Web Site: HELP FIND A MISSING PERSON / IDENTIFY REMAINS

I came across this web site surfing the web.

Take the time to take a look, you may be able to help find a missing person or identify remains.

CLICK HERE: O.P.P. Missing Persons and Unidentified Bodies Unit web site

Newspaper Article - MICHAEL WAINWRIGHT - St. Catharines Standard - 06-25-09

as per the St. Catharines Standard Web Site

On stage with his idols
Posted By KRISTINE MASON, SPECIAL TO THE STANDARD
06-25-09

Many aspiring artists pouring their hearts out in sparsely attended venues dream of the day when thousands of fans will be hanging on their every move.

For St. Catharines singer/songwriter Michael Wainwright, that day is fast approaching.

This summer, he will join his former childhood idols on the road as he provides the opening act and backup vocals during the Tears For Fears summer tour.

"It's crazy to think that I got to meet the guys and even now I get to open up for them and sing my own music," said Wainwright. "And now I'm going to be singing with them, I'm going to be on this huge stage singing their songs that I knew as a kid, it's crazy."

Tears for Fears' original members, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, will perform seven shows between July 10 and 20 in the western United States.

Music has always been an integral part of Wainwright's life, from the time he spent performing at the kitchen table with his brother and father, to all the high school classes he missed in order to record demo tapes.

During that time, he had a profuse love for the Beatles, which eventually influenced his interest in Tears For Fears.

"All I listened to was Beatles, and then I was in a music store in St. Catharines and I was probably 12 or 13 and I'm drooling over recording equipment. I heard Sewing The Seeds Of Love and I was like, Sewing The Seeds Of Love? This is like the Beatles, this is like I Am The Walrus."

The luck of sharing a producer with Tears For Fears is how Wainwright came into contact with the band.

"Roland sang background vocals in two of my songs. I think we sound a lot a like, he's got a high voice, he's got the same sort of tone," said Wainwright. "But it's still kind of cool to know that he was there and that he actually learned the words and sang my songs, it's crazy and watching that happen it's just sort of like how the ----does this happen?

"It's a thrill to be able to sing harmonies with those guys and I think they have amazing voices," Wainwright but the reason I'm going out there is to be in front of a bigger audience, because they're big venues and being on a big stage with the lights and everything, it's the dream to be able to sing your own songs and do that."

Wainwright hopes that being a part of this larger gig will help him to expand his fan base, since he hasn't found an abundance of support in Niagara. Although he does acknowledge that there is a large music scene in St. Catharines, the artistic appreciation only seems to stretch so far.

"If you're a cover band and your buddies come out and you're playing music that girls can dance to, that's great, but that's not what I do," explains Wainwright. "I'm singing the sensitive, singer/songwriter, sensitive-sweater kind of songs, and there's no kind of cool atmosphere around here where you can do that."

Despite a lack of overwhelming support from Niagara, Wainwright has seen success as a winner of the 2008 Niagara Music Award for Best Male Vocalist. He also played a packed performance at Stella's during In The Soil and has toured the southwestern United States and played repeatedly in both California and New York.

For his opening act on the tour, Wainwright will be playing music from his self-titled album, which was produced at Shabby Road Studios, a record company based in California.

Like most songwriters, his favourite song is the one he most recently wrote. However, he still has a favourite from the disc. "On here, there's a great song, No. 4, its a duet, Gaby (Moreno)'s a songwriter herself and she's an amazing singer. So I sing the first verse and she sings the second and then we sing together, its really great," he said.

Moreno will perform with Wainwright at the San Diego stop of the tour.

Haunting of The Screaming Tunnel

The Screaming Tunnel
retold byS. E. Schlosser

There is a tunnel under the old railroad tracks just to the west of the Queen Elizabeth Way in Niagara Falls. It is known locally as the Screaming Tunnel. A path wanders through the tunnel and then up to an empty field on the hill. But the field was not always empty.

At one time, a large farm house stood in the field at the top of the hill, and in it lived a happy family. Then one night, the house caught fire. A young daughter was trapped in the house, and the only way to escape was through a wall of flames. The brave young girl covered her face with her arms and ran into the fiery doorway. Her long hair and her long nightgown began to smolder as she burst through the flames and rushed out of the house.

When the night air struck her smoldering clothing, it burst into flames, enveloping the girl in a raging inferno. The girl screamed in agony and ran blindly down the hill, away from the fire-stricken house. She staggered into the tunnel under the train tracks, her screams echoing and re-echoing through the night. Overcome by the flames, the girl fell to the floor of the tunnel, wailing in agony. She rolled frantically on the floor of the tunnel, trying to douse the flames, but her efforts were weak and ineffective. She was quickly overcome, and burned to death in the tunnel under the tracks.

After that night, anyone that dares strike a match in the tunnel under the tracks will hear the agonized death screams of the burning girl, and a ghostly wind will instantly blow out the match.

The Screaming Tunnel was used for a scene in the 1983 movie, "The Dead Zone" with Christopher Walken.

After last week's fun of taking GHOST PHOTOS IN A GRAVEYARD with Joe & Karyn we decided to meet up this week starting off with dessert at CHOCOLATES ETC. They brought their friend Patty with them. It was decided we would go to the SCREAMING TUNNEL for another fun filled night of taking photos. Bob and I had packed a crate full of halloween costumes to use. Here are some of the neat shots that were taken as the darkness was setting in.

Me with Bob

Me with Bob

Me, Patty, Karyn & Bob

Me, Patty, Karyn & Bob

Me, Patty, Karyn & Bob

Me, Patty, Karyn & Bob

Me, Patty, Karyn & Bob

Me with Bob

Me & Karyn

Karyn & Bob

Me, Bob, Patty & Karyn

Lots of fun had by all, including me screaming as a bird decided she wanted to access her nest in the dark and headed right for my head. lol

Looking forward to another photo shoot sometime, we have some more awesome ideas to try out!! Stay tuned!! :o)

Another Fun Weekend!!! Concerts, Play & FUN!!!

FRIDAY:

Our Weekend started off on Friday, May 29th as the local fire departments had put together a Yummy Fish Fry at the local Jordan Arena and had hired a group named THE CAVERNERS. (They are a Beatle's Cover Band).

Bob and I took mom along with us as we were going to meet some other family members and friends and wanted to get some good seats.

Upon waiting for the doors to open, we could hear some of the Caverners inside the arena finishing up their sound-check and they came out the front door! Bob asked one of the guys, who happens to be MICHAEL WAINWRIGHT, to stop and have his photo taken with me!! He is quite the talented musician, if you have time, check out the links below the photo. :o)

MORE ON MICHAEL WAINWRIGHT:

GUITAR & CAR TOUR WEBSITE (click here)

MYSPACE (click here)

YOUTUBE (click here)

TWITTER (click here)

PHOTOS: (click here)

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE (click here)

HOW EXCITING IS THIS, HE IS GOING TO BE OPENING FOR TEARS FOR FEARS FOR THEIR UPCOMING TOUR!

The Fish Fry was awesome! Lots of yummy food and for the entertainment, THE CAVERNERS played lots and lots of Beatle's music!!!!!

What a rush! I mean, I had seen them before at the Grape & Wine Festival, but people would have to sit so far back from the band, this was amazing as we could stand right near the face the stage and make eye contact! lol I was smiling ear to ear and dancing around, it was great. Bob was nice enough to take lots and lots of photographs for me. When the band finished playing for the night, JOHN LENNON (aka Michael Wainwright) made eye contact, smiled, winked and pointed at me and left the stage. (GIGGLE) Awesome!!!!!!!!

SATURDAY:

Saturday morning we headed off to a train show in Hidden Valley, they had a huge G-Scale layout in an old public pool that had been filled in . Amazing!!!! We then headed off to Guelph to a G-Scale train store. We pulled into the driveway of the guy who owns it and OMG, the layout he had in his backyard (complete with pond and island which he had to use a paddleboat to access) was truly awesome. The owner gave us a small tour and then took us into his store and we had a good conversation about a CN Engine which we are going to save up for. We want to copy what we see go by in the back yard, so we want a CN Engine complete with a sound chip and decided to make it battery run instead of via wires/power fed by the track. Oh and also the remote control system. So we got a price --- around the $1,100.00 range. YIKES, we'll have to have a mega yard sale or something to get that. It will take some time, but we're sure we'll be able to save up. VERY exciting!!

On our way home we stopped into a huge antique store we had been to a year or two before with friends. The last time we were there I found a dealer that had TONNES of Yellow Submarine items, wouldn't it figure, he had pulled up shop and was no where to be found. lol

We decided to head for home and stopped into mom's house to help her put the steps in the pool -- Bob stripped down to his underwear (sorry folks, didn't have the camera with me) and got into the surprisingly warm water (72 degrees) and got the stairs in the pool. We're ready for a party now!!!!

When the evening came we were just hanging out at home when we heard Thunder, WOOO, a storm! Well, there was only something like 3 cracks of thunder and it was gone, just the rain came. I headed downstairs to make some tea but the power starting flickering on and off a few times. I called mom inbetween flickers to find out via the Fire Scanner that there was a called-in Structure Fire a few streets over. We grabbed the camera and drove over. We actually beat the fire trucks, but no fire was to be seen. We were confused. We parked the car at the dead end of the street and watched the first fire truck approach. Five firemen got out all geared up and ran to the house. I could see in the distance another firetruck heading our way. I told Bob we should go, first off we might get trapped on the tight street and I didn't want to get into the way of the fire fighters. We started to pull around the first firetruck which was parked and an oncoming car showed up from no-where and was blocking our exit. I guess they might of had a scanner too? lol They finally moved and then the first firetruck wanted to move. We stayed where we were and that's when the fun started.

Everything outside the car turned into this huge bright light and we couldn't see anything and then this massive explosion bang happened overhead. I thought to myself in that mere second "OMG, we just got hit by lightning" and I turned around to look out the passenger side window to see sparks and smoke coming from a huge transformer on a pole RIGHT BESIDE THE CAR. It scared the crap out of Bob who then started to drive because the way was clearn. WHOLEY CRAP!!! As we were driving away Bob looked in his rearview mirror to see the transformer explode again. It was decided we would turn back and try and capture it on video.

We witnessed two or three more explosions and then all was calm. The power was dead. We decided to head for Mom's house as we KNEW it would be a while before the power would come back online. Will and Marnie arrived shortly after and we headed to their house and hung out with candles burning. The power finally came back on around 11:30pmish....... that was approx. 3-3.5 hours after we saw the last explosion.

SUNDAY:

We slept in on Sunday morning, sooooooooooo nice, I needed it. We piddled around the house for a while, ran out and got groceries and came home. We were excited as we were heading to Port Dalhousie to see a play at the Port Mansion. Our friends Heather Warrender & Todd Melville were in it!!

Me with Heather

Me with Todd

BOEING BOEING was the name of the play!! Bob and I tried to arrive early but the traffic was crazy! There was a rowing competition on and all the parking was taken. We had to park waaaaaays away and had to hurry to get to the theatre in order to get the last two seats.

The play was awesome!!!!!!!!!! Lots and lots of laughter!

Afterwards, Heather ran home to pick up her hubby Xander and they came over and we ordered yummy pizza from JORDAN PIZZA and watched the newest edition of CHARLIE THE UNICORN. lol