The Double Exposure Radio Blog

I am here to tell you the story of one man who made a difference and saved America. His name was Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. On Christmas Day 2009 the United States of America had lost 7. 2 million jobs over the previous two years. Unemployment was at 10 per cent. Economists feared a double dip would strike the fragile recovery. And then along came Mr. Abdul Mutallab. Mr. A (I’m doing that because if I keep having to type Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab I may not finish this piece) was a wannabe terrorist who seemed to be studying at University College in London. I’m saying ‘seemed to be’ because he was what we sometimes refer to as a dolt (dict. synonyms-idiot, fool, clod, nitwit, dummy). Two of many reasons I call him that are A; He pined to die a martyr and go to frolic with his 72 virgins despite the fact that he lived in England and saw the world’s most celebrated virgin, Susan Boyle, on the telly every night, and B; he tried to blow up an airplane flying to Detroit but instead set fire to his crotch. Of course he also scared the beejeezus out of a planeload of passengers and crew, but, enough negatives about Mr. A.

   By the time Mr. A was in plastic cuffs and cooling his private parts in a detention centre, a chain reaction had begun which would push the American economic recovery faster than anyone had imagined. The Department of Homeland Security went on high alert paying out more overtime wages than they had since it began in 2001, allowing untold numbers of employees to pay down that stubborn household debt. Hiring at Homeland Security was stepped up, taking thousands of Americans off the unemployment rolls and into jobs that would last the rest of their lives, all sorts of good, solid jobs; hand searching every carry-on bag, frisking every passenger boarding a flight, and providing wages enough to get them saving for a down payment on a house. The moribund U.S. housing market suddenly got a jolt from all these people wanting new homes. Carpenters, plumber, electricians, bricklayers across America were suddenly back at work building and, with their pay cheques, buying the new cars they had wanted for a few years. As a result, the U.S. auto industry saw a surge in car and truck sales bringing workers back to plants, workers who felt so good they decided to splurge a little at the mall, and, just like that, the U.S. retail industry sprang back to life. Market watchers concluded the American economy was now rocketing out of recession and declared good times were here again, driving the Dow Jones Average over 14,000 for the first time since 2007. All this resurgence pushed the American dollar to heights unseen before and America was, once again, the economic engine of the world. Money flowed like rivers. Billions poured into research. Cancer was cured, even stubborn stains in clothes were no longer a worry for future generations. Earth had never seen such prosperity. And all because Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab wanted heavenly sex with 72 virgins, but instead lit a fire in his flammable Y-fronts.

   Never doubt this again; one single person, even a horny numskull like Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, can truly make a difference.
For more satire, go to;
http://doublexposureradio.com.html

A message from the government of Canada for all recently-arrived immigrants struggling to learn English. The English language is the most difficult language to learn in the world. These tips will help you to get through the Christmas season without being embarrassed.

Tip#1. While Christmas shopping, if you see a sign in a store window that says “Women’s dresses half-off”, do not begin to remove your dress after you have entered the store, if you are a woman, or a man for that matter, this being the 21^st century. This is merely a sale in which the cost of women’s dresses will be half what you paid for them recently, or even something they just made up.

Tip#2 .On Boxing Day, you are not required to challenge other men to a fight. Fighting with your fists should be strictly for professionals, or Tiger Woods’ wife. The Boxing comes from the English tradition of giving Christmas boxes or gifts on December 26^th.

Tip#3 .When you are asked by a volunteer to give a contribution to help Christmas Seals, you are not giving money to keep alive a rare breed of harbour seal that only surfaces once a year on December 25^th, when it is clubbed by Newfoundland seal hunters, after which its parts are eaten raw by the Governor General. Christmas Seals are a very worthy Christmas charity helping those with lung disease.

Tip#4 .When a choir comes to your front door singing “..don we now our gay apparel”, this does not mean you must rush into your bedroom and change into a Liza Minnelli outfit. This is an old Christmas song written when the word ‘gay’ meant light-hearted, cheerful and happy, not irritable, moody and miserable.

Tip#5 .When a TV commercial says it’s time to dress the turkey, do not attempt to put tiny trousers, V-neck pullovers and fashionable jackets over the cooked dinner, especially not any gay apparel. Dressing the turkey simply means simply adding ingredients such as stuffing to make it taste better.

Tip#6 .When a party host tells you there is mistletoe in the house, she does not mean the people living there have a disease that affects their feet. Mistletoe is simply a parasitic shrub that supposedly has aphrodisiac qualities, something we’ll explain in our next broadcast.

Tip#7 .When you see a Christmas ad in a store window telling you to “Pamper your wife this Christmas”, this does not mean you should buy a large box of diapers for your wife. Yes, diapers can be called “Pampers” but in this case the word ‘Pamper’ means to treat your wife in a special way, not force her to wear nappies over the Christmas season, unless, of course, your wife needs nappies. In which case, you should look for ‘Depends’.

This has been one in a series of programs offering tips to immigrants learning to speak English presented by the government of Canada which wishes you a merry Christmas.

For more hilarity, you’ll want to purchase Double Exposure Radio’s very funny CD “Bob and Linda’s Juicy Bits Volume 1″, some of the best songs and sketches from the first few months of their comedy podcast. You can order the CD right here;
http://doublexposureradio.com/shop.html

An excerpt from Neale Donald Walsh’s new book, “Conversations with God, Book 12, ‘Oh, and One More Thing’

Here’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you but we’ve been so busy with things like “Why are we here?” and “Where do we go after we die?” that I haven’t had a chance to ask you.

Shoot.

Wait a minute. Did God just say ‘shoot’?

Of course! I can be colloquial, too. It wasn’t me that started all that ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ stuff.

Okay, here’s the question; why do you and your son prefer football to any other team sport?

Why do you think we do?

Well, I was watching the Grey Cup game and after the Alouettes won, the first thing out of the quarterback’s mouth was, ‘I’d like to thank my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’ And before you answer about your preference for football, just how did Jesus make sure the Alouettes won?

We are all powerful. There’s nothing we can’t do. He was watching, as he always does in his heavenly rec room and with 40 seconds to go, it seemed as if Saskatchewan was going to win the game. Now, here’s something you don’t know about Jesus and you never heard this from me; he hates Saskatchewan. He hates everything about it. It’s too flat. It’s too dusty. It’s too cold in the winter and they make all their money selling potash. Potash for crying out loud! Worst of all are the Roughrider fans because they wear carved-out watermelons on their head and Jesus just goes ballistic when he sees that. So, with 40 seconds left, he whispered into the ear of one of the Roughriders standing on the sidelines and told him to run onto the field for the kick block. There were already twelve players on the field, so the Roughriders got a penalty, letting the kicker boot it from ten yards closer and the rest is history. It was nothing more than just a few words in a player’s ear, that’s all. The player thought it was the voice of the Special Teams coach. Another tid bit for you; Jesus is quite the mimic. I caught him doing me once at lunch in the Angelic Cafeteria. Not a bad impression although he over-did the ‘me giving Adam the finger thing’ from the Michelangelo painting. I kept yelling at him. I used my forefinger, for crying in the chalice!

Okay, so let’s get back to my first question. In the Alouettes locker room afterwards there was a chant, “All the glory belongs to God!” Over and over they chanted this, but I never hear hockey players, after winning the Stanley Cup, thanking God. I never hear soccer teams winning the world Cup and thanking God. Why football?

Well, I don’t know about Jesus, but for me it’s the uniforms. Any sport that puts men in tight pants and women in short shorts deserves my special attention. That’s about it, really. I never liked hockey because of all the trash talk taking my name in vain most of the time and the spitting! Makes me lose my dinner sometimes. Soccer has way too many guys diving for my liking. We just really dig football and that’s why we offer a ‘guiding hand’ to certain teams and players. We make our weekly picks and interfere accordingly. The players all know it and that’s why Jesus and I are always a big part of the celebration.

Okay. One last question on this topic; why weren’t the players in the losing locker room thanking you and Jesus?

Ah, that, my son, is the best question of them all and you’ll be surprised you hadn’t guessed the answer already. You see, Jesus and I only handle the good things that happen in the world. ‘You know who’ looks after all the bad stuff, which includes the losing teams in football games. He seems to get a kick out of watching them wallow in their misery in the locker room. So, the message is clear and your readers should remember this; when something great happens to you, a miracle of some sort, it’s God’s doing and you should shout that out to anyone who will listen. When something bad happens to you, how embarrassing would it be to start shouting “The Devil made me do it!” Oops gotta go. I just noticed the little sparrow fall.

So, you’ll catch it and then what?

Well, what else would a football fanatic do after a great catch like that? I spiked it into the turf.

For more irreverence, go to the Double Exposure Radio website at;

http://doublexposureradio.com/podcast.html

Some illumination is required for those of you not in Canada, or those who are in Canada but don’t follow football. This is the biggest football weekend of the year coming up; The Grey Cup. It’s also known as Le Coupe Grey, and for those who are francophonally challenged, it is the official translation into French of the Grey Cup. No, not Le Coupe Gris (meaning bland two-door automobile) because the ‘Grey’ part is not Grey, the colour, but Grey the man, Earl Grey that is, Governor General of Canada and the man who donated this cup to the winner of the first Grey Cup game. Earl Grey, of course, never played football. He was too busy inventing tea.

   Now, if you’ve ever seen the Grey Cup itself, you’ve probably thought, “What on earth did Earl Grey use this for before he donated it to the winning team? Was it a two-handled beer stein, or maybe a vase for flowers? Personally, I think he donated it to the football league because it was either that or give it to Value Village.

   It’s the 100^th anniversary, this year, of the annual Grey Cup game which is billed as the great East-West Canadian Classic and most of the time it has been, except one year, we had a team from Baltimore, Maryland that won the Grey Cup. No one talks about that anymore, especially in Baltimore.

   I should tell you that this year’s Grey Cup could also have been strange. You see, there are only three actual teams in ‘Eastern’ Canada, so a western team can cross-over in the play-offs and that’s what Vancouver’s BC Lions did for the ‘Eastern final’ against the Montreal Alouettes. Fortunately, the Alouettes won the game; otherwise Eastern Canada would have been represented by the most westerly city in Canada. And you think Steven Colbert thinks we’re goofy now.

   Another interesting tidbit for you is that for many years we had two teams in the CFL called the Roughriders, who actually did play each other for the Grey Cup a few times over the years and each time, strangely, the game was won by the Roughriders! The truth is; keen observers will know that to differentiate the two teams while they were on the field, the Ottawa team used two words ‘Rough Riders’, and Saskatchewan used one word ‘Roughriders’. Otherwise, we’d never have known who was leading in the game.

   As I said, the Grey Cup is 100 years old this year. The first match where the Grey Cup was awarded was in 1909. It was a game between the University of Toronto and the Parkdale Canoe Club. The U of T won the game 26-6, mostly because the Parkdale players found it hard to execute an end-around sweep from the T formation while in a canoe. The next Grey Cup game, officials insisted that all the players walk or run only, so from that day forward; players were banned from using canoes, row boats and schooners to score touchdowns.

   Finally, if you visit a Canadian home this Sunday, you will notice that Grey Cup parties abound throughout the land. The general idea is to eat so much meat, beans and salsa and consume so much alcohol while watching the match that after three hours no one in Canada can pronounce Saskatchewan. By early in the evening on Grey Cup day, that province is usually known as ‘Sashawan’.

   I hope this has been enlightening to the pigskin challenged and remember, for full coverage of the Grey Cup game and complete play-by-play, do not go to http://doublexposureradio.com/podcast.html, All you’ll hear is a very funny Canadian comedy show.

 

From Double Exposure Radio;

Here is an important message from health Canada. As of this date, a new virus has been indentified in Canada and it has very quickly reached the pandemic level, affecting millions of Canadians, mostly adults. The Strain is referred to in colloquial terms as the “Why Flu”, but is known scientifically as H4 What For? Health Canada wants you to know what to look for if you contract the H4 What For strain. Recognize the symptoms of H4 What For.

Number One;

Almost always; Sudden confusion over whether to get a flu shot or not.

Number Two;

Fatigue from watching newscasts with stories of sickness and death.

Number Three;

Decreased interest in reading the news at all.

Number Four;

Sudden irritation with your doctor’s receptionist for lack of information

Number Five;

Shortness of temper over conflicting evidence by so-called health experts

Number Six;

Dizzy spells from watching health food practitioners urging you to ward off this flu by eating super foods in either capsule or powder form.

Number Seven;

Complete lack of trust in anyone in the Canadian medical system, resulting in anger, depression and sudden profane outbursts at perfect strangers in bank lineups.

Finally Number Eight;

Totally panic and a sudden urge to stand in line on the street to receive an injection you, only moments before, believed you wouldn’t get.

If you have any or all of these symptoms, then you are suffering from the “Why Flu”. Health Canada strongly suggests you stay home, stay in bed and do not emerge from your house until well into 2010. For more information on the H4 What For strain check out Health Canada’s flu website at “www.WhatTheHellAmISupposedToDo.com.

This has been an important message from Health Canada.

For more on this story go to;

http://doublexposureradio.com/podcast.html

Yes, I am well aware that pork barreling does not discriminate between political parties in Canada. The Liberals did it for decades and now the Conservatives are filling the trough full of goodies. What puts a bug up my back passage is that Stephen Harper promised…no, let me say it louder, Stephen Harper PROMISED he would end it all and now, well, I’m guessing the reason he insisted that he and his ministers get the H1N1 shot first is because they have been in close contact with swine…everytime they look in the mirror. That’s why the toe-tapping song on this week’s Double Exposure Radio is called “If You Voted Tory, You Get a Hockey Rink”. And not only that. You get to pose with your local MP and hold up a giant 90 pound cheque covered with Tory logos and MP signatures. I am led to understand that those big cheques are actually legal tender in Niger where a piece of cardboard that big can buy you a chicken. And a chicken that big can buy you the presidency. Big Cheques; who knew? I am very unfortunate. I live in a Liberal riding and I believe our stimulous money is going to be buying us a new toilet seat at the Garry Point Park restrooms. And when the toilet seat installer poses with our MP, you will need the Hubble telescope to see the cheque they are holding. Yessir. If this is what Conservatives cleaning up government looks like, I’ll bet Conservatives cleaning up the environment consists os two guys with orange garbage bags scouring the ditches for empty pop cans.
http://doublexposureradio.com/podcast.html

The Dixie Chicks had a well-known comedy song a few years back called “Earl Must Die” and I’ll bet for a lot of the people who gave Earl Jones their life savings only to see all their money disappear, that song might be playing over and over in their heads today. It seems the era of handing your nest egg over to some sweet-talking shyster who calls him or herself a “Financial Advisor” is coming to an end, as it should. This is spoken by someone who has done just that in the past with some disastrous results, although, luckily, I didn’t lose everything I had. And, the problem was and still is, most of us think we don’t know how best to save our money, so we give it to someone who can babble on for hours about  “No-front-load mutual funds”, “Asset-backed securities” or  the “Constant yield method” which I thought had something to do with always letting other drivers cut in front of you. As if being able to say “Bracket creep” makes you a financial genius.

Yes, I’ve had the financial advisor from hell. If you’ve got a few hours I could tell you about the gold mine investment where we struck gravel. Even after the mine caved in and water filled all the crevices, I briefly considered hanging on to my shares because I pictured a day when gravel would come back as a currency just like it was in Neanderthal times (and people maybe opened a chain of stores called “Everything for a Stone”), but, eventually I let it go and lost…I dunno, some thousands of dollars. I could tell you about the feature film that we were persuaded to invest in. When we met with the creative team, the producer said, “The script is kind of rough but that’s all we’ve wrotten(sic) so far”. I put that (sic) thing in there because the producer was supposed to have said “written” but didn’t actually know anything about grammar, and, not surprisingly, didn’t know anything about producing a movie either. By the way, the film, all about how extras on a movie set get drugged up and die instead of walking on as background people in a street scene…if you think you’ve seen it, you’re wrong. It didn’t get a theatrical release. It didn’t get a TV or DVD release. I think it might be shown in prison film classes on how not to make a movie. I lost…ohhh, maybe the cost of an expensive sedan. I could go on, but I’m already starting to hyperventilate so I’ll stop.

The moral of the Earl Jones or Bernie Madoff story is pretty simple. You’ve earned all this money, or maybe your wealthy industrialist husband died and willed you all this money. Who are you going to give it to for safe keeping? When you walk into a doctor’s office, you always look on the wall right? Just to check out the diploma. Do the same if you’re in your financial advisor’s office. If the diploma says, “Shoppers Drug Mart Do it Yourself Finance Course”, try somebody else, or better yet, find a spot under your mattress. These days, it’ll give you a pretty good return on your dollar.

   By the way, speaking of Earl Jones, we put together a song that sums up most people’s feelings on our July 24^th Double Exposure Radio podcast called “One Night in Point-Claire”. Try it out at http://doublexposureradio.com/podcast.html

The 2009 G8 summit has wrapped up in Italy and, as usual, Canada was there. God knows why. Not that I don’t think this is an excellent country, indeed, it’s the best place in the world to live, but one of the world’s most powerful countries? Who are we kidding? Anyway, one of the most-looked-forward-to moments of every G8 summit, other than the final statement announcing no agreement on anything, is the leader’s photograph where they all stand shoulder to shoulder and pretend to like each other. However, once again, for the second year in a row, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper was missing when they tried to round the leaders up. You might ask, “What’s that all about?” Well, I believe Stephen Harper has an enlarged prostate. Isn’t it the first sign? Whenever people are looking for you, you’re in the toilet. Where else would he be; doing a secret deal with Russia to deport all of Canada’s gays and lesbians to the Gulag in return for letting the Russians take Nortel off our hands? No, go for the prostate problem. Isn’t it obvious, when they took the G8 leaders’ photo, Stephen was in the loo having a pee. Now, an enlarged prostate can also effect your sex life, although, putting the words “sex life” and “Stephen Harper” together in the same sentence is not technically possible. Honestly? I think both the Harper kids were from virgin births. I suspect that an angel came to Stephen and Laureen’s bedside one night and said, “Steve? Let me show you how it’s done.” So, my message to Stephen Harper; you’re a man over 40. Get your prostate checked once a year and maybe we can start seeing you in those highly-sought-after G8 group shots.

   Which reminds me that Double Exposure has all that sort of thing covered in this week’s comedy podcast which you can find at; http://doublexposureradio.com/podcast.html.

Besides Stephen Harper at the G8, there also that tricky little matter of Harper pocketing a communion wafer at the LeBlanc funeral. Sam Spade goes on the case we call “The Missing Wafer Caper”. You’ll also hear our own version of “A Prairie Home Companion” with Garrison introducing a new singing group made up of Bill Clinton, Marc Sanford and Eliot Spitzer who call themselves “The Horny Bottom Boys” singing their big hit “I am a Man in Constant Trouble”. You’ll hear Barack Obama talking to Dmitry Medvedev of Russia about the nuclear stockpiles. That and a new feature of our podcast each week, the start of 65 episodes of “Smoking Loins of Desire”; a soap opera about wieners. All this week on Double Exposure Radio where you can now order T-shirts, hats, mugs, and other handy items, all emblazoned with the flashy “Double Exposure Radio” logo. Easy to order. Just go here;

http://doublexposureradio.com/shop.html

Let the world see you know how to LOL. Oh, and by the way, we’ve looked at that footage over and over where Stephen Harper, allegedly, pockets the communion wafer and have come to the final conclusion that he was simply saving it for the dip at the post-funeral party.

I love summer in Canada. One of the perks of being a speaker/entertainer is that I get to participate in a lot of special events, many of which happen in the summer.

   I remember a warm June night in Ottawa, after entertaining Prime Minister Mulroney and an arena full of Conservatives; I was invited to a party under a tent at 24 Sussex Drive. I thought, “Well, most Canadians don’t get to do this!” I saw plates of hors d’oeuvres going around, I saw wine glasses clinked in toasts, I saw a small German man with envelopes stuffed with cash running in and out…no, I’m kidding. I kid for a living.

  Once, on a hot July 1^st, I entertained at a conference in Whitehorse and, because it was nearby, I decided to drive to the marge at Lake LaBarge to see where Robert Service cremated Sam McGee. Standing beside that legendary lake, I realized that the flames may not have killed Sam McGee, but, if he’d been standing next to me, the mosquitoes certainly would have done him in. Ah, mosquitoes; in Manitoba they call them the provincial bird.

   I’ve had Ralph Klein serve me a soggy pancake at the Calgary Stampede. I’ve raced a conference of financial advisors up Signal Hill to watch the icebergs and I’ve bellowed “Farewell to Nova Scotia” as tears streamed down my lobster-stained face. All under a summer sun.

   This summer, while you enjoy time at the cottage, or on the island, or just in your backyard, remember you can take Double Exposure Radio with you anywhere to make sure you get lots of laughs. So, go to http://doublexposureradio.com/podcast, load up your iPod and make this the summer of fun.

   A frosty, cold beer; $4.75. Being a Canadian in the summer; priceless!

My agent called recently to ask whether I was available to entertain some folks after a dinner in St. Catherines. I said I was ready to go. She called a few days later to say that, unfortunately, they had chosen someone else; a local member of parliament, and the reason they chose him over me was that he gave them a better price. He was doing it pro bono. For those of you without Latin training, pro bono means “I’m doing it because the prime minister ordered me.”

Why, if politicians are now the second-most reviled profession in the world, beating out lawyers for the first time in centuries and closing in on the Sham Wow TV pitch man, who still retains top spot. Why would we want to see and hear more from politicians than we already do?

This was reinforced today when I read that Vladimir Putin had written his first column for a Russian newspaper. The column was titled “Why it’s Hard to Fire People”. I only read bits of the column, like where he said “I usually call people into my office, look them in the eye and say ‘there are concrete complaints’”. I’m guessing this is from his weekend job running a cement factory. Anyway, the point here is why would newspapers think that we are interested in what politicians have to say? Yesterday, I read a column written by Michael Ignatieff about the Liberal’s proposed EI changes. A laugh-a-minute gabfest it was not. My daily broadsheet has been, of late, jammed up with columns from politicians like Bob Rae or Diane Finley, all pro bono. This pro bono thing got so bad, as you know, that even Sonny Bono, Cher’s old sidekick, became a politician. He also probably wrote newspaper columns pro bono, or pro sonny, maybe. Sadly, he was killed by a tree that jumped out at him on a ski run.

When I was a boy, and there were wolves in Wales and Canadian hockey teams that won the Stanley Cup, after-dinner speeches were delivered by people who actually needed no introduction and newspaper columns were written by writers, real writers who got paid to write great columns.  No wonder newspapers are in trouble. When the entire editorial page is being clogged up with politicians flogging their many dead horses, all I can say is thank goodness George Bush never learned to write.