Martin Luther King was working out the last lines of his speech for the march on Washington ...I had a dream... .  Kennedy didn't yet know it but he would be assassinated before i saw a birthday cake.

During my first year of life we witnessed the first artificial heart transplant, the first liver, lung and kidney transplants. Quasars were discovered, and the atom's nucleus got broken down further than ever imagined by Einstein.

At night while i slept in my crib, a group soon to be called the FLQ or  Front de Liberation du Quebec was secretly forming in my city. The FLQ would shake and rattle the foundations of Montreal with bank robberies, bombings and kidnappings.

One province over, Canada fired up it's first CANDU nuclear reactor.

On the other side of the world pieces of Africa were gaining independence, trying to move forward against great corruption. In Vietnam, as a protest, an elderly Buddhist monk doused himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire.

Somewhere along the way (1975ish?),  the West was still living with a great and very profitable fear of communism. Across Europe the borders of political ideology literally bristled with missiles. Africa and South America became the new battleground of manipulation.

Atrocities are as old as man, but Africa, Vietnam, and Cambodia took it to new level. So many souls left the planet.

I bought a guitar and absorbed enough to learn how to play.

Soldier of Fortune magazine hit the news stands, and the Mexican authorities, pressured and funded by the US's new $35 million program of War against Drugs, began spraying paraquat on the mexican pot crops. The pot was still harvested and most of it ended in the US and Canada, smoked by the youth of the nation.

I was probably mastering my third chord while Lebanon dissolved into civil war. The fuse that would ignite the Middle East was laid and lit.

Far far away in Canada, we smoked paraquat pot, Lebanese hash and laughed our guts out watching the Saterday Night Live.

There sure was a lot to ponder on, sitting in my parents home while strumming a chord or two.

2008 - World Population 6.7 Billion

The planet's population has more than doubled, and those crazy shoals are still being navigated, are still perilous. The situation is still fluctuating somewhere between boiling and tepid, but we've made it this far.

Oh... and about that Mayan Calendar...

Moscow fish was originally the name of a band which included Ted Hall, Ea Birkett, and a host of friends including Annabear the singing dog. The band played many venues in the Vancouver, BC area but especially the Railway, a club that has long supported local and international music from diverse influences.

Now the name "Moscow fish" is an umbrella title for the various content-oriented activities of Ted and Ea, such as music production ,film and photography, and artist development.

If you've never heard of us before, you may wonder about the name, and if it has any significance related to the work we do. The short answer is "no". We are not Russian and we can't survive very long under water.

That being said, the term "moscow fish" does have a source, and maybe in a weird way it does encompass some of the philosophy that guides our explorations.

In the summer of 1986 I (Ted) was standing in a food line across from Oppenheimer Park in Vancouver where every day the Sisters of Infinite Mercy provide a sandwich and a muffin to the ever-growing population of street people on the downtown eastside. As I awaited my lunch I overheard a conversation between a fellow with an Eastern European accent and another Canadian: "I hope it's Moscow fish today", to which the other guy replied "What's that?" The first one went on to explain that in the former Soviet block, giant floating fish factories plied the oceans catching, processing, and canning their catch, but without ever separating the species. The end product was simply labelled "fish", and people from all over the Soviet world knew it as "Moscow fish".

Now the sandwiches that the Sisters handed out were made daily at a local penitentiary where the inmates dumped all the canned fish collected by a local charity into large mixing bowls, without separating sardines from salmon, and slapped it between two slices of bread, often of different types as well.

Whether the expression "Moscow fish" was in common usage or was a poetic invention of the guy in the food line, we'll never know, but the way we create content for this website is not unlike the process used by the prisoners to create sandwiches.

Hopefully it tastes better.

Hi.

My name is Ted, and I’m the Leader of the Free World.   

Now of course you may have heard differently, because somebody else claims to hold that position, but I’m here to tell you that I have as much right to declare myself LOTFW as he does. Maybe more.    

First of all they’re so proud of their democracy down there that they do their damnedest to foist it on any country that has oil. I mean, a tyrant. Did I say diamonds...I mean oil? Sorry. Anyway, if it’s so important to them that their President be elected by a majority vote (although that seems not to matter much any more), how come the LOTFW isn’t elected by a majority of voters in the free world? I didn’t get to vote! My friend in Singapore didn’t either. I’ll bet no one asked you to make a mark next to the candidate of your choice.    

So if democracy doesn’t come into it, who’s to say that the LOTFW can’t just chose himself?    

And that’s exactly what I’ve done. So there!    

There are a few points I would clear up before we get too far along here, and the first thing is: where is this "free world" we’re talking about? Free in what way? Can I walk naked in public? Nuh uh! Can I have a barbecue on Bill Gates’ back lawn? Can I smoke marijuana with Bill Clinton? Nope. I’m not free to do that, and neither are you. (Unless you are as wealthy as Bill Gates, and then I suppose it could be arranged.)   

This word freedom is bandied about all too frequently for my taste, and its definition has been tampered with,  most often by those people that think their guy is LOTFW! A Department of Homeland Security with sweeping powers has different ideas on freedom. The guys that came up with the Patriot Act have a different take on freedom. The high court judge in Saudi Arabia who says it is permissible to kill someone owning a satellite broadcaster showing material of a sexual nature has a notion on freedom. The close to one million folks incarcerated by the state in that land whose leader claims to lead the entire planet - they don’t know much about freedom. All those good people that still believe homosexuality is a disease have weird ideas about freedom.   

But never mind. Let’s assume there is a free world somewhere. Wherever it is, I’m its leader. Don’t get me wrong, It's not that I particularly want the job, but I don’t want anyone else to have it if they can’t do as good a job as me. I tried to give the job to Rosie at Oscar’s Pub, but she felt there would be a conflict of interest in accepting tips from her customers. I tried to fob it off on Dave, because he has a PhD and seems to be very astute, but Dave begged off because he’s "way too cynical", so for the time being, I seem to be stuck with it. But if you hear of anybody that you think would qualify, I’d be only too happy to pass on the burden. And he/she has to be really really good or it’s a no go. For instance, a guy like Stephen Harper, say, wouldn’t even be close to suitable, because, well, he’s a hypocrite. Of course, that’s only my opinion, but you don’t have to be the Leader of the Free World to have one of those.

Be good, my subjects (or at least make an effort.) 

Change is something we can all find ourselves either excited by, terrified of, or simply neutral to as we roll along.
Last December (2007) found me realizing that I was completely burned out by a long career in feature film as an on-set assistant propertymaster. My patience, which traditionally was deep as an ocean, was now only reaching the depth of the shallowest of puddles. I felt myself turning into someone I didn't want to be.

Right, then (I say's to myself), time to move on, time to let go of this world and take all that I've learned and move in another direction.

So we came up with a plan, renovated our condo, and put it on the market just as the real estate market was starting a nose dive. Well, almost a year went by while we hovered in a limbo-like existence, with one foot in film, the other reaching towards a future which some would consider crazy.

5 days from today, with a signed sale through it's "removal of subjects" deadline, we can consider ourselves on our way.

Back in the day, before the film business reeled us in, we made our living as musicians, playing regularly in and around Vancouver, very much involved with the music scene in this city. We shared gigs with many others that are now fully in the stream. I guess I got cold feet when I met our first potential manager who was the slimiest of slimy fast-talking beachballs. The interview ended with me thinking that I didn't want my name passing through this guy's self-serving lying lips, and I painted all managers with the same brush (perhaps true, but hopefully not). I may have been naive, or stupidly proud, but the call into the film business seemed to answer most of my needs at the time, and consciously or unconsciously I let myself be led in that direction. Film gigs were quickly replacing music gigs, and the film gigs paid on average 75%to 100% more than music. This "$" thing was the straw that tipped the scales heavily towards film. But, this "$" thing allowed us to build our studio and begin to work towards mastering the craft of recording and producing our work, making us that much more self-sufficient. For this, I give great thanks to the film business.

So, what are we gonna do?

To start with, we're selling what we can sell, and the funds will be used to start filling in a new page. But before I start to elaborate on this new page, I would like to express my thanks to a number of amazing people for all of the whacky experiences I've had in the film business, which I now look upon as the equivalent of an advanced degree in film-making and life.

I've been lucky enough to work with, and to sit and chat with some incredible people over the years. People like Jackie Chan (Rumble in the Bronx), Peter O'Toole, Jared Padelecki, Richard Moll, and Ed Asner (Thomas Kinkade's Home for Christmas), Jon Voigt, Ellen Burstyn, Micheal Imperioli (The Five People You Meet in Heaven), Colin Firth, and Minnie Driver (Hope Springs), Amanda Peet, Steven Zahn, Jack Black, R. Lee Emery, Jason Biggs, and Neil Diamond (Saving Silverman), and Sam Jackson (Snakes on a Plane), Kurt Russell, Eddie Cahill, Patricia Clarkson, and all the hockey boys (Miracle), Jessica Alba (Good Luck Chuck), ...,  magnificent crews, DOP's, Directors, etc., thoughts and images that I carry with me, from whom I learned so much, and will never forget. I've left out so many, but I don't want this to be a "who's who" of naming names. Although not exclusively, all of the above people touched me in some way, and I know in return that I genuinely touched them back.

Underneath all the hype and whatnot, we're all just people, brilliant and fallible, all of us in various states of awareness.

I've had the immense fortune of having many sensei along the way. Through music and life: Ted Hall and Liz Gilbert, and some other quiet ones, possibly every single one. Through film and life: Luther Fairbairn mentored me through the labyrinth of art vs politics vs get 'r done with integrity. With that said, I'll leave the past in the past, and the future to the future.

What's this plan for right now?

Wow, the future. THE FUTURE!...

Gimme a minute...