Craig Davidson

Sunday, January 29th

New Review

Well, I know this is a fairly lame update---not that the review is lame, or lamely-written, but rather it doesn't take much effort on my part. But I've been writing a lot and reading a lot this week, and nothing of note has happened, and no amusing anecdotes from my past have risen to the surface of my brain. (If, however, people want to use the comments section to post amusing anecdotes from their own past, as Erin, Nancy, and JLo did on my previous entry, that would be wonderful. I'd love to read them, no matter how sordid, no matter how poorly you come off looking. It's very cathartic to wrestle with past demons and shames in an open forum like this; Oprah says so, and Dr. Phil agrees.)

So instead I post a review from the Columbus Dispatch. I'd heard there was also to be a review in the Washington Post this weekend, but if so it's not online; if anyone has seen it, read it, and cares to update me as to what was said, that would be groovy. Unless it was a sucky review, in which case I can wait.

All best, Craig
Craig Davidson on 01.29.06 @ 08:09 PM EST [more..]

Saturday, January 21st

Random Acts of Vandalism #2: Gladys

This entry will find its way, in slightly altered form, into the novel I’m working on now, tentatively titled “The Interventionists.” It will appear altered in the sense that the acts described shall be performed by the novel’s characters, rather than me and my numbskull highschool buddies. And I think it will probably end differently than it did in reality—the wonders of fiction! Of course, as this novel is un-contracted, this scene may never see the light of day. Perhaps, having read it, you might find that prospect a comforting one.

Anyway, Gladys. It is not simply a name of a bygone era—along with Gertrude, Hester, Wellington, Adolf, Prudence, Prunella, Hazel, Phinneas, Thurston, Theobald, Hettie, Archibald, Cotton, Olive, Greta, Spaulding, and others. As an aside, if any of you are about to have a child and are thinking about giving them a name from the above list (or a fruit-themed name such as Apple, Tangerine, Prune, Apricot—or a hippy-dippy one such as Moonbeam, Eagle Feather, Stardust—or a superhero-type name like Aquaman or Typhoon Helix or Gargantua), well, my only advice is: don’t be perverse! Name your child responsibly or he or she will grow up to hate you. I know if my folks had named me “Grapefruit Wolverine Davidson” or “Finnegan Jupiter Davidson III,” I might not be on speaking terms with them.

Anyway. Gladys. This was the name of a 300-pound fibreglass cow that sat in the backyard of my classmate Barry Fietsch (this is not his real name; readers who have been following this blog since its inception perhaps recall an incident occurring when I did use real names—anyway, I’ve decided to change some names.). Barry was a good guy; basically a sweet, goodhearted guy. In high school terms, this rendered him tragically unhip and open to mockery (though, in fairness, pretty much everyone was open to mockery at our highschool). Barry, as I recall, was the chief target for the dreaded “Bionic Chicken”: the Bionic Chicken—don’t ask me why we called it this—was a wrestling-type move we practiced upon one another for a three-week period in grade eleven: its heyday came to a close when all of us were too bruised or otherwise debilitated to continue. Basically, a Bionic Chicken was a double axe handle: you laced your fingers together, made one GIANT fist, then attacked somebody with it. The best Bionic Chickens were, obviously, those administered sneak-attack-style: you’d fly off the stairs and hammer your unsuspecting buddy in the back, or wait around the corner and hammer him as he came out of the cafeteria, sending him face-first into the trophy case. My buddy Adam—a scrap of a guy, at the time—administered the all-time killer Bionic Chicken to a guy named Andy Marascotto (Andy MaraSNOTto—hah, hah!); Adam blindsided Andy while Andy was getting something out of his locker; he whacked him so good Andy’s shoulders got shoved though the narrow locker door and his head hit the back of the locker. Man, that was a be-all, end-all Bionic Chicken! Poor Andy probably still wakes up from nightmares where he hears Adam’s gibbering, triumphant shriek before his head slams the back of that locker.

If any high school guys are reading this, why not start up a Bionic Chicken club at your school? Like a Fight Club, but Bionic Chicken-style! Actually, I’m sure if any high school guys are reading this, they’re like, “Bionic CHICKENS? What were those guys, idiots?”

The answer---though I'm sure it needs not be spoken---is yes.

Craig Davidson on 01.21.06 @ 09:09 PM EST [more..]

Monday, January 16th

Canadian TV Programs of Olde; A few New Greats

Hi All,

It is said by some that we Canadians are a fairly humorous bunch. I don’t know where this comes from, exactly, just as I’m not sure where the idea that French people are snooty, or Italians fantastic lovers, or Americans boors, come from. Certainly you’d find people to fit those stereotypes in those countries, but I know you’ll find plenty of obliging French people, gracious Americans, and Italians with shoddy lovemaking skills.

Anyway, the point of this post isn’t stereotype-busting. The point is that, despite our reputation as funny folk, most of our funniest people head south before long: thus were Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Dan Ackroyd, Tom Greene (debatable, perhaps), Lorne Michaels (again, debatable, but I think the guy’s got a shrewd comic mind) and so many others sucked up by the American comedy vacuum. Not that I blame them for leaving, or blame the Americans for accepting them with open arms. The price of doing business.

Aaaaanyway—and I’m getting closer to my point, please bear with—the result of this mass comedic migration is that our own comedy—and here I’ll refer simply to TV, because (with the huge exception of the hilarious “Strange Brew”) I can’t think of a really funny Canadian movie—is pretty weak. I actually liked “Men With Brooms,” too. Therein lies the irony: a country renown for funny men and women, we have very little homegrown programming that I, at least, find all that funny.
Craig Davidson on 01.16.06 @ 08:44 PM EST [more..]

Monday, January 9th

A Million Little Pieces Debacle

Hi All,

Those of you who check this blog from time to time will know I’ve mentioned this book before. Once in regards to the Oprah book club—it’s the current title—and once in my BEST/WORST of 2005 list, where I had it under worst; not because I think it a poorly written book, but because—awful cynic that I am—I thought much of it was lies.

Well, according to The Smoking Gun’s website, much of it IS a lie.

www.thesmokinggun.com/jamesfrey

I didn’t want to talk too openly about it on the blog, for the simple reason that James Frey and I share a film agent (she is also, I believe, his literary agent; his uber-agent, if you will). James Frey is James Frey, and Craig Davidson is Craig Davidson: I thought if she found out I’d been bad-mouthing the Golden Boy, I might be in trouble. Bye-bye any possibility of film rights for Rust and Bone, or anything else I ever write. But I pretty much stated my suspicion that the book was a big hoax a few entries ago, and it interests me as a topic, and James Frey is a multi-millionaire with a Manhattan abode and a summer house in Amagansett so he can take the hit from little ol’ me, plus he broke the rules in a pretty brazen way—so fuck him running.

About the book: for those of you who haven’t read or heard about it, it’s an addiction memoir wherein James recovers from his various addictions in an unconventional manner. This involves shunning the 12 Steps of AA, getting radical dental surgery without anaesthetic—a great scene, by the way—mingling with gangsters and district court judges at the rehab clinic, romancing a crack-addicted former prostitute, and other shenanigans. The book is written in a stream-of-consciousness style that I personally found really engaging. I read the book before any of the hype: I was working at a library in Calgary and it came across the return counter; I loved the cover, read the blurbs—a great one from Bret Easton Ellis—and checked it out. I read it on a camping trip in Bobcaygeon (where all the constellations revealed themselves one star at a time), and, while I enjoyed it sylistically, something dawned upon me halfway through:

This was supposed to be nonfiction—and I was having a tough time believing a lot of it.

Once I got in that mindframe, each ensuing event seemed more and more ridiculous. It started with the dental scene (SPOILER.........) where James receives four root canals—WITHOUT ANY ANAESTHESIA. That’s right: the dentist gives him a few tennis balls to squeeze if he felt any pain. The scene tested the limits of belief in a huge way. There is no evidence to substantiate this happening—that said, there is no evidence saying it did not. Readers are left to take Frey at his word on it—a word that, in light of the Smoking Gun article, must now be taken with a shaker full of salt.

I mean, there’s something insensibly ballsy about a lie like that: one root canal would be amazing—but FOUR? I don’t think of myself as displaying too many wuss-like symptoms, but let’s face it: I would’ve shit my pants, pissed myself, and fled screaming out of the dentist’s chair at the SOUND OF THE DENTIST’S DRILL if I wasn’t doped up to the gills!

It goes on. I won’t go into the evidence of Frey’s overt fabrications; you can read the article for that, if you’d like. I reacted to the story as a writer less than as a reader.

Craig Davidson on 01.09.06 @ 08:53 PM EST [more..]

Monday, January 2nd

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Hi All,

Hope everybody’s Christmas and New Years went well. I hope it was “crack-a-lackin’,” as the computerized denizens of the video that’s been consuming my life for the past couple of days---Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas---might say.

The Playstation 2 was a gift from my brother. I haven’t owned a video game system since I bought a Super Nintendo during my stint in Japan; I didn’t play that very much, either, seeing as the Zelda game I bought with it was---unsurprisingly---all in Japanese. So I had no idea what people were saying, I had no idea where the kind village folk were telling me to go or what adventures I was supposed to go on, so I spent a few hours running around the rich video game environment, getting angry, then boxed it up and gave it to a student of mine.

The reason I generally avoid video games is…I’m a video game addict. I mean, not in the classical sense of it…I guess I’m more accurately a video game binger. This usually happens around Christmas. I’ll head over to my brother’s house, or a friend’s, and they’re squirreled away down in their basements, all ferret-eyed playing video games. For me, this is like standing at the edge of a very deep, very dark cliff: if I fall, I will fall for some time.

The first time I “fell” was with Devil May Cry. My brother got it five years ago, and I played it once, was hooked, and didn’t eat, bathe, work out, or move too far from the game until I beat it. This was probably 24 hours---thankfully, it wasn’t a really hard game. I emerged from the experience in the way I imagine miners might from a caved-in mineshaft: wide-eyed, shivering, happy to be alive but forever changed. I swore NEVER AGAIN!

Then a few years later Graham got Grand Theft Auto. This was a revelation! It was a nasty game where you’re a criminal and go around doing a lot of criminal things---this is, in fact, the point of the game. You steal cars, shoot people, and cause general destruction. I quite liked it. I fell off the cliff again. It was a more difficult game; the fall was steeper and longer. I emerged some days later---I can’t tell you exactly how long---and again, I was a changed man. I had a shaggy beard…okay, I had itchy stubble. When I got up off the chair I was playing in, my back and ass made a sound like a band-aid being ripped off: the leather didn’t want to surrender me. But I was King of Liberty City (the fictional city where GTA takes place)…but I felt gross. I felt…USED. I looked at the Playstation 2 and it seemed to be leering at me. The sight of it, of that molded controller, made me sick. NEVER AGAIN, I swore.

Then last summer I was staying with my buddy Jay and his wife Lisa. They were gone most of the day at work; me, the writing bum, was at home. After I got my writing done I wandered down to the basement. There was my old nemesis---new setting, same temptation. I put this game called MANHUNTER into the console…BLAST! Hooked again. Jay come home and found me camped out like some hungry-eyed squatter, hunched over the joystick like a hobo protecting his sandwich against wolves. He realised my addiction---he was a binger, like me---and the two of us binged our way though that game (it was made my RockStar, the same guys who made GTA. Bastards!). NEVER AGAIN, I swore.

Then my brother---or, I should say, my PUSHER---BUYS the damn thing for me.

Et tu, Graham? Et tu?

Well, I can’t say I’m proud of it, but on boxing day out I went to the games store. I got into a fistfight with a twelve-year-old boy for the last copy of GTA: San Andreas. He punched me pretty good, beat me down heavy…luckily there was another store on the other side of the mall that had more copies. So I bought that, PLUS the other GTA:2, which had been put out a few years ago.

It’s been pretty gross. I’m deep in the throes of addiction. I can’t quite believe I pried myself away long enough to write this. I’m wild-eyed and musky-smelling. My grip on the reality of things is slipping. I’m having video game fever dreams. Every time I emerge from my spider hole (a spare room upstairs) my brother cackles evilly and rubs his dry palms together. “Excellent,” he whispers to himself. “Maaaaaarvelous.”

For anyone who’s played video games…well, maybe they understand. I’ve played lots, but this GTA series really has my number. It’s just the fact that you can do ANYTHING in it…and the fact you’re rewarded for bad behavior. You’re supposed to go on missions, but I frequently abandon them do just run around punching people, or shooting wildly, or inciting mayhem. My favorite bit is that you can shoot and stab and maim a whole bunch of people (really, I know it sounds awful, but it’s really part of the game), and you get the cops and the FBI and the National Guard on your ass, then all you do is step inside your house, save the game, and when you step out again the cops are gone and you go out and do it all again.

If there’s something called Video Gamers Anonymous…someone needs to give me a pamphlet. Maybe I’ll start one. People with red squinty eyes and clawed fingers (from controller fatigue) will say, “Are you a friend of Craig D?” and the reply will be, “Craig D’s a good soul. He changed my life. He got me off video games. Now I’ve got a much less consuming addiction---heroin.” (For those who don’t get the reference: Bill W. was the founder of AA; reformed alcoholics will often ask, “Are you a friend of Bill?” to see if another other person is in AA).

Aaaaaaaaaaanyway…I gotta go…do…something something. Not play video games. Nosirree bob. Not me. Noooooo! But yeah, I have to go. I think I hear the phone ringing…or the kettle shrieking…or something something.

All best, Craig.

Craig Davidson on 01.02.06 @ 07:13 PM EST [link]