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Friday, October 31st
Halloween on the Bus
Hi All,
Just came back from covering a bus route. Elementary and jr. high kids, halloween, a substitute bus driver, a half-day Friday ... something was bound to give. Ten kids on a special needs bus with 5 seats (2 per seat is cool, though). My first pickup was 7 am. A fairly tame ghost boarded. Second stop, a young boy's body with an old man's face---courtesy the latex mask.
Things started getting a little wacky once the pair of princesses boarded. One of their dresses got ripped a little on a seatbelt---this was a real mind-melting disaster for princesses, apparently. Then another princess climbed aboard; "She's hyper today," her mother said sympathetically, "Good luck." It wasn't even 7:30; the streets and sky were dark. 3 princesses, a ghost, and Dorian Grey were joined by a skeleton, another skeleton, and a boy who hadn't dressed up at all and thus earned the round derision of his schoolmates. I felt poorly for him and suggested he was dressed up as "Average Joe" but the princess coalition blasted this idea out of the water. The third princess was terribly hyper, as her mother warned; she was singing, off-key, in a totally made up language:
"Bloo-bloo-bloo, ba-ba, doo-doot-doo!!"
I asked her royal highness to pipe down a bit. The Queen was not amused. The skeleton tried on the old man's mask for a lark.
"Ah, man," he said. "It STINKS in there."
Perhaps it does stink inside an old man's face, but this seemed an unneccesary fault to bring to bear. At some point near the end of the trip I looked up in the riot mirror and it was as if I'd stepped headlong into some opium addict's gnarly high: three princesses straining against their seatbelts, belting out nonsense lyrics; a skeleton and an old man swapping faces; a ghost standing silent sentinel in the furthest seat like something out of Shakespeare; Average Joe watching these proceedings from the cheap seats, as perplexed as I was.
My, what a weird ride. And I've got to do it all again, in reverse, in a few hours. After they've been eating candy and toffeed apples and, for all I know, Ziploc bags full of pure Colombian super-fine sugar, spooned into their mouths with soup ladles. The top of the damn bus is bound to explode up into the stratosphere.
All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 10.31.08 @ 11:51 AM EST [link]
Wednesday, October 15th
Mordecai Richler / Erika Eleniak
Hi All,
So, I've been reading this Mordecai Richler collection of essays, Belling the Cat. Some great pieces on the Bronfmanns, Meyer Lansky, Woody Allen, various sporting figues, Canadian politicos, Saul Bellow. A cornucopia, you might even say---if you were a ponsy goof who couldn't just say 'smattering of word droppings.' Anyway, I realize I'm a big fan of Mordecai. All I read before was Duddy Kravitz, which is a first-class book. I mean, though, it's close---I mean to say, my being a fan of him versus my disliking him entirely.
It's boiled down to his irascibility.
You hear this word almost always in connection with 'old man,' as in: 'He's an irascible old man.' I've never heard of an old woman called irascible. Anyway, to me irascible is the midpoint between tolerant and blatantly bigoted or misognyist or so on---appelations that have been applied to Mordecai, especially the latter. It's the manner of delivery, I think, that separates an irascible old man from simply a backwards and embarrassing old man. Often their points are similar, but the irascible old man delivers them with aplomb and satire and leavening wit, whereas the embarrassing old man simply shouts them rancorously and without dignity at the supper table then passes out into his beef stew. Quite of few of Mordecai's points were somewhat troubling to me, yet he delivered them with such splendid fire and wit that I found myself saying: "Why, the irascible old devil!" whereas if those same points had been posited by a smelly aged beggar on a park bench with eggshells in his hair I would've said: "Why, you doddering, backwards old fool!"
Irascibility. It's invaluable. I hope I become an irascible old man. With or without eggshells in my hair.
So, then, today I headed to the library to return the book. Who should I spot but Erika Eleniak. Who is Erika Eleniak, you might be asking?
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000143
Well, if you're a male between 27-40, you probably aren't wondering. Erika started off as a Playboy playmate before transitioning into acting via Baywatch. She's best known, from a personal perspective, for jumping out of a phony cake topless in Steven Segal's estimable thriller UNDER SEIGE. This was a film I rented, in VHS, and I do recall there being a certain graininess and blurriness during the 10 seconds or so when she burst from the cake---as if previous renters had rewound and rewatched this particular 10 seconds more than once. Many more times. I also noticed this phenomenon in the 80's romp JUST ONE OF THE GUYS, also rented in VHS, in the scene at the end where Joyce Hyser tears open her tuxedo to reveal to Rick Morehouse that she is, in fact, NOT just one of the guys.
Suffice it to say, I'm familiar with Ms. Eleniak's ouevre. And there she was in the Shawnessy library. With her son. I'm sitting there thinking I just saw her on TV yesterday, on one of those "Where are they now"-type shows---"Dream Girls," I think it was called, also featuring Kelly LeBrock of 'Weird Science' fame and Bo Derek of 'that shot where she runs along the beach in those rastafarian braid thingies'---and the show did in fact mention she lives in Calgary. I didn't know what to say. I was on my way out. She was on her way in.
There were many things I could've said here. Such as:
ME: So, how was it jumping naked out of that cake in UNDER SEIGE?
or
ME: So, were you aboard a REAL battleship when you jumped naked out of that cake in UNDER SEIGE? I mean, for verisimilitude? I ask as I'm a Navy buff.
or
ME: Of all the scenes I've watched where girls jump naked out of cakes on battleships, yours was absolutely top-5. Ah, who am I kidding? It was number one with a bullet!
or
ME: Indulge me for a second, Ms. Eleniak---if you and Joyce Hyser, y'know, from that film JUST ONE OF THE GUYS? If you and Joyce Hyser were to jump naked out of a cake simultaneously ... I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just spitballing.
Anyway, I said none of this. In fact I said nothing at all. It was Erika Eleniak. With her son. Erika, who I'd seen leap naked out of a cake. In the library. How odd. I was too stunned. If this happened several years into the future, by which point I hope to be an irascible old man, I would certainly have said something irascible---perhaps a bawdy euphemism about UNDER SEIGE, cakes, 'gunboats' and so forth. And when the cops arrive to arrest me for sexual harassment, I could say:
ME: Wait a second, you can't arrest me! I'm an irascible old man; I'm allowed to say indecent things and get away with them!
COP: You're not nearly witty enough to be irascible. You're just dirty. Come along, pops.
All best,
Craig.
Craig Davidson on 10.15.08 @ 08:53 PM EST [link]
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