Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The worst Polish joke ever!





Backstory? OK. Lots of us (of a certain age) remember the kind of late-night TV that gave rise to satires like Monster Chiller Horror Theatre on SCTV.  But in the '60s, it wasn't satire: there really were late-night shows like that, with hosts much funnier than the lame movies they hosted.

Living in Chatham, which is near Windsor, which is near Detroit, which is sort-of-near Cleveland, we could at least get scratchy versions of Cleveland radio (WKYC, eleven-double-oh!), and eventually, these guys. Hoolihan and Big Chuck had rattled around in the broadcasting biz for years, doing this n' that, the weather, filling in for sick people. By accident they started doing comedy bits together, and somehow the chemistry was right for some very lame, very funny late night TV. So they kept at it for years and years. Big Chuck went on even longer after Hoolihan left, taking up with a dwarf, but that is most definitely another story.


Every so often I'd be allowed to sleep on the pull-out bed in the den and stay up as late as I wanted, and when that happened, I always watched these guys.
It was plain that they stole shamelessly from Ernie Kovacs (and don't get me started on Kovacs, because I periodically begin to write about him and can't stop: at one point I really, really, really wanted to write a novel about him but couldn't because he doesn't seem to be around any more to be "tapped": did too many people steal from him, I wonder?). Their collapsing cardboard sets and the props that fell to pieces in their hands weren't much better than the paper-and-black-marker that Kovacs was allowed in his meagre budget. Hoolihan and Big Chuck weren't geniuses like Kovacs, but they had a blast doing this show and communicated their laugh-your-ass-off style to a very loyal audience. They were wacky and insane and satirized the Polish culture in and around Cleveland (such as Parma: I remember a long-running soap opera called Parma Place) in a way you'd never get away with now.


I stumbled on this one - don't know if I actually saw it or not, maybe not coz this skit came on a few years after we moved away and I couldn't get Cleveland TV any more. (Or anything else.) But it's one of their best, or, at least, it's pretty good, or, um, OK or something, pretty cheesy actually, but funny as hell.


http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

You might as well squeeze the cow



I'm not a million years old, but in many ways I might as well be.

I live in an era of tablets, social networks and i-this-and-i-that, and I have (very) imperfectly adapted. But I grew up in something else.




This was the kind of thing I heard, and saw, when I was a child. This is how we got our milk every day. Yes, this way.

Cloppa, cloppa, cloppa down the street every morning, very early. Snorting and whinnying. It was a little girl's paradise. Every morning I'd rush out the front door with a carrot.



Oh that smell, that I love to this day, the smell of horses!

I used to try to tell my children about this, and they rolled their eyes and said I was lying. Surely horse-drawn wagons ended some time in the 1890s.




But they didn't. They delivered milk, not to mention fruits and vegetables, well into the 1960s.

 This is a wagon from Bracebridge Dairy. All these wagons have a three-digit phone number on them, incomprehensible. I remember the name Bracebridge - somewhere in Northern Ontario, I think (a name I haven't heard in so long, like the old street names in Chatham, that it gives me an odd sort of thrill). We had Silverwood Dairies, mostly in southern Ontario but also, I believe, in parts of Alberta out west.



I just thought of something! My first real job was in the purchasing department of Silverwood Dairies in London, Ontario. My job had nothing to do with the milk, but I do remember filling out endless requisition forms for various ingredients. I was also on the taste panel for new products, one of which was artificial ham.




Supposedly, this is the very last Silverwood's wagon in existence. A picture both beautiful and sad. Accounts vary as to exactly when they were phased out: some say 1960, others 1964. If it was '64, I'd have very clear memories of it. But it seems incredible we got our milk this way right into the Space Age.

Bottles were still clinking together then, but no longer had the cream-top bulge that you skimmed with a little dipper. Later when I lived in Alberta, our post-war bungalow had a little cabinet at the back, the place where the milkman left the bottles and picked up the note for next day's order. Without the cabinet, the milk would freeze in the 40-below weather and the bottles burst open.




This is one of my favorites. By the look of the cars, it seems to have been taken in the early 1950s. The horse, looking intimidated, is completely surrounded by traffic.  I wonder how everyone managed. Did the horses have the right of way? What about the road apples?

Did any of them ever spook and take off at a gallop? Horses will be horses, after all.

More to the point, I wonder why everyone seems to have forgotten all about this. Like the elusive, mysterious Skeezix bird, it belongs to a past that now seems more like a mirage.




People collect dairy memorabilia now the way they collect old weather vanes or butter churns. I suppose back then, men with cold hands milked those cows every morning. It would be bottled by some primitive method, sealed with a cardboard cap. This was before the days of "homo milk", milk that had magically been homogenized so that you could no longer skim the rich yellowy cream off the top.





Just a model now, but I remember when it creaked and clopped and smelled like horses.

I wonder if there's still such a thing as "homo milk".


http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

Monday, April 9, 2012

Oh my hormones.



Separated at birth, Part 576. . .



Contenders: the new Mad Man at Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce, one very cute but pushy Bronxy Jewish guy named Michael Ginsberg, played by an unknown (to me) named Ben Feldman.

Ferris Bueller! Matthew Broderick when he was still young and dishy.

I'm going to mix these up. You decide.






Brothers? Cousins maybe? Who knows.

















OK, then, at least a stand-in. . .







They're both pretty dreamy. . .





. . . but only this guy is still young.




Bueller?. . . Bueller?. . . Bueller?. . .Bueller?. . .

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Walk Like a Man (with very tight shorts)





Oh my oh my, the things you find on YouTube while looking for something else! After watching a searing episode of Mad Men tonight (it took the first 2 episodes for the current season to really get off the ground, but my scalp was on fire throughout this one), I heard the end theme, was shocked all to hell and had to see if it was a real song. It was called He Hit Me (And it Felt Like a Kiss), sung by a group called The Crystals (Da-Doo-Ron-Ron and a few others). The song seemed to echo all the convoluted sadomasochistic dynamics of this sphynx of a show. I was astonished to find out that Carole King wrote the words and that the song was essentially censored for decades and got no air play.

But then one thing led to another, and then this bit of '60s orgiastic glee fell into my lap. It's from an afterschool teenybopper program of the early '60s called Where the Action Is. I remember it. "It's so neat to meet your baby where the action is." The camera pans across the crowd (and who's the guy with 2 broken legs? I don't know), and we see glimpses of Mark Lindsay - wasn't he Paul Revere or something? - and the Supremes, complete with hair bands, kind-a-like I useda wear. 

The dancing deserves its own post, but I'll sum it up by saying that it resembles a vast parade of Scandinavian sweaters, with a lot of blonde hair flying around. Someone (Alexander Pope?) once described dancing as the vertical expression of a horizontal wish. This especially applies to The Jerk, which is what they appear to be doing. Or else they have forgotten their medication. Picture them on the floor in pairs; need I elaborate?
But then comes the main act, which for some reason takes part high on a balcony as if the group is infected with something catching. The Four Seasons kicked ass and were even sexy in a real low-class, skunky kind of way, a knife in your shoe way. Frankie Valli is a god. I forgot what a fox he was, even with his greaser attitude. Who else can sing "walk like a man" in descant soprano and get it across? Most of their hits came out when I was prepubescent and really had no idea what any of it meant. That Cole Porter song "I've Got You Under my Skin" was especially nonsensical to me. Under my. . .?

I had no idea then of the itchy hot screamy jump-off-a-building sensations that were soon to surge through my endocrine system, changing me forever (and I confess that it is not over and that they still surge today). I know now that sex is essentially an itch you cannot scratch. It's like saying, I'll eat this meal here and be done with it, be "full". A musician friend of mine once said that all music is about sex, the essential drive, whatever that is. The pollen-ruptured flower pistil exploding in slow motion, the follicle-stimulating hormones spurting and spraying like something out of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. Music tries, it really does, and sometimes it almost gets it. But what is "it"?


http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

Bunnies from hell


It's Easter. A time of fun. Of frolic. Of hollow chocolate chickens and marshmallow thingies covered with yellow dye.

But something is wrong here. Very wrong. Someone, somewhere must have a horrifying concept of what the Easter Bunny really looks like.  These photos are documented proof.



Little children understand. This isn't really the Easter Bunny. It's a predatory beast who shows no mercy to sweet little girls who only want a few jelly beans to take home with them.

(This experience was permanently stored in the traumatic memory bank.)



The grafted-on head of molded plastic is a nice touch, but where did it come from? And what's that thing in his hand? It's either an explosive device or a 40-pounder of vodka.



I wouldn't bring this thing out at Halloween. I'd burn it. The little girl seems to have given up hope.



NOW IT CAN BE REVEALED: Peter Cottontail's allegiance to the KKK!



Bringing Easter joy to every girl and boy.


Saturday, April 7, 2012

Walk on water




You shall cross the barren desert,
but you shall not die of thirst.
You shall wander far in safety,
though you do not know the way.









You shall speak your words to foreign men,
and they will understand,
You shall see the face of God and live.





Be not afraid,
I go before you always,
Come follow me,
and I will give you rest.






If you pass through raging waters
in the sea, you shall not drown.
If you walk amidst the burning flames,
you shall not be harmed.








If you stand before the pow'r of hell
and death is at your side,
know that I am with you, through it all





Be not afraid,
I go before you always,
Come follow me,
and I will give you rest.




And blessed are your poor,
for the Kingdom shall be theirs.
Blest are you that weep and mourn,
for one day you shall laugh.



And if wicked men insult and hate you, all because of me,
blessed, blessed are you!




Be not afraid,
I go before you always,
Come follow me,
and I will give you rest.



http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Gethsemane (music for Good Friday)




http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

Gethsemane (meditations on Good Friday and the true meaning of Easter)





so I was always being told I was getting too much into it. or not being told at all it was just the way all the nice church ladies with their date squares were waiting for that pesky easter Friday service to be over so they could move in with their coffee urns. while this strange sort of bird is sitting at the back of the church like one of the poor churchmice of old, weeping not so quietly as symbols are being brought to the front of the church


what they are, are symbols of a man slowly dying in agony hanging from a tree, his flesh bared and bleeding, spat on and reviled and – His mother kneels in the dust. Dear jesusgod, how can people put God to death, but here it is and even his most dearest companions, his most trusted allies cannot be counted upon to

















(this strange lady who sits at the back of the church. She has provided some music for the end of the service and the minister now regrets the fact that she has entrusted her with this small task for it is a tape of the end of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, the horror of the two lovers discovering one another dead DEAD DEAD)


There is something very strange about this woman because she doesn’t seem to be here for the date squares. It makes everyone very uncomfortable. She has been told for years to attend Bible study and she has done so. She has been told for years to learn all about the gospels and she has done so. She has been taught all the hymns. Why is she crying? Why does she feel she is dead and not quite reborn?




Why does she know she is alone?

It is embarrassing and soon the embarrassment and shame will roll over her like a stone and crush her. Will none of you keep watch with me? pray with me? Simon Peter, not even you? On this rock I will build my church. Some rock, he denies me three times and then the rooster crows just like in the legend.




It makes good story. Like good TV, the Bible is good story. But she only realizes that now. Now that the stone has crushed all the religion out of her. It was too much UCW and gabby socials and funerals where everyone smiled and clapped their hands and celebrated the person’s life even if he just dropped dead at 50 and SHE was in the washroom sobbing her guts out



alone.



But then, she has always been the weird one.




Judas, will you pray with me? That one, over there. Yes. It is as you suspected, it’s this one, this one here making all the trouble. Talking crazy, redeeming. People say he walks on water. Psssccccchawwwww!






Water into wine, tears into saltmines, the brain into a tornado of grief borne alone, alone after years of service and trying hard to belong. A pathetic endeavour. True Christians sacrifice, don’t they? Then why don’t I know any? Why do the best Christians never bear the name of Christ? Has the name become so tainted? Why are we all so artificial? Should I be Catholic and bear stigmata and ask for the demons to be driven out?

(No. Instead she is the recipient of pitied murmurings overheard in the ladies’ washroom which is somehow always full of dirty diapers. Well you know dear. She isn’t right. Poor thing can’t help it, mental illness blah blah blah. Ohhhh, is that why she’s always crying? What is wrong with her?)


Then the one who radiates the most pity approaches her, grabs her hand and squeezes it and won't let go. She has been nominated to do the job by the Committee of Deep Concern. "I just wanted to tell you, dear, that we're all praying for you." "Oh. OK."  She looks straight into the woman's crinkled, evasive eyes. "I'm praying for you too, then." The woman shifts in her shoes a little. "I'm sorry, dear, I'm afraid you misunderstood me."




They allow her to stay, which is big of them. Most generous of them, Christian, to take her in, refugee. but it is damned uncomfortable and just inappropriate, what she always does on Good Friday. When she feels the lash, when welts rise on her back. when she dies and gasps to be reborn and can only be reborn through her children and their children When the core is dead, the core of herself dead and they all witnessed that death and did nothing about it because it wasn’t supposed to be happening because you are not supposed to




Prokofiev plays on in her head. The final notes. Mary wails by the cross. What was her real name? Was there a Mary? jesus may just have been a collection of myths. a book came out a few years ago called the pagan christ which basically said jesus never existed, and her church couldn’t wait to set up a book study to analyze it for its basic truth. It was the book to read, everyone was reading it, it was



Well, yes, I can see where



I think he makes a lot of sense when



JESUS! PEOPLE! This is your REDEEMER! Your personal Saviour, the Being upon which your entire life should be based! Why are you so deaf? Why are you whispering in the washroom? Why did that lady get up at the front at prayer time and say “poor thing she’s in the hospital but on medication now so we know why she”. When she never gave her permission to say anything.




Shallow people, old biddies, well-meaning but perhaps not well-meaning, full of nasty viper words. To be abandoned is not so nice: will none of you pray with me, Peter,  John, James? Take this poison cup away from me, abba, blessed beloved father. But not my will be done.




Were you there when they crucified. . . ? Sometimes it causes me to tremble tremble tremble. Sob and sob while sitting crouched on a pew in the back row.  Is there anything the matter, dear? Are you all right? Can I get you something? A date square, perhaps. Sackcloth and ashes. A stone that rolls away. Take this stone off my back, take it out of my brain, this stone that was supposed to redeem me. Will no one wait with me, keep vigil with me?  Peter, John, James.



 


Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
    It took me years to write, will you take a look