Michael Waldhuber is a HERO two times!!

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. And the man in this case was Michael Waldhuber, 29, Calgary, who made a brief appearance on Percy’s Depressed back in August when he made the papers for saving his buddy from a mean old grizzly she-bear.

And then he saved Percy.

From Queenie.

Not to mention Queenie.

From herself.

Whilst googling himself (which is allowed if you’re a HERO), he came across the blog and left a little message, to the effect that he’s okay and his buddy’s okay, but still doesn’t have the use of his hand. So nice healing vibes out to his friend. And a big cheer for the first official visit to our blog of a HERO.

And he complimented me on my collection of bear articles. I'm sure it was a compliment. I mean, he's Canadian. They don't do sarcasm. Unless they do in Alberta.

Nah, I can't imagine a man who is man enough to fight off a she-bear in a towering rage with a can of pepper spray would be bothered with something as effete as sarcasm.

Percy’s made up.

Those of you who have been following this for a while will remember that Percy and Queenie came to Canada for a lot of reasons (on Queenie’s part) and just one on Percy’s part – to find heroes and go on a Quest. There’s been a lot of faffing around on Queenie’s part since they arrived – backpacking around, finding a job, finding a house, making friends, settling down, getting laid, etc. and Percy’s been very patient.

Then the whole ‘I’m not blogging anymore’ quagmire of crap landed on his head and he’s been very put out. Spent all last weekend wandering aimlessly around the house, banging his helmet against the wall, while Queenie lay on her bed eating chocolate, reading a Michael Chabon novel pretending she wasn’t miserable because she wasn’t blogging.

It was Summerland, by the way. The novel. A children’s story about baseball and ferrishers and a flying car and saving the planet from the chaotically evil Coyote. Which they did without a tyre iron, I hasten to add.

They used a baseball bat.

So Percy’s banging around the room now, wiping the dust off his armour and getting his fighting gear together while Queenie blogs. He’s going to Alberta. To find Michael Waldhuber. Of course, he doesn’t know that he was going to Alberta anyway. But not to Calgary. Up north, to Athabasca. In three weeks. So he’ll be flying into Edmonton. Home of the Oilers. Home of the greatest hockey player that ever lived. Whose name I can’t remember. Ever. Groesky…. Something like that, I think.

We’re playing our October mix. Which is Elliot Brood’s new album Ambassador, which is great Canadian alt-country a la Cowboy Junkies. Go see this band if they play Ireland. And two soundtracks – Garden State, which has been our second favourite film this year, and Elizabethtown.

Which is a pile of steaming gack with nothing to redeem it, not even watching Orlando Bloom doing his four facial expressions and going ‘oh, that’s the one from Fangorn Forest’, ‘oh, that’s the one from the Rohirrim drinkfest’, ‘oh that’s the one when he thinks Aragorn is dead’ and ‘oh that’s the one at the end when he lets Aragorn know he’s just gotten lucky’. I swear to God, that kid is supposed to be able to act and I have yet to see a single sign of it. Even though William swears he was good when he saw him in Oxford.

Maybe he has a stage presence that doesn’t translate to the big screen.

I’m feeling very charitable this evening. This is despite spending an hour on the phone with a woman from Cape Breton who was very exercised by the Dept of Environment and Labour and some company that dug a trench from their sewage lagoon into her brook what she gets her drinking water from. It's all a Liberal plot, apparently.

Whatever.

And the fourth album is Dark Side of the Moon, which is as great as I remembered.

I went to see In her Shoes tonight. It should be called (Camera) In Cameron's Tits. There was a breast shot of Cameron every thirty seconds. Which is a pity, because it wasn’t a bad film. But it has started the breast obsession thing with me again. I thought I was over it. I mean, who cares if they’re real or not, or if they’re wearing a push up thingy underneath, or why their nipples aren’t showing, or whatever. Or if they’re bigger on the poster.

I got a good dose of (free) therapy about this recently, so I am very disappointed that it's reared its ugly nipple at me again.

But not surprised.

Why do I obsess about stupid things like bears and wolves and other women’s breasts?

Who cares.

Well, actually I do, because obsessive people often do it to the extent that they draw interesting conclusions or write about them and then they get to obsess for a living. Whereas I obsess about stupid things in my downtime, when I could be doing more interesting stuff.

The Elizabethtown soundtrack is actually really good. Lots of really good tunes from people I've never heard of, apart from The Shins, so lots of following up to do.

I’d say Cameron Crowe lost his way in the film, which has a number of good setpieces and some storming acting from one of the supporting actors but little else, because he was obsessing about the soundtrack the whole time. I get like that sometimes. I’ll start imagining a plot or a story of some description, and then just as I scope it out in my head and get to the point where I should write it down, off I go on a three day scroll of iTunes trying to find the perfect mix of songs to play while I write it. And then by the time I’ve done that, I’m bored with the whole thing and I just give up.

Discipline. That’s what I need. A big dose of ‘for fuck’s sake grow up, sit down, write the stupid thing and get it out of your system’. From someone I’m suitably scared of.

The person who can scare me into writing a novel does not exist.

I’ll just have to make her up, won’t I!

There’s a challenge.

What would she be like?

Well, she’d have to be tall, because I need to be physically intimidated. And glamorous and attractive, because I’m a sucker for that kind of gloss. And uber smart. And funny, with an edge to it. And a bit cutting, but in a deliberate way, not in a bull-in-a-china shop way. Because that’s forgivable. And be able to withhold approval in order to get me to do stuff. Because that’s my button, of course. I go crazy when people are ‘disappointed in me’.

I shouldn’t be telling you all this. I’ll be getting ‘this is a very disappointing post’ comments now from Tall 'n' Glamorous of Goatstown.

Actually, I've read that back and it's rubbish. A woman like that wouldn't intimidate me. In fact, all the women who've intimidated me in the past have been shorter than me. And when I think about it, she should probably be a he. Because all the people I’ve ever been truly intimidated by have been men. Which annoys me no end, I can tell you.

Speaking of glamorous, intimidating women with gravity-defying breasts that I get obsessed about, I’ve been watching Desperate Housewives. One hour of telly a week is okay, isn’t it? Which will go up to two when Lost comes back. The new series is good, but it has settled into slowly exploring a range of issues that have crossed over from the first series, so it has the potential to get a bit boring.

The difficult second series.

Speaking of which, in the relentlessly innovative way that my brain has of preventing me from writing, the latest thing it came up with was ‘there's no point, as the second novel will be too difficult’.

I mean, come on!!

No wonder I can’t give up smoking. My brain just run rings around me.

Anyway, boys and girls, sorry about the hissy fit. Nice to be back.

Talk to you soon.