Does it seem like the time between posts is getting shorter, Raising Gang?

Well, I’m not amenable to schedules so … TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK!

Thus, without further delay … today’s target is: Mikey (a.k.a. Michael) Kolberg

You may or may not remember him trying to ignominiously usurp the renowned role of a beloved cripple:

Here’s another clip of Mikey (terribly) impersonating Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson, all the while belittling stalwart Canadian icons, the Timbits:

I care not one iota for hockey, moderately enjoy confectionery, and yet I’m thoroughly disgusted when I see the lengths to which Mikey, and by extension The Gang, are willing to take things:

Classifying Phil Kessel’s mom a “whore” seemed like a new low until Mikey ended his exposition of the hockey player’s mother by calling her a “bitch”. Wow.

Not long after this Mikey tried to pass himself off as a celebrity:

We can see him again later following familiar patterns:

By all accounts Mikey has continued his grifting ways and still “performs comedy” in Toronto to this day.

Is that enough yet, Raisin Gang?! Get in touch.

With another couple of weeks gone it appears that my threat of an exposé wasn’t sufficient so now I’m forced to take the next step. Keep in mind that this is all on you, Raisin Gang — YOU FORCED ME TO DO IT!

Next target: Marissa Caldwell

I first noticed this Gang member when she impersonated Babette “The Fishin’ Magician” Sinclair. The following video aptly demonstrates why the cruel and deceptive Raisin members need to be exposed:

You may have noticed another Gang member, Thomas P. Conway, posing as Marissa’s hapless sidekick. They’re all in it together!

Should there be any doubt regarding the Gang’s callousness, here’s another video in which they harass writer, actor, and director Dan Ramos:

There’s yet another clip in which Marissa confirms her sadistic tendencies but I’m sure that by now you get the idea. It should therefore come as no surprise that after she split from the Gang she spent some time producing filthy corporate videos and luring children overseas. Proving that evil knows no bounds, she’s currently an intellectual property lawyer.

Maybe I’m nuts to make such an offer but I’m still willing to reel this series in if anyone from the Gang reaches out to me. However, time’s running out and my patience will soon disappear!

It’s been well over a month and no one from the Raisin Gang has bothered to get in touch so … I’m making good on my threat.

Might as well start with the guy I featured in the initial post: Thomas P. Conway

Here he is, ostensibly auditioning for Saturday Night Live as the cast of Seinfeld:

Despite the stellar performances I don’t believe Tom was ever included in the SNL cast.

Shame.

He did nevertheless give us a great send off as the late Andy Rooney.

I was able to find a bit more info on Tom and it turns out he’s not dead or starving in a gutter somewhere. In fact, he ended up being a talented TV writer (and comedian), despite his dyslexia.

Moreover, he did a great impression of Sean Connery which, to me, suggests that his focus on writing is simply a front for sublimated impersonation, even if only in the form of voice-overs.

As previously mentioned, I strongly encourage Tom to get in touch before I expose any of his compatriots in a similar fashion. Y’all been warned!

Not long after I got comfortable with TCL I happened upon a local comedy troupe called The Raisin Gang. Unfortunately, their official website is now defunct, their X account hasn’t been updated since it was called Twitter, and little remains of The Gang but their YouTube channel.

I did a little expectant spotlight piece a while back but, to my discredit, I have not done much to follow up since then. In my defense, neither did they. Every once in a while, though, I flash back to the first Raisin Gang video I ever saw and wonder whatever happened to them.

The concepts were ahead of their time, the production values were great, the skits were well written, and the execution was excellent. For a while there I thought Toronto might have a “new media” Kids in the Hall on our hands.

Alas, as far as I know this never materialized. Maybe it was bad timing. Could be a lack of follow-through. Possibly the participants got into the hooch a wee bit too often.

Perhaps they’d care to contact me to explain themselves. As an added incentive, failure to do so will result in more videos being posted at unspecified future times, possibly with additional context.

And yes, that is a threat.

Continuing my series on espionage, specifically as it relates to Toronto, we come to Station M.

Station “M”, which stood for “Magic”, was ostensibly located in the basement of Casa Loma which now hosts a related historical exhibit and similarly themed escape room game.

While some sources claim that Station M was actually located in Casa Loma’s stables and carriage house, its exact location remains hush-hush. This secrecy, along with the existence of a nearly quarter-kilometer (800 ft.) subterranean tunnel connecting the main building to these outer structures, only adds to the ambiguity.

I’ve been to the castle a number of times, including for a fancy wedding reception, but until recently had no idea that this “subterranean” operation existed. Next time I’m there I’ll be sure to do a bit more exploring!

Station M operated hand-in-hand with Camp X during the second world war to produce covert gadgets, forged documents, counterfeit currency, convincing local dress, and anything else that might assist Allied spies on their overseas missions. Think “Q Branch” from James Bond.

In fact, it’s been suggested that Station M is where Ian Fleming got his inspiration for the fictional support division mentioned in his works.

Fleming is reported to have spent time in Toronto, traveling daily to the Camp in Oshawa from his Avenue Road accommodations. While the amount to which Fleming was inspired by his experiences here is speculative, the fact that he resided across the street from St. James-Bond Church during this period seems to suggest an alternative, if only subconscious, explanation to Fleming’s own claim about appropriating the name from a bird expert. Maybe this official explanation is simply a misdirection based on a happy coincidence. After all, this is the world of espionage we’re talking about.

A while back I wrote (with a leaning toward espionage) about a couple of books I’d been reading that highlighted the porous and permissive nature of Canada. I’d hoped to make this a preamble to other stories I was aware of but, at the time, didn’t feel that I’d sufficiently plumbed their depths for proper discussion. In other words, I knew of them but not enough about them.

Having now completed “The Soviet Spies” by Richard Hirsch I can say that I’ve done at least a little work to correct this oversight.

Long story short, it’s the 1940s and a GRU cipher clerk named Igor Gouzenko working in the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa goes rogue, making off with a bunch of files exposing the breadth and width of Soviet infiltration within North American politics, military, academia, research, industry, etc. His family is endangered, a bunch of roadblocks and nail-biting encounters follow, and eventually scandalous exposés and international drama ensue — standard spy pulp fiction fodder, except it happens to be true.

While I understand that there may be some disputes surrounding the accuracy of the following statement, the Gouzenko Affair is considered by many historians to be the unofficial start of the Cold War. This is where people like McCarthy got their (not entirely incorrect) ideas about a Red invasion and where movies like Russell Rouse’s wordless classic “The Thief” got their (sometimes literal) inspiration.

Naturally much of the Gouzenko backstory happened in Toronto and enough thorough detail is included in “The Soviet Spies” that I’m considering taking a tour of some of the conspirators’ homes and places of work. This attention to detail can get a bit tedious but the book manages to weave together detailed facts and timelines in a way that reads like a modern day (albeit wordy), spy thriller. Combining this with the history of places like Camp X adds even more intrigue to Canada’s post-war narrative.

This may all seem like a bit of nostalgia but with the current Canada-India diplomatic row, Canada-Russia diplomatic row, Canada-China diplomatic row, and undoubtedly a few others, the same sensational stories that were making headlines nearly seventy years ago are no less apropos today. In fact, the cloak-and-dagger nature of international diplomacy along with a resurgence of human intelligence gathering (HUMINT) and other old-school techniques seem to be more relevant in the modern era than ever.

In any event, if you get a whiff of similar themes in /sectionb then at least you’ll know where I ripped ’em off from.

… continued from part 1

If you don’t understand the nostalgia that Ontario Place generates in geriatrics like me I invite you to take a wistful gander at the video below. But before you start kvetching about how, by today’s standards, the place sucks, I’d remind that this was the olden days and us kids were just happy as fuck not to have to walk 15 barefoot kilometers in the snow to school.

This video might leave you with the impression that Ontario Place could be the upswing but the reality is that its fate was sealed and loaded onto the S.S. Therme which sailed some time ago.

One the one hand, a spa-and-water-based attraction on the grounds is not that out of place. On the other, the promo material makes it look a little exclusive and pricey. The current admission price of FREE makes it hard to compete.

I suppose there’s always Trillium Park but with half of the unique and scenic path through Ontario Place now off limits, it just gives the small trail a melancholy feel.

Just in time for summer.

I’m happy with the result but much of the process is manual so I may have to spend some time slapping together some automation for the next installment.

From: https://www.torontocitylife.com/sectionb/2022/03/25/2-brush-pass/

I’ve been thinking about producing a more immersive rendition of /sectionb. I’ve also been thinking that producing a “Parapsychological Spy Thriller” via conventional means is not be the correct approach. It needs to be a little more artsy, interpretive, associative. Unfortunately, illustration and animation aren’t really my thing.

Although I can draw some basic proportions and I try to pay attention to composition and colour, I can’t produce the type of visual output that modern artificial intelligence can. But as it happens I also dabble in code so it wasn’t long before I was fucking around with Stable Diffusion and similar software. Unfortunately, if I wanted to use the AI to produce short films the still images it spat out would need to be animated using something like morphing — doable but laborious.

By one propitious circumstance a fairly recent upgrade to Stable Diffusion by Deforum popped up in my search results one day and as soon as I saw a few samples I got giddy. Not only is the animated output of DSD dream-like and trippy, which is very apropos for /sectionb, it also improvises around the periphery of supplied prompts/themes in surprising ways, which is also quite apropos.

Initially I tried adding voice narration but it just didn’t fit so instead I converted the text to subtitles/closed captions, chucked in some original music, and after that the video basically just produced itself.