the ALLDERBLOB

Some accuse the ALLDERBLOB of lacking a spirit of “fun.” What does this mean, we respond. Is fun something you do? What is it, to “fun.” Or if you can only “have” fun, can you hold onto it? Can you save it for later? If fun can be “had,” can it be shared with others?

But we know more about fun than we let on. We remember having fun, a couple times.

See, mostly, fun is something that happened–it’s in the past. Afterwards, the fun doesn’t stick around. They say time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana, but fun…it evaporates or something. Fun slips through your fingers. It blows away in the slightest breeze. And you slap your hands together, you try to swat it or hang onto it, but it’s gone.

That’s why they invented YouTube(tm).

We remember…. For example, we remember an evening, May 25 2007 to be exact. We were present in the audience at Massey Hall for a “fun” time. We had fun watching the opening act for the Canadian singer Feist. It was a piano player named “Gonzales.” Here’s a clip from that evening’s opening act that someone posted to YouTube.

Oh yeah, we had fun all right. We laughed, we clapped, we stomped our feet. but the fun got away anyhow. You can’t swat fun and make it stay there, the way you can with a fruit fly. What’s up with that?

Turns out Gonzales has a theory of his own:

With Gonzales, so modest and charming, we ask: “who’s a genius?”

Feist was pretty good that night too. But it was Gonzales who the audience’s heart beat with. But he’s back in Paris. Not even his childhood piano, dragged up on the Massey Hall stage, could convince M. Gonzales to stick around his home town. Seems there was some unpleasantness in the past that pushed him to greener pastures. Some “newspaper” review. Such a tragedy about the way Toronto treats its own.

Where’s the fun in that?

We blame the car ads.
Link to Gonzales sampler website
Link to Now magazine and Car advertiser concert review