Mon Jan 17/05
Hilary Duff in a Dollar Daze!

Item! Ernie Macrae has done it again!

I can't say enough about the Ottawa Sun's Earl McRae (he of the "Ottawans are bad people for not coming to the giant ersatz grief-up" column). This guy is an absolute goldmine. On Thursday last week, doing his best Jackie Harvey impersonation, he tackled the teen phenom that is Hilary Duff. (The title — "Is she a daffy Duff?" — couldn't parrot The Onion's "Outside Scoop" better if it tried.) Dubbing himself "Ambassador of Parents," he proceeds to ask Ms Duff a litany of hypothetical questions about her daily life, which he seems to imagine as hollow and unfulfilling. My favourites:

·         Do you ever just go to a mall or a fast food joint and hang out with your friends and complain about who's dissing who behind whose back and what bitch is stealing what hunk from who?

·         Have you ever caught hell from your parents… for leaving the house in a top cut too low and jeans exposing an inappropriate percentage of bare stomach and butt cleavage?

·         Your bedroom. [That made my day all on its own –ed.] Are your clothes hanging in disarray out of all your overstuffed dresser drawers, is your floor piled high with clothes, is your bed never made, are there half-empty Doritos bags and pop cans on top of the mess beneath which, allegedly, is your desk?

His imaginary interview complete, McRae then offers practical advice to those who were thinking of trying to meet Ms Duff at the Bayshore Mall Zellers — if Hilary's life wasn't hollow and unfulfilling before, the venue might take some wind out of her sails — and concludes with these not-so-friendly words: "You're welcome, my pleasure, and as Ms. Duff would say: SHUT UP!" Yipes. I'm not trying to be a dick — McRae is the sort of super-veteran writer who's been around so long and knows his audience so well that no editor would dare touch him (and it shows). With the exception of that tsunami memorial debacle, it's pretty harmless stuff, and I'm sure I'm well out of his target demographic anyway. I just hope like hell he keeps up the good work.

Don't call us, Jim; we'll call you. All the best — Gary B.

Mind you, strange, nonsensical and/or insanely bitter op/ed writing is a daily occurrence in Canadian sports sections. My sportswriter friend Paul (who suffers from none of those afflictions… yet) directed me to Jim Hunt's Toronto Sun column last week. It's a beauty:

I have an idea that would save Gary Bettman the shame of having to cancel the Stanley Cup… I'd let all 30 teams into the post-season seeded according to their finish last season. I'd give the top four teams in last season's playoffs a bye in the first round.

Congratulations to the cash-poor Tampa Bay Lightning and Calgary Flames, who have each won the right to forfeit at least $2 million, and possibly as much as $4 million, in gate revenues! Of course, that'll be the least of the league's worries when they end up with 17 teams in the second round.

-contact-