a series of tubes

this is how my wife and i spend our time: we sit and watch tv, then one of us says "who was the guy from that thing? i wonder where he is now?" since the tv and computer are in the same room, the least lazy of us (usually my wife) goes over to the computer and searches the man's name. so now we know what peter from the cosby show has been doing for the last 20 years. then i inevitably say "you know, not too long ago, there would have been no way to find that out - it would have remained a mystery until a 'where are they now' show appeared on tv. i sure hope young people out there appreciate how easy it is to access any information they choose." then my wife leaves the room, invariably wondering what has become of her life. we now know what EVERYONE from the cosby has done since the cosby show, we know what the all-time lowest scoring NBA game was, we know who actually sang on the milli vanilli albums, and we know that the guy who wrote 'teen wolf' and teen wolf too' now writes episodes of 'heroes'.

one night, though, there came a moment where we were left breathless by the abominable power the information super-highway. we saw a music video for the song 'day by day' by Doug and the Slugs - canada's answer to Huey Lewis and the News. i said something like "i wonder if Doug is still making music - i bet he still has a following in southern manitoba or something." so we looked it up. turns out Doug is dead. he died in 2004. we were both sad. then my wife marveled at the length and detail of the wikipedia entry for Doug and the Slugs. it's not really long (not like the saskatoon wikipedia entry) but i expected maybe one or two sentences, if anything. (this supports my theory that every band in history has at least one die-hard fan willing to maintain their presence on the web - although there is no myspace page for the Slugs. there is, unbelievably, another band called Doug and the Slugs, who do have a myspace page. they have 6 fans.) then we scrolled down and noticed this:

someone took the time to make a chart outlining the various members of Doug and the Slugs from 1977 to 2004. this is astonishing. first we laughed and laughed. and then we thought about it some more and felt sad again. it's also interesting to note that from 1996 to around 1998, there was only one Slug - Jay Wittur - and he played the bass. just Doug and a Slug - bass and vocals. if i had a time machine, i would go back and find a bar in etobicoke ontario and watch these two perform.

scrolling down further, there is a list of 8 more former Slugs who were not included in the chart. this means that there were 19 former Slugs in total, which leads me to believe that Doug was perhaps quite difficult to work with - he was like Canada'a James Brown. and also Canada's Huey Lewis.

most importantly, directly below the chart, we have the following: Dennis Henderson is now a high school electronics teacher at Hugh McRoberts Secondary School in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.

because of the internet, we know the occupation and city of residence of the person who played bass for Doug and the Slugs in 1977. oh , what an age in which we live!