Going to see these guys live tonight! So good to have them all home! Looking forward to seeing some great comedy with some lovely friends/family (including my fave Girl Drink Drunk). Happy Saturday, indeed.
Last evening I turned on the free preview of Comedy Gold (aka the Wings Channel- it seriously showed nothing but Wings for three straight days over the holiday weekend. What programmer anywhere thought THAT was a good idea?) just in time to catch a Viewer Discretion advisory. The tv guide said that an episode of Kids in the Hall was up next.
I love Kids in the Hall.
As the warning was being recited (those Kids- gotta watch out for the ‘Adult Content’, tsk tsk tsk), ‘I’ve lost my Indian drum’ popped into my head. So, of course, this was the first sketch:
Man, how I love the Kids. And, for some reason that sketch- from their first season- tickles my funny bone in a…
There I was, thinking I was back on track to get back to my semi-regular postings on Life, the Universe, you know- Everything, really. When a few things happened…
a) I got caught up in an Ideas (that CBC again) presentation about Nietzsche. Yes, Nietzsche. Suddenly I’m back in the bookstore (yes, I still go to bookstores- fewer and further between though they may be) in order to re-visit his views on this world of ours (between him and Spinoza, I’ve spent a fair bit of time with philosopher-types of late).
b) I woke up in the middle of the night (my 4 amawakenings have recurred- vengefully, it seems) with a fantastic idea (if I do say so myself) for a project regarding our perverse and self-destructive insistence upon living our lives according to apocalyptic thinking. An idea that jibed exactly with the Nietzsche and some of the books about positive corporate culture that I’ve been reading as part of my day job.
c) While cruising the interworld (as I am sometimes wont to do) I became aware of a heinously misinformed group of women who think that #womenagainstfeminism is a real thing and a good thing- let alone an ideology that makes anything like rational sense.
This was enough of a distraction- based in something like despair- that I felt the need to track it to its putative source(s) and read- and listen to (sitting in for Jian, Stephen Quinn spoke with Roxanne Gay- author of Bad Feminist- on Q today, and The Current had a discussion about ‘the movement’ on August 4)- a whole bunch of stuff about the ‘arguments’ against feminism that are appearing as poster-boarded memes. Memes that are dedicated to, and exemplars of, the sorts of things I discussed in my last couple of posts. Credulity, and hownot knowing historyleads one down the slippery slope of having it repeat itself. For example.
d) My company’s Chief Morale Officer paid us a visit, and brought back to my mind something he said at a recent team culture meeting. It was about how having knowledge makes no difference if that knowledge isn’t shared. Zero. Zippo. Nada.
It reminded me that I know stuff- and that I should be sharing the stuff I know.
And then.
e) Mork left us all behind to return to Ork.
So much has been said- so wonderfully and with such sincerity of loss (I won’t even address the ignorant, negative comments and despicable behaviours that are out there in the ether. Such things need no further dissemination or acknowledgement)- that I’m not sure I can add anything about his courage and kindness and gifts. And about how his celebrity and the genuine shock so many of us are feeling has opened (re-opened?) lines of dialogue about the insidious reality that is depression- and the stigma that remains attached to mental illness.
While he brought us so very many enduring characters, I will never forget first meeting, while sitting in my parents’ bedroom, that red-clad charmer from another world. As he spoke with Richie Cunningham and then battled the Fonz (Fonzarelli thumb against Orkan finger), I felt like I’d found a new friend.
Mork, with his innocent view of our world and his weekly explanations to his superior back home as he tried to make sense of it all, was profoundly resonant- and personally identifiable.
On our yearly family holidays- which always involved extremely long car trips- as a way to entertain my wee sisters (and- as a side-effect- annoy the hell out of our parents- although that was an understanding I came to much later) I created a character of my own.
This character was an alien- with, for some reason, a British accent- named YumYum. As we passed things of note- landmarks, cities, mountains, or listened to music (when it was our turn to control the tape deck), YumYum asked the sisters (named ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’- my childhood imagination had significant gaps of inspiration, at times) to explain things as we drove along. In hotels, at the end of each long day, they taught YumYum to swim, talked about things that were on the tv and read each other books as a way of demonstrating the world to their own, personal, visitor from outer space.
To say that YumYum was modeled on Mork is to state the veryvery obvious. Both aliens taught as they, themselves, learned.
Robin’s subsequent roles built upon the innocence and wonder and joy with which his first great fictional incarnation viewed the world. He became a teacher (Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting)- and his lessons spoke volumes to the teacher in me.
He played the archetypal little boy who never grew up- except that he somehow did grow up and forgot the lessons of his eternal childhood (until that scene when his Lost Boy straightens out the wrinkles and the extra facial padding and says, heartrendingly, ‘There you are, Peter’).
In that way that all things can seem to be connected…
Last week, during our team meeting, our manager played us that little ditty up there ^^^
She and another colleague are both learning to play the ukulele, and Izzy’s mash-up of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World was illustrative of this new undertaking- of branching outside of comfort zones and taking risks for the sake of trying something new. Izzy’s story- his talent, his pride in his home State, his status as a hero of Hawaiian rights, ideals and culture- make his loss (too young) all the more poignant.
The discussion led me to comment that, on that very same day while walking to work, the Shuffle Daemon played me this tune:
Taken from Don’t Worry About Me, Joey’s only solo album- released posthumously, it demonstrated his enduring spirit in the face of his fight with lymphoma. The world knew he was fighting- he battled his disease for seven years- but his death still came as a surprise. To me, anyway.
I can remember exactly where I was when I heard he was gone (in a seminar class- Coptic language- my thesis adviser asked what I was listening to as I took my seat and removed my earlier-incarnation of the Shuffle Daemon. I happened to be listening to Rock ‘n’ Roll High School– and he told me that he’d just heard on the radio that Joey was gone…). When I watch that movie (at least once a year) or listen to any of his music, I still find it hard to take on board that he isn’t with us anymore.
There’s another version of that song too. The first version. The one from 1967 performed by the great Louis Armstrong. The one that was used in a movie called Good Morning, Vietnam.
My thoughts are all over the place, lately. Clarity is tricky to come by, and focus is lacking. Sorely. I’m, admittedly, scattered and, truth be told, more than a little shattered.
So. I’m setting aside all that development of big ideas and sharable knowledge and the kvetching about the things that need changing.
Tonight I’m just going to hold onto the conceit that our friend and teacher, Mork- and the man who brought him to life- has been recalled by Orson, once and for all.
Apologies in advance as this post is likely to be somewhat all over the place. I’m a little medicated- I think I’m fighting a sinus infection. This polar vortex/never-ending winter nonsense is kicking my ass.
Since I’ve already discussed the deeply-held conviction I have- the one which states that we are increasingly (and willingly) falling victim to organized and concerted attempts to keep us insulated from/ignorant of the important shit going down in the world- I won’t reiterate my discouragement yet again. It’s clearly posted any number of times for those who choose to have a look.
But. The Oscars.
I do appreciate finely crafted films- and the artistry that is involved with the entirety of the process. The writing of the story, the vision behind the scenery and cinematography. The costumes, the make-up. And, of course, the performances that serve to bring the stories alive.
I like movies. I do.
And they don’t have to be super-serious, story-heavy films to get my seal of approval.
I’m still reeling from the loss of Dr. Egon Spengler, earlier this week. While I know that the great Harold Ramis left us a wonderful collection of time-tested comedic brilliance, Ghostbusters remains up near the top of my all-time favourites list. I can quote that movie pretty much word-for-word. I’ve used it in classes. Every time I visit NYC and come across one of the landmark buildings from the film I am ridiculously happy.
Egon’s serious, scientific mien was the perfect foil for Ray’s innocence and Peter’s smarmy used-car salesman schtick. Which is why his one-liners had so much impact.
I appreciate film-making as both an art form and as pure entertainment, and there is no doubt at all that each year some very important films are rightfully nominated for these awards as a representation and validation of their place in our cultural canon.
12 Years a Slave is my choice for must see viewing this particular year (and I say this despite the fact that Brad Pitt is in it- generally speaking you can’t pay me to see anything with that guy). Solomon Northrup’s 1853 memoir remains one of the most affecting reads I’ve ever experienced. It should be required reading- and now viewing- in schools everywhere.
I have to admit that none of the rest of the films piqued my interest enough to see them when they were in theatres, but I will check out Dallas Buyers Club, Philomena, and Captain Phillips, eventually.
Still, I just can’t bring myself to care about the pageantry that is the Academy Awards.
In addition to the ever-ostentatious red carpet and the tired jokes and digs at fellow celebrities (not that I don’t think Ellen will be a great host), the pomp and self-aggrandizing glad-handing and masturbatory back-patting kind of ruffles my feathers.
It’s a matter of priorities. And I don’t think that we are able- or willing- to adequately prioritize our time, at all, anymore.
Especially not this year when the ‘local’ twist is that Mayor McCheesewill be attending. Jimmy Kimmel is involved, somehow. I’m not sure if he invited RoFo to be his guest or what. I don’t really care. I’m sick to death of anything that serves to validate this guy in any way. Or that gives him any sort of platform to further his self-serving re-election campaign.
If the fact of his presence at an event that is broadcast to the world isn’t a clear demonstration that the drawn-out awards season has become completely irrelevant as anything except personal glory-seeking and attention-whoring…
Sigh.
Especially during a week that saw the situation in Ukraine escalate, and the Russians making moves that might result in war, and American assertions that Putin’s actions might end with his nation’s removal from the G8.
These are world changing events. We’re in a whole mighty-big-Twinkie load of trouble.
Yet many of us will be spending five or more hours witnessing and then talking about the outrageous fashions/jewellery/hairstyles of the Hollywood A-listers. And the irresponsible and clueless elected leader of this city- as he attends the elite event (belying his claims to be against all things ‘elite’- here at home, anyway) seemingly oblivious to the fact that those who invited him are laughing at him, rather than with him.
So he will continue his posturing and campaigning. Endearing himself to those who attracted to the bright and shiny things that lay outside their reach while yet applauding his ‘man-of-the-people-ness.’ Those same people who will never see the mutual-exclusivity of those two extremes and who will vote for him again come October.
We need to stop giving this guy a stage and an audience. But, like awards season as a whole, it’s truly ‘the same old song and dance’.
‘Get yourself cooler, lay yourself low coincidental murder, with nothing to show with the judge, constipation will go to his head and his wife’s aggravation, you’re soon enough dead
it’s the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend it’s the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend
gotcha with the cocaine they found with your gun no smoothy face laywer to getcha undone say love ain’t the same on the south side of town you could look, but you ain’t gonna find it around
it’s the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend it’s the same old story, same old story same old song and dance
fate comes a-knockin’, doors start lockin’ your old time connection, change your direction ain’t gonna change it, can’t rearrange it can’t stand the pain when it’s all the same to you, my friend
when you’re low down and dirty, from walkin’ the street with your old hurdy-gurdy, no one to meet say love ain’t the same, on the south side of town’
Steven Tyler and Joe Perry could have been writing about RoFo.
‘I’m worried, Ray. It’s getting crowded in there and all my data points to something big on the horizon.’
And we’re down a Ghostbuster to help get us through.
Go gently, Mr. Ramis. Thank you for the laughter.
PS. On a FAR more optimistic note, a couple of wonderful bloggers have seen fit to nominate me for a couple more awards. Kim, at Let me Reach with Kim Saeed, offers valuable insights and information for those dealing with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Madeline, at Madeline Scribes, is a source for diverse discussions based in her experience as a professional social researcher. They offer valuable perspectives on many of the things that I am wont to discuss hereabouts and are truly Voices of Inspiration. Please do go and visit with them- I have no doubt you’ll learn something.
Thank you both sincerely for the nominations! I very much appreciate the recognition.
Here in Canada we have a wonderful, and distinctively Canadian, thing called the CBC. Sure, other countries have public radio/television, and they certainly do tell the stories of their nations in myriad ways, but our CBC radio programming holds a very special place in my heart and mind. (The television programming is also good, but I admit I spend more time with the radio shows than the tv, generally speaking).
Our current federal government is attempting to dismantle this national treasure a little bit at a time. But the producers and presenters of our unique (though often very different, regionally speaking) way(s) of looking at our country and the world continue charging forward- and looking back- telling our stories and creating little pieces of wonder as they keep on keeping on.
One of these incredible people is Stuart McLean. His Vinyl Café stories have been a fixture on CBC radio for close on 20 years. His variety show highlights Canadian singer-songwriters- artists whose work might otherwise not get a whole lot of airtime- and intermingles music, humour and an almost nostalgic sense of Canada and its people- in all our often-messy glory.
Stuart is a rarity these days. He’s a born storyteller- his distinctive voice and presence make you feel like you’re sharing a drink with a close friend. Who just happens to have a never ending supply of amazing tales to recount. Tales about characters that have grown in familiarity to the extent that they become like members of the family. Relatives that you are pleased you only have to visit a few times a year, perhaps, but continuing sources of hilarity and well-learned life-lessons.
At the heart of the show is Stuart’s primary literary comic foil- Dave, the owner of an independent record store in Toronto, and the trouble he seems endlessly able to attract. In abundance.
Dave and his family- his long-suffering wife, Morley, children Sam and Stephanie- along with an incredible cast of neighbours and friends, find themselves in some pretty far out situations. But no matter the extremity of the circumstance, those of us familiar with Dave and his antics easily, and willingly, suspend our disbelief in our awareness that ‘it’s just Dave. Of course such things can happen to him.’
Every year the great folks behind the Vinyl Café take their Christmas show on the road and make a stop here at home. A visit with Stuart and his compatriots has become an annual holiday event for me and some of my peeps. Friday night they rolled into the Sony Centre and, as usual, had us rolling in the aisles. My face still hurts from all the laughing.
Audience participation is encouraged, and the way that Stuart feeds off the energy of his audience helps guide the shape of his shows. He allowed as how they were genuinely happy to be home after 24 days of taking the show across the country (and down into a few select towns in the States)- a sentiment he reinforced when a part of his first story- the part about kindergarden children tumbling off of the stage during the school holiday pageant- brought down the house- anticipatorily. Apparently that part of the tale was met with shocked silence in more PC towns like Vancouver.
Toronto has a slightly more irreverent sense of humour, it would seem (we must. Look at our mayor. HE made it into the show, too. Not in a flattering light- go figure). We love the old favourites, but one of the best things about attending the Christmas shows live and in person is hearing the new stories, freshly minted, and Stuart gave us two on Friday.
But we also revisited ‘Morley’s Christmas Concert’ and the discombobulated, but completely intact, tumbling children who were left in the dark when Dave’s sound system took out the school’s power grid. And after Intermission, Stuart had a sit down with us, and together we remembered the highlights from all our favourite holiday stories. ‘Dave Cooks the Turkey’, of course. And ‘Dave on the Roof’– about the perils of the Canadian winter and the ways in which our slightly defiantly perverse instincts can get the best of us. Despite the fact we know better (DO NOT stick your tongue on anything metal- especially while up on the roof repairing the tv antenna. Really. Just don’t.)
The musical guests this year were a wonderful trio of ladies called The Good Lovelies, whose harmonies and hauntingly beautiful rendition of Sara Bareilles’ Winter Song very much reflected the quiet and the melancholy of the snow that had covered the city that day. Yet we were warm, inside, and with friends, so the plaintiveness of the song could be felt at a remove rather than with its full, sad immediacy.
A night with Vinyl Café is always enjoyable on many levels, but one of the things that makes me most appreciate our annual visits is the fact that so many children are present to participate. In this day and age. With all the visual and technological interfaces available to them, the fact that there are children who can still appreciate the wonder and the value of a storyteller, coming to them over the radio (or via a podcast), without anything flashing or shaping their images of the characters or the settings other than Stuart’s description alone.
Every year I applaud those parents who have raised children that can be engaged by the sound of his voice, recounting the most recent adventures of a bunch of crazy Canadians (or flashing back to earlier stories), as they use their own imaginations to fill in the blanks- and people the stories with their own variations and appearances.
Storytelling of this sort is both communal and very personal. I know what Dave and his family look like to me. They’ve changed- grown older- as I’ve gotten to know them over the years of listening to their life- often in kitchens, as dinner preparations where underway. Would I recognize them, if I passed them on the street? About that, I’m not sure. But I’d know them by their actions- both the silly antics and the wonderful, well-meaning heart that lies at the centre of all their interactions with their friends, family and neighbours.
They have taught me lessons. They have made me laugh. And tear up from time to time, too. Stuart has made them fully realized.
He ended our evening by returning to the stage with his long-time touring musical director, John Sheard. Together they sang a song. that John wrote, about the holidays- and what they would really like for Christmas. This wonderful, wonderful tune contained references to Harper’s prorogation of Parliament, the Senate debacle, Rob Ford, Don Cherry, the federal government’s actions re. the CBC… Straight minutes of nothing other but laughter. Canadian laugher. FOR us, BY us. We were still laughing as we headed out into the cold of Front Street.
I have a whole bunch of podcasts of the show to catch up with. Somehow there aren’t enough hours in the day to do/read/watch/listen to everything that needs to be done/watched/read/listened to- especially at this time of year. But the next hour I have free (or make the time to have free), I will decide to just sit, and listen, and fully experience Stuart’s incredible gift with story- its creation and its delivery. The holidays ARE supposed to be about time spent with friends, after all.
Please allow me to introduce you to my friend, Stuart McLean. I trust you will get along famously.
Last evening I turned on the free preview of Comedy Gold (aka the Wings Channel- it seriously showed nothing but Wings for three straight days over the holiday weekend. What programmer anywhere thought THAT was a good idea?) just in time to catch a Viewer Discretion advisory. The tv guide said that an episode of Kids in the Hall was up next.
I love Kids in the Hall.
As the warning was being recited (those Kids- gotta watch out for the ‘Adult Content’, tsk tsk tsk), ‘I’ve lost my Indian drum’ popped into my head. So, of course, this was the first sketch:
Man, how I love the Kids. And, for some reason that sketch- from their first season- tickles my funny bone in a bigbig way.
It isn’t the only one. Not by a long shot. The Kids provide a trip down the Old Lane called Memory that is at once the same and completely different than the music and music television that I wrote about the other day.
They are uniquely Canadian and representative of our uniquely Canadian sense of humour- and the freedom that was permitted on our airways waaaaaay back in the late 80s-early 90s, at least on the CBC.
When the Americans imported our Kids, they censored edited a whole bunch of stuff that obviously didn’t play as well down there. Especially this one:
I love that sketch. CBS did NOT.
The Kids didn’t pull punches in the name of political correctness or religious sensitivity and never shied away from telling it like it is. Scott Thompson has always been openly gay, and his characters played with stereotypes in a comfortable way that was pretty far ahead of its time.
They were sublime AND ridiculous.
Some sketches were more memorable than others, but I know a whole crowd of people who can quote sketches the way aficionados of other great comedy troupes like Monty Python can cite their greatest hits.
I personally know at least one ‘Girl Drink Drunk’ (no names mentioned to protect his professional reputation), and years ago, on one memorable Hallowe’en, another friend dressed up like a box of Tampax with “I’m a guy with a good attitude toward menstruation” written across the front (picture not included to protect his professional reputation and because someone seems to have stolen it from the photo album….).
Since they didn’t rely on political themes, current events or topical discourse for their comedy, the sketches truly transcend time and generations.
A couple of years ago, while waiting for a friend outside Betty’s on King Street, I overheard a conversation between a couple of early-20-somethings who were out for a smoke. They had obviously just discovered the Kids, and listening to them run through favourite characters and sketches was like flashing back two decades.
We called it ‘the fastest half hour on television’ and waited for Thursday nights to come around. It was a time in which we all stopped, had a meal and spent some time together (usually followed by my having to witness Blue Angel competitions. Boys are weird).
The Kids helped nurture a bond and brought a sense of home in a foreign town (the sketches were unabashedly ‘Toronto’- and the locations provoke a nostalgia all their own- the Canary on Cherry Street, long gone to make way for ‘development’ was a part of my personal landscape for as long as I can remember, and was often where Mark McKinney and Bruce McCulloch, as the OPP officers on ‘Police Department’, spent their coffee breaks).
That picture at the top of the post ^^^ immediately gets the theme song, ‘Having an Average Weekend’ by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, running through my brain. Individual lines and catch-phrases can bring back the entirety of the sketch and prompt a smile in an instant.
“Mind if I swoop?”
“Evil!” (as exclaimed by Sir Simon Milligan)
“Neutral Ninnies!” (“He’s sick of the Swiss!”)
It’s always good to end a working week with a laugh.
“30 Helens Agree” that some time spent with the Kids in the Hall is always a great way to start the weekend.
... au gré des trouvailles, au fil de l'inspiration. Ma devise : rester humble, devant l'infiniment petit, tout comme face au très grand... angle :) Merci à toi visiteur furtif ou ami de longue date...
colemining 