless dancing was successful but arguably leakage of silicone may have killed her.

A common story of a popular entertainer fading as age and changing public taste rendered a vibrant cultural structure shaker into a “nostalgia act”. Perhaps of more interest is the role of topless dancing interacting, both positively and negatively, with feminism and the social tone of the United States particularly in the mid to late sixties.

Even if the concept of topless dancing does not interest you perhaps its evolution within changing societal norms and the fantastic archival footage may magically return you to the 1960s.

The film will be released theatrically in Canada on 5April2024.

Co-directed by Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 89/100.

RKS Literature: Suffering from a Lack of Suffering (Ben Lerner)

“On the one hand, Klaus, surely the only man in Topeka outfitted in white linen, could not take these kids-with their refrigerators full of food, their air conditioning and television, their freedom from stigma and state violence-seriously; what could be more obvious than the fact that they did not know what suffering was, that if they suffered from anything it was precisely this lack of suffering, a kind of neuropathy that came from too much ease, too much sugar, a kind of existential gout.”

Ben Lerner, “The Topeka School”, Picador, 2020