Hit the Deck

The wraparound deck adjoining the palatial Pointless Digressions studio, which includes the award-winning penthouse garden, filled with rare and exotic blooms tended by a team of ace horticulturists, and the Olympic-standard gymnasium and spa, is being--sigh--rebuilt. Apparently lower level residents are tired of PD fans falling through the floor and landing on their hibachis.

And so our days are now filled with a symphony of sawing, hammering, drilling, the cheery songs of the workmen, and the occasional cry of "Oh #@$%*&!, that was my $#@!*&+ thumb!"  

We also find the work crew peering into the studio, looking over our massive shoulders as we go to air, and sometimes offering editorial comments; e.g., "I think that's a misplaced gerund." And we always thought a gerund was a native of some Eastern European country.

Having the workmen on the deck sharing our life reminds us of George Formby's "Window Cleaner Song," graciously provided on CD by adored sister Miss T. (for whom Errol Garner composed the song "Misty"). 

The lines that resonate with the PD staff:

"It's a job that just suits me

 A window cleaner you would be

 If you could see what I can see

 When I'm cleaning windows."

There will be more on this, as the jolly work crew is expected to be on the deck--and peering through the windows--until snowfall.  Snowfall 2012.

Happy Birthday, Queen V.

Because today is Victoria Day, and because theatres recently screened "Young Victoria," with Emily Blunt as young Victoria, we began thinking of other performers who have portrayed Britain's longest-reigning monarch (longest-reigning so far--her great-great-granddaughter is gaining on her).

So, here is the list:  Judi Dench, Irene Dunne, Helen Hayes, Anna Neagle, Kathy Bates (Kathy Bates!), Pauline Collins, Margaret Mann, Fay Compton, Prunella Scales (Ms. Scales may be the only actress to have played both Victoria and Elizabeth II) and Mrs. Henry Lytton. Wonderfully quaint, one might say VIctorian, to identify an actress by her husband's name.

The prize performer in the role, however, had to be--wait for it--Peter Sellers.  It's true, or, as Jack Paar used to say, I kid you not.  Sellers appeared as Queen Victoria in the 1976 film "The Great McGonnagal."

We're ready for yet another run at the story, with Dolly Parton as Victoria (hey, if Kathy Bates could do it...), Arnold Schwarzenegger as Prince Albert, and, as their piano-playing pal Felix Mendelssohn, Michael Kaeshammer.

(Somewhere out there in the mists of time the regal voice of Queen Victoria is heard declaring "We are not amused.")

Here Comes the Groomer

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper wends his way around the world, eager to establish his position as Global Statesman, it has come to light that he has a personal groomer.  Michelle Muntean, identified by Bruce Headle in The Globe and Mail as a former makeup artist for CBC and CTV, has been at Mr. Harper's side, and presumably the rest of him, since he ran for leadership of the Conservative party. 

According to the Ottawa-based Headle, "Ms. Muntean's tasks include coordinating Mr. Harper's suits and ties, overseeing his makeup and hair for major speeches and TV appearances, even picking lint off his jackets."  It would seem that Mr. Harper is eager to appear as suave and debonair as Nicolas Sarkozy or Dmitry Medvedev or even Jack Layton, none of whom is known to have a personal groomer (although spouses may occasionally suggest a change of necktie, and who wouldn't take a fashion tup from Carla Bruni?).  

But if Steve has a personal groomer, why is it not working?  Why does his hair style run a close second to Donald Trump's?  Why does his personal style have all the dash of Digger O'Dell, the funeral director on "The Life of Riley"?  Our conclusion:  Ms. Muntean is a Liberal plant, a mole in the Harper entourage, controlled by Bob Rae and secretly working to make Mr. Harper seem even more square than he may be.

Our advice:  Steve, next time Michelle suggests you wear that Boy Scout insignia necktie with the short-sleeved shirt and charcoal polyester suit, next time she hands you a tube of Brylcreem, ask yourself "Whose side is she really on?"  

But heedless of our words of caution, Steve strides on stage, his jacket lint-free, seats himself at the piano and launches into his current hit, a cover of the Steve Allen classic "You Gotta Have Something in the Bank, Frank."

Clearout Sale

Ends and odds, factory rejects, shopworn gags--all must go today at the Pointless Digressions retail outlet.

First to sports news:  Some Vancouver Canuck fans, heavily in denial, are still displaying signs reading "Go Canucks Go!"  My next door neighbor has, more realistically, altered his sign to read "Gone Canucks Gone."

And, on to the music scene:  Our entertainment reporter, D.J. Flick, has found a grocery store playing a background music tape that seems to have been recorded in the late 1960s.  If you have been eager to hear once again Bobby Darin singing "Beyond the Sea" this is the store for you.  A continuing favorite of the patrons, D.J. reports, is "I Write the Songs That Make the Whole World Sing," a song we are unable to hear without being plunged back to a Gastown restaurant where this Barry Manilow number was repeated incessantly throughout the evening, as the proprietor kept sending to our table bottles of Bouchard Aine et Fils Chablis.  The restaurant was either Le Coq au Vin or Le Coq d'Or, and considering the amount of Chablis consumed, it's surprising we remember even that. 

Finally, we respond to one of the thousands of letters we receive each day.  A Mr. M. Ahmadinejad of Tehran writes:  "Is the new Disney film, 'Prince of Persia' starring Jake Gyllenhaal, a biopic of my career? Forgetting that Persia is now Iran?"  We must regretfully inform Mr. Ahmadinejad that the film is set some centuries prior to his appearance on the scene.  "Just as well," he replies.  "The female persons in the film are insufficiently clothed and to play me, Mr. Jake Gyllenhaal is insufficiently handsome."  

Bedtime Stories

Writing in Britain's Daily Telegraph, Rowan Pelling reports that "according to a new survey, one sure-fire way for a man to charm his inamorata is to read to her in bed...seven out of ten men regularly perform this service." 

Several men, unsuccessful in finding the way to their sweeties' hearts, or any other part of them, have tried this technique.  Results have been mixed, but this may be due to the books they have chosen to read.  Philbert Wombley read his spouse several chapters of "The Dummy's Guide to Taxidermy," following which she said, "I have two words for taxidermists."  "Yes?" said Philbert, trembling with anticipation.  "The two words are," she said, "get stuffed."

Waldo Fitterling tried reading some the spicier passages in "How to Do Your Own SUV Repairs." This did not bring the desired arousal in Mrs. Fitterling, but did cure her insomnia.  

Finally, Ralph Rubato settled on "Curious George Explores Bondage." Ralph writes "This book did have a fiery impact on my wife, Myrna. She went out and bought a monkey, which has taken my place in the boudoir.  I am now sleeping on the couch."

It could have been worse, Ralph.  You could have read her "Babar Discovers the Kama Sutra." 

Homophobia scores first in Williams Lake

Students at a Williams Lake high school had prepared a number of events for Anti-Homophobia Week, but, under pressure from some parents, and the invertebrate of school principals and school district leaders, the students have been made to reschedule or cancel some of these events.

This has caused some surprise among those of us who have visited Williams Lake, particularly at Stampede time, and have found it to be a model of sophistication and civil discourse.  Few things can seize your attention like a beer bottle thrown at the head.

Two of the planned events cancelled, or moved to other times, are the screening of a video by the Gay/Straight Alliance and Gender Bender day, at which students might have turned up in whatever garb, male or female, they prefer.  Teachers might have liked this, too.

But the anti-anti-homophobia people have moved in, and won the first round; they perhaps do not realize that this is a seven-game series.

Nor do they understand that homophobia (morbid fear of homosexuality) may be inner directed.  Sexuality is complex, and many people do not want to recognize this in themselves. So in their case, homophobia becomes hate.  Which is--do we need to say this?--unhealthy.

Moving into Number 10

David Cameron is the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, and it has been remarked that he is the youngest person to take that office in 200 years.  However, Cameron is truly middle-aged compared to William Pitt the Younger, who became prime minister in 1783 at the age of 24.  Pitt held the office for 18 years, and was reelected three years later.

Our London correspondent believes Cameron--with Clegg at his side--will do well, but he was pulling for Hugh Grant, remembering how Grant, as prime minister in "Love, Actually," trumped Billy Bob Thornton's U.S. president.

Recalling John Cleese's silly walk, several of us thought the entire Monty Python troupe should have moved into 10 Downing Street.  

The Pythons could have taken turns being P.M. for the day, and in that rotation we would include the late Graham Chapman.  One can have total confidence in post mortal politicians.  

Wait 'til Next Season

So the Vancouver Canucks went down to dire, dismal, doomed defeat, and Dustin Byfuglien, on the plane back to Chicago, led his fellow Blackhawks in a rousing rendition of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?"  (Those of us who remember when there only six teams in the National Hockey League still find it incongruous that there should be NHL franchises in places like San Jose, Phoenix and Los Angeles, where the terra is closer to desert than ice patch.)

Canucks fans have been left feeling like Sami Salo, and outside GM Place, according to Pointless Digressions sportscaster Bob Slaigh, the mood was forlorn and ugly, as many burned their Canucks jerseys. Some were trying to sandpaper away their blue and green face paint, but to no avail.  However, medical experts have assured them the paint should fade, in as short a time as six months.  

Sports psychologists and grief counsellors have been called in to pull fans through this difficult period.  Dr. Sigmund Fleckmeister has suggested that fans transfer their obsession to another game--Scrabble, perhaps.

Meanwhile, the Canucks loss-Blackhawks win has had an impact on the restaurant industry.   "No one order lobster linguine any more," lamented Aldo Spazzarini.  "Now they all want Chicago deep dish pizza."  ("Very tasty," says Bob Slaigh.)

Finally, Mitzi Froufrou, who has dated numerous Canucks over the years, has announced she is giving up her love for the game and is taking the veil.  Mother Felicity, of the Order of Dashed Hopes, says "We will be happy to receive Mitzi as a postulant, once she has had the Canucks logo tattoo removed from her thigh."

Call me a schlemiel

The opera "Moby-Dick" has had its premiere performance in Dallas. The composer was Jake Heggie, who does not shrink from tough subjects (his last opera before this was "Dead Man Walking") and the librettist was Gene Scheer, who, we presume, cut all the parts about blubber and ambergris.   

Playing the role of Captain Ahab, with his usual authority, was Ben Heppner of, originally, Murrayville in the Fraser Valley.  Heppner is routinely described (especially on CBC Radio 2--"All Promos All the Time") as a heldentenor.  But, in an interview with Douglas Hughes, he disowned this categorization.  "I fit the category, to be sure.  But I don't think of myself as a heldentenor.  I am a tenor, a tenor, a tenor.  To think of myself as a heldentenor would be to limit myself severely."  (CBC, please copy.)

"Moby-Dick" is one of two books routinely presented as "the great American novel."  The other, of course (Hemingway's choice) is "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," which also has been adapted as an opera, by Hall Overton.   

Herman Melville, who wrote "Moby-Dick," never knew its success.  He just packed up his books and went back to his dreary duties as a New York customs inspector (like poor Bizet, gone to uneasy rest not knowing that "Carmen," initially disdained, would become the world's most performed opera). By the time "Moby-Dick" finally was acclaimed, Melville had departed for the Great Whaling Station in the Sky.  Nor could he have known that "Billy Budd" would be turned into an opera (and a film--Terence Stamp, Robert Ryan, Peter Ustinov) or that John Huston would film "Moby-Dick." Best scene:  Orson Welles as Father Mapple, delivering a fiery sermon on Jonah and the whale.

And so we close, with this well-known remark of Harold Ross, founder of The New Yorker:  "Is Moby-Dick the man or the whale""

Mother's Day

May 9 is Mother's Day, so it is fitting that we salute notable mothers of our time--Maw Green, Mammy Yokum, Mamma Mia, and Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention.

There have been a number of songs written for mothers, most heavily drenched in schmaltz, but for sheer beauty, few can match this stanza from Phil Harris's "That's What I Like About the South":

"I wanta go back to Alabammy

And see again my dear old Mammy.

Her cooking's bad and her hands are clammy,

But what the hell, it's home."

We, of course, treasure the memory of our mother, and especially her pithy maxims ("Sing before breakfast, cry before supper") but protective of her privacy, as she would wish, we give the final salute to the mother of Anthony Trollope.  Trollope's father, engaged in what has been called "wild speculation," plunged the family into penury.  Trollope's mother--Frances--decided she would hold the family together by trying her hand at writing.  She ended up publishing 114 books.

Happy Mother's Day, Mama Trollope, and to all other strong maternal figures, past, present and future.

 

Game Night Menu

Overheard at Roberto Luongo's favorite ristorante:

"Not having lobster linguine tonight, Louie?"

"Nope.  Tonight I'm going for Buffalo wings."

Stanley Cup playoffs dress code

We were thinking about the Stanley Cup playoffs (named for Stan Laurel--"another fine mess you've gotten us into!") while waiting the other day for the "Sorry--Not in Service" bus.

When it pulled to a stop, and we boarded, we noticed that the driver was wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey.  This at a time when store clerks throughout the city are proudly donning Vancouver Canucks jerseys, cars are flying Canucks pennants, most buses are flashing signs that read "Go Canucks Go", and many fans have the Canucks logo tattooed on various parts of their anatomies.  (Don't ask.)

"Uh"--we hesitantly said--"is a Chicago shirt a wise fashion statement in Vancouver at this time?"

"Chicago," he warbled, "Chicago, a hell of a town.  The Bronx is up, the Battery's down."

"I think," we said, "that's New York."

"Okay, then, how's this:  'My kinda town, Chicago is'."  Several Sinatra fans applauded.

We worried about what might happen if, at the end of his shift, the driver ventured into a sports bar filled with Canucks fans while still wearing his Blackhawks jersey.

We found out the next day, when we saw him in the ER, wearing this sign:  "Sorry--Not in Service."

Payback Time

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." 

F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"

Those famous opening lines may not be entirely appropriate for this subject, but I think of them whenever I am tempted to criticize a magazine article or a radio performance.  I wince with the memory of excruciatingly bad articles I once committed to paper, and silently apologize to listeners for my self indulgence behind a microphone.  (By the way, have you noticed that many writers are now abbreviating "microphone" as "mic"?  I can only conclude that these are people who have never worked behind a mike, and are probably related to the people who translate the "I Love" heart symbols as "I Heart Pismo Beach..or whatever.")

Okay, there I go again.  The line between editor/critic and surly curmudgeon is narrow.  I did study under Sam Fogel and Terry Garner. 

But back to our topic (we are serial digressors here); while we still feel guilt for some of the things we pushed on unsuspecting radio audiences, there are others we remember with pleasure.  And one of these was a commercial for a French restaurant---name long forgotten--read by Brad Keene, in his best Bogart mode, and Bill Phillips.

Brad:   Read it, Sam.

Bill:     Ah, I don't think I remember it, boss.

Brad:   Come on, you read it for her, you can read it for me.

Music:  "As Time Goes By," Errol Garner.  Fade under

Bill:      Quenelles de coquilles St-Jacques.

Brad:    (Sigh)

Bill:      Huitres a la vodka de bleuets sauvages.  

And so it went, thru all of the courses on the menu, ending with

Bill:      Sabayon de fraises gratinees.

Brad:    Read it again, Sam.

Did this commercial send hordes of people to the restaurant, jamming its reservation list for months ahead?  We don't know.  But we did have fun, and that's why most of us were in the biz.