Craig Davidson

Sunday, June 29th

Mister Bill

Hi All,

I was channel surfing the other day and ran across the ass-end of a Mastercard commercial featuring Mister Bill. It was one of those thunderclap-of-a-childhood-memory instances.

For any of you too young to remember, Mister Bill was a character on Saturday Night Live during the eighties. He appeared in those mid-show skits that Robert Smigel inherited in the nineties with his "Fun With Audio Tape" and "Ambiguously Gay Duo" sketches. Mister Bill was this hapless plasticine character with yellow hair who speaks in this squeaky voice and is unremittingly nice. The skits all have the same cast of characters: Mister Bill, his dog Spot, Sluggo---Mister Bill's mortal enemy who's always beating Bill up or causing him grief---and Mister Hand, who is, well, a disembodied hand who shows up in the frame ostensibly to help Mister Bill but all he ever does it hurt him. The skits follow the same general course: Mister Bill is hassled by Sluggo and Mister Hand, then his poor dog Spot is killed in some callous and offhand manner---for which Mister Hand never apologizes or even really acknowledges---then Mister Bill himself comes to some gruesome end. Sometimes several times during one skit. Mister Bill is resilient.

Back when I first lived here in Calgary, grade eight or so, we used to be able to do 'Video Projects' for one of our classes. Must've been drama. Anyway, my buddy Jeremy and I rented a video camera---this shows how old I am: you had to RENT a video camera, a massive boxy thing the size of a toaster oven, at the video store, which still rented VHS movies, and the camera came in a giant padded suitcase---and shot our own Mister Bill commercial. Our made-up product was SST Running Shoes. Our tagline was: "Stomp the Competition" Guess who got stomped? Poor Mister Bill. We went through a lot of plastecine, ole Jeremy and I.

Here are some vintage Mister Bill clips. They're surprisingly hard to find.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k78TVkbrHHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZuEBRL9dbA&feature=related

... having watched it now, well, I'm not sure Mister Bill's held up too well with the passage of time. Jay Leno doesn't help a damn thing, either. I should like him more, seeing as we're both charter members of the Massive Chin Club, but somehow our physical similarities doesn't make him any more tolerable.

All best, Craig.

Craig Davidson on 06.29.08 @ 04:47 PM EST [link]

Monday, June 23rd

Review

Hi All,

Here's a review of THE FIGHTER from the Times of London. Short and fair. What I really like is that anybody who picks up the book based on this review will not be sitting back after reading it saying, "That's completely not what the review seemed to promise." It's not a great review from a writers' perspective but it's perfectly applicable to the book, which is, of course, far from perfect. It's nice to now be able to read a review and have the whole experience of writing the book so far removed from the here and now I'm not plagued by an attack of the phantods and get myself all jivey-jittery after reading it.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article4178609.ece

To crib from trailers for the upcoming Will Smith flick Hancock, which seems a suitable epigraph for this book: "I can do better. I will do better."

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 06.23.08 @ 12:30 PM EST [link]

Wednesday, June 18th

Newspaper Miscellanea

Hi All,

Well, every so often I get a call from a reporter asking for me to spew out some nonsense on this or that topic that dovetails with a story they're working on. Often my searing profundity gets edited out by some savvy editor. Other times whatever goofball things I have to say make it past the editors' red pens and gets into print. Over the past few weeks there've been a few. One on this hilarious case---well, hilarious if you weren't one of the principals---in NY where some enraged investment broker went all haywire on this dude in his spinning class (those classes at gyms where everyone rides yellow stationary bikes to 90's stalwarts like 'C'mon and Ride It' by the Quad City DJs) who kept huffing and grunting and yelling "Yeah!" and "Feel the burn!" and quite possibly "You go girl!" I mean, honestly, he had to have known a beating was imminent. I was consulted because Patrick, the journalist, had read my Esquire article and thought I could offer some interesting tidbits. Well, I gave him some tidbits, anyway:

Craig Davidson on 06.18.08 @ 08:16 PM EST [more..]

Sunday, June 8th

Dogs

Hi All,

So, my folks are getting a new dog this week, or next, I'm not entirely certain. West Highland Terrier, those little white terriers the opposite of Scotties. They've become fairly popular dogs over the years; I see them alot more in commercials and so forth. We've had 3: Sherlock, Paddington, and Keltie. We got Sherlock 20-odd years ago, so dogs, Westies, have been part of the Davidson household for a long time. They're great little dogs, mostly; they have what our first breeder euphemistically called 'Terrier Spirit,' which means they growl and can be occassionally cranky. Of course, when me and my brother were kids we'd pick poor Sherlock up and shake him around a little to incite his 'Terrier Spirit'---of course, any dog you pick up and sort of shake around is going to exhibit 'spirit,' or bite your nose, or what-have-you. Poor Sherlock. He really was a good little dog, but me and my brother were 11 or so when he came into our lives; he was sort of like the family car when you've got two 16-year-old drivers in the house---that poor car gets ridden pretty hard.

Craig Davidson on 06.08.08 @ 08:29 PM EST [more..]