03/10/2010: "Hey, how about some Top Bets?"

Hi All,

Well, why not?

Weekend's Top Bets March 5

1. FREDERICTON. The night of the big fight. The Champ sits on a butcher block bench, hands taped, anvil-heavy head bowed. I say, "This guy you're fighting tonight - he's a murderer. He's not anything like the two-bit pitty-patters, tomato cans, or fancy Dan creampuffs you beat to get here. This guy's an executioner. He's got slumber land in either hand. He drinks molten steel and pisses razor blades. He'll crucify you, Champ; he'll plant you in that canvas like a shrub. And I tell you so because you're my friend and, damn it, I love ya." The Champ looks at me stoically, his eyes like chunks of brown ice, and says: "You're right. I can't lick him. Why even try?" Next his trainer stalks over, slaps me hard across the face and throws me out of the locker room. That was the end of my career as a motivational speaker. Boxing classes at the Fredericton Boxing Club. Sunday nights starting at 5:30. 141 School Street. 470-3938.

2. SAINT JOHN. When I retired thirty years ago at the age of sixty-two, I knew the key to a long life was to stay active. The other week I volunteered to read to the tots down the local library. I arrive to a room of toddlers, all cute as buttons; the librarian gives me this book called The Mopey Puppy. Nothing but candy floss for your brain: all sugar, no substance. I cracked open a pamphlet on RRSP savings tips instead. “Don't delay,” I read, “start early. Maximize your foreign market exposure.” These snot-nosed ragamuffins were whining and rolling around on the carpet hugging themselves, drooling and babbling - I may as well not have left the nursing home! “Look alive, you thoughtless stooges!” I said. “This is your future!” After that the librarian gave me an oatmeal cookie and sent me home. Preschool Storytime at the public library. Thursday, March 11. 10:30 - 11:00am.

3. MONCTON. One day, oh, eleven maybe 50 years ago, I was punching cows down on the Flying G with the Harpoon brothers and one of 'em says to me, 'Hey, they's a guy up in Saskatoon running 1,000 head looking for a dab hand with branding.' So I says, 'Hey, Curly, is that right?' And Curly says, 'You betcha.' So I hit him as hard as I could with a big ole heavy steel pole and knocked him cold. I took his boots and I caught a ride up to Saskabush. There I seen this guy sitting on his horse all puffed up like he'd been poisoned and I says, 'Hey you better uncinch that critter, or he's gonna blow.' The guy looked at me like I was nuts and he says, 'OK.' That was '58 - '59? Catch country singer Steve Waylon at The Bass River Fair Hall. $8. March 6, at 9pm.

4. FREDERICTON. The love of my life, Handsome Maggie, thought we ought to sauce things up in the boudoir. She went to one a them ‘Spice Up Your Love Life’ parties - like a Tupperware party, except with bedroom gewgaws - and came home with a pair of furry handcuffs for her 'Prisoner of Love,’ as she’d taken to calling me. So I shuck down to my drawers and Maggie fastens a blindfold round my eyes and handcuffs me to the bedposts. Whoo! Next something warm and sticky is spread on my chest while Maggie coos sweet nothings in my ear. When she takes off the blindfold I see I’m covered in honey. Maggie holds a thrashing burlap sack, which she opens and a hungry ferret leaps out and sets to nipping me about the haunches and brisket! “I’ve hated you since the day I met you,” Maggie hisses, then laughs like a longshoreman. What’s worse, she invited Lenny Drinkwater, the local papparazzo, over to take photos of the whole sordid scene with his Polaroid. They showed up next day in the society pages of the Penny Saver. Well, Mags and I had to take a time out after that one. Want to host a Diva Party? Call Tammy at 455-7677 to set up the Passion Party package. Great fun for single or married women.

5. SAINT JOHN. Regrets? You could say I have a few. One time I was a little down at the heel and - my darling Maggie having run off with a fur trapper named Jean Luc Drapont - short on love, too. I see this ad in the newspaper for Rughookers. Deciding I can spin an easy buck I don my furred pink fedora, white calfskin trenchcoat, and platform shoes, grab my a bejeweled cane and make my way to the SJ Arts Centre. “I’m looking for them hookers I read about in the newspapy,” I tell the security guard, who gives me a look but points the way. So I survey the landscape and, truth told, it was pretty grim pickins. Most of ‘em were sixty if they were a year. All sitting quietly doing arts and crafts. But I persevered. “I don’t know what your pimp’s paying,” I announced, “but it ain’t enough, that’s for dang sure. Prime cuts a beef such as yourselves. You got that matronly quality. Some fellas appreciate that - not me, but some. I can turn you out for top dollar.” Well, it so transpired there had been a misunderstanding, rughooking and hooker-hooking being beasts of entirely different natures. I barely made it out alive. One of those sassy old birds jabbed a darning needle in my ankle! Try Rughooking. March 5, 9:30 - noon. Saint John Arts Centre. 633-4870.

6. MONCTON. I told my husband, Paxton Thriftwhistle III, that I should like to plant sugarsnap peas around our estate grounds. Unfortunately our Nicaraguan gardener had lately run off to join the Sandinista rebels. “Never fear, my pet,” said Paxton. “There is a farmer’s market this weekend. We’ll purchase one there.” Fortified on gin and breath mints, we bundled into the Bentley on a pleasant Sunday morn; Paxton cuffed our chauffeur in the back of his head and we were off. The farmer’s market was earthy and filthy, saturated with oily hippies and sticky-fingered urchins. “A hillbilly slum,” said Paxton. We made haste through the ramshackle stalls as our chauffeur beat back the runny-nosed hordes. I spied a suitable specimen hovering near a table of earthenware jugs, which doubtlessly he considered to be musical instruments. Sinewy and bowlegged, he would do. “How much?” I asked. “How much what?” he said. “How much do you cost?” I said, exasperated. “I’m not for sale, you dizzy old bat.” He laughed, pointing me out to the assembled hicks and rubes. “This ancient ruin thinks she can buy a farmer!” Next these rancid buffoons, these hootenanny-throwers, were laughing - at me! Oh, they should be thrashed within an inch of their inelegant lives, I tell you! Sackville Farmer’s Market. Saturdays, 9 to noon. Bridge St. Café, 8 Bridge St. 536-4428.

-30-