Evans Above

Sometimes things seem to happen by chance and other times it appears that destiny has a hand in the opportunities that come our way. As I wrote the other day, I lost a dear friend and fellow celebrity photographer, David Morgan, to a heart condition. His partner Di has asked that instead of flowers, his friends should make donations to the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Australia.

I’m already making a donation, but then I saw a chance to potentially expand upon my donation multiple times. Dot com mogul and blogger John Chow recently blogged about a new tiny url service called xr.com that helps turn long urls into, well, tiny ones.

What does this have to do with the charity? Well, when John Chow wrote about the xr.com service, the site’s owner, Richard Lau sent him a $5,000 thank you. John paid that kindness forward by donating it to the Union Gospel Mission’s Christmas Drive. Richard and John then came up with a new contest where a review of xr.com could earn a blogger $5,000 for the charity of their choice (in my case the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute) and $1000 to use as they please, though I’d just use it for another donation to the heart research. I thought for a while before entering this contest. Would it seem crass to write a review in this situation? But then I thought that a $6000 donation is a $6000 donation and I don’t care if I have to do cartwheels in a Santa suit to earn it. If I win, that’s $6000 going to help heart research and potentially finding the cures and causes of a disease that takes so many people away from their loved ones too early.

What’s the purpose of xr.com’s service? I often find that long urls (especially from newspaper sites) will sometimes break in people’s email software and then they write back and say, “That link you sent me didn’t work!” Rather than going through the effort of cutting and pasting to fix the url, I like to use a tiny url service like xr.com to send a much shorter url. For example, if I want to send a page from my own site, a photo of Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich and Brad Pitt at the Burn After Reading premiere in Toronto, I can send the real url https://www.digitalhit.com/galleries/31/457/27 or the tiny url, which is https://xr.com/jsn. Suddenly 45 characters of url becomes only 10 characters. That’s great for tossing into an email and I’m sure that xr.com will be a frequent stop for me.

So there you have it. A great new tiny url service called xr.com and a potentially superb way to further assist a charitable cause that’s close to my heart.

David Morgan, a respected, admired, and loved celebrity photographer, died in his sleep Thursday. He was fifty-three.

David, a Welsh-born, Sydney, Australia-based snapper was a larger-than-life figure. Besides being a true artist behind the lens, David was a mentor, a big brother, a kid, a raconteur, and a great friend rolled into an imposing figure of a man. Though David had the stature to take on anyone, his close friends knew the warm person inside.

Christine and I have known Dave Morgan for our entire time covering the Toronto International Film Festival. He was one of the first photographers I met when shooting at the galas at Roy Thompson Hall. When we headed inside to shoot the introductions, I asked who was standing in the prime spot next to him. “You are now, mate!” he said and we were friends from that day forward.

As a couple of Welshmen, David and I shared a lot of the same tastes in movies and comedy. Every year when I saw him, we’d compare notes on some films or performers and he’d always recommend older films that I should see. I saw the press screening of Baz Luhrmann’s Australia yesterday. I emailed David about it and said I looked forward to his thoughts on the film. I’ll never know now.

He really respected the art of the photographer and hated the new business models that were stripping shooters of a living wage and copyright ownership. I’d frequently send him emails about one of the Big Bad Companies and he told me this year that he’d forward them on to his photographer pals in Sydney. He also had a dislike for the new breed of “stalkerazzi” who swarmed and hassled the celebrities.

He was a funny guy, who loved a good laugh and a pint. Everyone has a David story. Or a few. Or a book’s worth. Christine has a funny Hugo Weaving story with David that just doesn’t work well in print, but we still chuckle about it every time we see Hugo’s name.

This year, David and I shot a red carpet that featured fellow Aussie Bryan Brown. He told me a story where he was shooting an event in Australia a few years back and Brown asked him, “What are you doing here?” David responded, “I’m a celebrity photographer, so what exactly are you doing here?” It wasn’t mean-spirited at all, just two acquaintances jabbing each other as evidenced by Bryan’s smile, laugh and handshake when they saw each other this year.

Even though we only saw David for ten days each year, those crazy hectic days forged a lifetime of memories and a bond of friendship. David was one of those loyal friends that would defend his circle. In a movie, he’d be the friend who’d tower behind you as the bad guys tried to start a bar fight. If he was in The Untouchables, he’d be the Sean Connery character, except of course Connery’s famous speech would be changed to “If they bring a wide angle, you show up with a telephoto.”

David will be sorely missed by everyone who knows him. I still can’t believe that I won’t see him at the Toronto festival next September. Christine and I send our love and thoughts to his friends and family around the world.

Goodbye, my friend.

Well, it’s been so long since the whole Britney Spears crotch shot photos scandal hit the web, that people were chomping at the, er, bit for something else to happen.

This time it’s British royalty to the rescue as Prince William, the future king, appears to have been photographed while relieving himself outdoors.

Unsurprisingly, some of the biggest searches on Google today have been for prince william penis, prince william peeing, prince william naked and a variety of variations I’m not about to get into.

If not for Prince Willy, perhaps Haley Joel Osment’s debut on Broadway in American Buffalo would have been a bigger search.

Just a question: When you have to constantly repeat that you’re the “most provocative entertainment news program on television”, are you? Talk about trying to force a branding.

Checked the mailbag and found a copy of Long Way Down, a follow up to 2005’s Long Way Round. While that series followed Ewan McGregor and pal Charley Boorman on a motorcycle trek ‘round the world, Long Way Round follows the two-wheeled duo as they make the journey north to south — from John O’Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa.

This time the usual damaged shocks and minor accidents occur amongst the stunning scenery of Africa, with Boorman and McGregor facing the obstacles of hazardous conditions and intricately choreographed border crossings.

The 3-disc set features the entire BBC 10-part series with two additional hours of episode footage. Two hours of extras include The Missing Face documentary, unseen footage, a photo gallery and interactive route maps.

The added pressure of completing this massive trip in just three months — Ewan had film commitments — adds to the excitement as the pair head out on their trek. As Xmas is on its way, this DVD would make the perfect gift for the armchair traveller.

Just watched my recording of John McCain’s appearance on David Letterman.

Man oh man, Letterman owned McCain during the interview. Hammered him on Palin and caught him off guard about G. Gordon Liddy.

Once again, as we witnessed four years ago, delegates at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions spend an inordinate amount of time standing behind the CNN anchors. Talking on their cell phones, they wave their arms, because apparently the friend or loved one they’re speaking to is too dumb to recognize them just by their face.

There must be an official name for these people. Oh wait, there is: tools.

Apparently, the folks who run the Yonge & Eglinton location of the sports bar chain Philthy McNasty’s must think their regular clientèle are dumber than dirt.

It’s a very popular location. I live a few blocks away and on a Saturday night, with the windows open, I can usually hear the yelling and howling of their patrons as they leave or stand outside for a smoke. Yet this weekend — the big holiday, last weekend before school, final fling of summer Labour Day weekend — Philthy McNasty’s is closed.

Why are they closed? Well, according to a letter hanging in the window, they’ve decided to close down on one of the busiest weekends of the year for “renovations”. You know, like a flower shop closing on Valentine’s Day.

It seems a little crazy and not a great reason to shut down. Perhaps the real reason they’ve shut down until September 3rd — and I’m going out on a limb here — could be due to the big yellow shutdown notice from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario that says the tavern’s been closed for “permitting drunkenness”. It hangs about six inches away from the renovations letter.

Funnily enough, the now defunct Hooter’s restaurant in the area tried the same thing a few years back. At least they were “smart” enough to try and hide the fact that their wrists were being slapped by making their renovations signs the same yellow colour as the Liquor Control Board’s signs.

I really hate the pointless, filler-type articles that some entertainment areas run as “news”.

After exiting a Hotmail account, I noticed that my high-speed provider, Sympatico, was running an article alluding to a possible Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston reunion at September’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The article suggests that the ex-spouses “may meet on the red carpet at the prestigious annual event as Brad’s new movie Burn After Reading opens on September 5 while Jennifer’s film Management premieres on September 7.” The breathy article, from a British tabloid wire called BANG Media International, goes on to quote a source that suggests that, “It could be awkward for them both but I am sure their professionalism will ensure there are no public fireworks.”

As an 11-year veteran of covering TIFF I can strongly say that this article is complete and utterly useless space filler and BS.

Let’s look at the logistics: Jennifer Aniston’s film is premiering at the University of Toronto’s Isabel Bader Theatre, while Brad’s film premieres two days earlier at the Toronto Symphony’s home, Roy Thompson Hall. Ignoring the fact that the premieres are two days apart, the respective red carpets are, according to Google Maps, 3.6 kilometers apart. So, unless time and space folds, this accidental meeting is unlikely to happen.

Secondly, at the Toronto festival, very few stars not connected to the production walk the carpets. You might get the odd exception, like a few of Pitt’s Ocean’s 11 pals strolling the red carpet at The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford premiere, but otherwise, stars stick to their own premieres. And an ex-wife is surely not expected.

Thirdly, most stars are in and out at the Festival. The dumbest questions the local TV media asks (and this is relative since most TV media carpet questions are pointless anywhere in the world) are “How are you enjoying Toronto? Have you seen any other Festival films?”

Okay, again there are exceptions. A few people actually do check things out, but they’re either at TIFF for multiple films, schmoozing for more work, or in Toronto already for a film shoot and have time on their hands.

Most people, on the other hand, arrive in Toronto, do a day of press junkets, walk the red carpet, wave to the theatre audience, head out the back door, drop by a quick party to glad hand fellow industry types and head to the airport and back to the film they’re currently working on. I’ve frequently photographed someone at the Festival on one day and seen them on Letterman the next.

So file the article in question under “Fantasy”.

The net is abuzz with the recent Bigfoot story, where Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer claim to have found a Bigfoot corpse while hiking. Today, along with Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi, the trio held a press conference. Except for the photo that’s making the rounds, they offered up no new evidence and said more news would have to wait until after Monday.

“Starting Monday I should have assembled some fine scientists that will do the autopsy to find the origin and death of this creature, and at that point in time we will make it known and hopefully we’ll get somebody to come in and film it,” Biscardi said, “to show it to the world as it’s being done. I want to get to the bottom of it.”

Since it’s a slow entertainment news day, and it’s Friday, and what the heck, why not vote on our Bigfoot survey.