Only in America

One of the stories I read today. There are so many things wrong with the parent in this story that I can't begin to count. I suspect it will be the basis for the next Cohen brothers film. And the background is perfect; Middle America and Walmart. That said, it sure beats the political bullshit that's dominating our papers. I wish someone would do this to Stephen Harper:


Elkhart boy trapped inside toy machine for an hour

ELKHART, Ind. (AP) - A 3-year-old boy upset that his mother wouldn't let him use a crane vending machine to try to win a small stuffed animal took matters in his own hands. He climbed inside up the chute to get the prize himself.

Danielle Manges said she took her eyes off her son, James, for a moment to pick up a juice bottle he threw. When she looked up, he was in with the plush toys.

"I bent over to clean it and within two seconds he had climbed through the hole, into the chute and pushed the door shut so we couldn't get him out," she said. "He climbed up in the toys and was in there for a good hour."

Manges said James has been sick and sleeping odd hours so they went shopping about 3 a.m. Thursday at a Wal-Mart in the city some 15 miles east of South Bend. She let the boy play on some of the rides, but wouldn't give him money for the vending machine.

At first, Manges thought it was funny.

"He was playing with all the toys and hanging from the bar like a monkey," she said.

Manges said people leaving the store went back inside to buy disposable cameras to take photos of her son. She bought one herself.

She became upset, however, when Wal-Mart employees said they did not have a key to let James out. So Manges called the fire department for help.

"I expected his hand to be caught in the machine but it was his entire body in the machine," firefighter Anthony Coleman said. "He was swinging from a bar, jumping around. He was having a ball."

About 40 people watched as the firefighters removed the back of the machine and freed him.
James still came up empty handed.

"He definitely didn't get a toy after that," Manges said.


I'd love to make a dumb American joke here, but I can't. Because yesterday as I drove home from running some errands, I saw kids fighting in the street with FIREWORKS!!! As if it wasn't bad enough that they were shooting each other, they shot the car in front of me. And to top that off, I saw another fireworks fight two blocks later...AT A GAS STATION!!! It was like driving through three solid blocks of the Trailer Park Boys. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming those lovable rascals. I'm a fan myself. But somebody needs to teach these kids the difference between the things we see on tv and the these we can do without blowing up a whole city block in reality. I did some dumb things as a kid - I think we all did. But this is too much. I'm going to be a better parent than these kids have. It's my resolution. 'Kids, don't eat yellow snow (or brown for that matter), don't get (or get someone) pregnant before you're 21 and don't shoot Roman Candles at each other while at the gas station.' Think that covers all the bases?

Why is that funny?

There's something remarkable about Bill Murray. I can't put my finger on it. Something about the way he delivers a completely mundane piece of text is enough to reduce me to tears of laughter. Christopher Walken has it too - that ability to find something utterly unique in a line of dialogue - but he plays roles that don't always allow the humour to come out. But, Bill Murray...I don't know. He can take a bad script and make it really goddamned funny. He can take a good script and make it absolutely fucking hysterical. Scrooged, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day (funny in SPITE of the Andi MacDowell curse), Lost in Translation. Bill Murray has a bittersweetness that radiates from him and it's absolutely captivating.

Murray is always good. Always. I don't know how else to phrase it. I once watched a movie with him and an elephant and I guarantee that elephant has never done better work. Besides just being good himself, Murray makes everyone around him better. He's the Steve Nash of film. Not glamorous, just likable and engaging. Now, in this instance (I just finished watching 'The Life Aquatic: with Steve Zissou') the supporting cast is already stellar (William Dafoe in particular). There's not a bad performance in the piece. There's so much random, inexplicable humour in the film. Obviously a lot of that is because Wes Anderson (director & writer) is a very odd man with a very odd sense of humour. But most of it is because of Bill Murray. On lines where I would usually snicker or chuckle, I choked on Pepsi and sent it shooting up my nose. Now, it's not wall to wall hysterics by any means. It's equal parts ridiculous and heart-breaking. It's a quiet, intelligent piece that will occasionally make you chortle. And often times you'll have no idea why you're laughing. Things like Steve Zissou's (famous oceanographer) inexplicable hatred of dolphins; 'God damn it, I am sick of those dolphins.' Why is that funny? I don't know, but it is.

Variations...

I'm having one of those weeks. Well intentioned and well thought out, but just as far from the fucking blue-print as possible. And so, I sat down to write and get some of the demons out. And when I write, I often listen to music. Some people find it difficult to write when there's music with lyrics. I don't have that. I'm intimately familiar with at least 200 of the 400 or so cds on my shelf. And when I say 'intimately familiar' i mean i could recite lyrics for most of them or sing them to you from the opening note until the last echo of sound. It's one of my few gifts (the others being video games and making a really good pizza.)

Anyway, I looked through my albums and thought, "What haven't I listened to in a while?" And I came across the two versions of Bach's "The Goldberg Variations" that Glenn Gould recorded - one at the beginning of his recording life and one very near the end. And I chose the latter. I prefer it. The first version is a perfect snapshot of him when he recorded; youthful, arrogant and full of energy. And the second version is mature, thoughtful and varied, just as he was towards the end of his life.

I've always had a fascination with GG. Like him, I'm an obsessive personality. This is a guy who ate scrambled eggs and black coffee from Fran's at Yonge & College whenever he was working at the old CBC studio on Jarvis in Toronto. For EVERY MEAL!!! I won't say I'm quite that systematic or particular, but I'm sure some of my loved ones would disagree with me. I just find his obsessions interesting. Not repulsive and not strange; just interesting. Because I understand some of them. For example, in the studio he wouldn't stop recording until every note was the way he wanted it. He would do it again and again and again. And he took that further. He became frustrated with the way the press presented him and so he stopped doing interviews. But every once in a while he would release an interview that he had conducted on himself. The transcript would read something like:

gg: We're here in the studio with Mr. Gould today and he's going to discuss his next project with us. Mr. Gould, thank you.

GG: Of course, of course. You can quote me on that (laughter).


The other people he would get along with if he were alive today are also on my shelf: Peter Gabriel, Ben Folds, Dan Lanois, Neil Finn, Billy Corgan. Not perfectionists, but meticulists. Mick is going to complain that isn't a word, but I'm adding it to the dictionary.

Meticulists: (noun) persons who give or show great attention to detail, they are very careful and exact

It could be said I'm a meticulist. And I think that's why I'm drawn to these people. I almost had the chance to play Glenn Gould once. (For those of you who are confused - well, I don't know if anybody reads this damned thing, but if you do - I'm an actor when I'm not being a musician or a raving lunatic). I was working at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and they were doing a production of "Glenn" here in Toronto. It's a fantastic piece of theatre. It's 32 small scenes (I think it's where the film idea came from) about music and genius and life. It's really confusing and perhaps too dense for anyone but Glenn Gould fans to understand, though. And that's it's major flaw. It takes 4 different versions of GG from his life (which he would have LOVED) and they all tell stories and interact in strange ways to reveal things about life and why it is the way it is. Fascinating little piece of theatre. Anyway, I got chicken pox before my callback and I couldn't go and I didn't get the part (I still haven't figured out the 'greater scheme' rationale for that one yet). I was pretty pissed about the whole thing. And so I come full circle to where I am today. I'm pissed that life isn't working out the way I've told it to. I'm pushing and pulling and jumping and screaming and chasing everything that I want and it's just not happening. And I listen to the Goldberg Variations and...it's all there. All the ups and downs that life has. All the highs and lows. All the fear and doubt and chases and strolls. All this; it's in the music. Everyone thinks it's just a lovely piece of recording, but it wouldn't be that lovely piece of music without the clunkiness and ugliness that creeps into it every now and then. Not every movement is beautiful. Some of them are slow and disonant. Some of them are so full of uncertainty and questions. And some of them teem with life and hope. And so, I look across the room at the guitars sitting quietly and I realize it's time to stop wasting time. There's songs to write and records to make. And here I am bitching about life not going according to plan. I keep forgetting that's the point.

"A record is a concert without halls and a museum whose curator is the owner."
- Glenn Gould

A secret is something...

You tell one other person, so I'm telling you...

It's possible that I'm cheating, but I think Bono would enjoy my misinterpretation.

It's no secret that I'm a U2 nut. I find them fascinating for a variety of reasons. Musically, certainly, I love their stuff. It has all the highs and lows and bittersweetness of real life and it's carried me through dark times and euphoric times of my life. Individually, they are remarkable people. I would love to sit down and have drinks with the four of them and learn just one thing from each of them. And as businessmen, it's widely discussed how well they've invested and saved their shillings. All that's amazing stuff. But I also look beyond that. Because they're such a big operation now, they hire great people; designers, crew, drivers, management, press people. And all of those folks have a wealth of knowledge and information to share that's invaluable. And so I read everything I find on their website. It all helps to give me ideas (every poet is a thief) which I - in turn - will pass on to my boys and we implement with success or failure. U2 is a well-oiled machine from it's shiny surface (the band) to its smallest pins (the crew) and there's a lot to learn from something that is so successful and so interesting.

One of my favourite parts, though, is called "Willies Diary". Willie is the tour designer for U2 (he's certainly done some fine work in his day). He's not a writer, but he has a flare for prose. Maybe everyone on 'the road' talks like this and that's all the more reason for me to get touring as soon as I can. His diary is riddled with neat stuff about technical information, restaurants, clubs, gossip and humour. I highly suggest checking it out. Here's a couple of excerpts.

21.04.2005
Denver Pepsi Centre II

"On the Elevation Tour we thought it was a real treat (and very funny) to very occasionally be able to receive wireless Broadband at the mix position. On the Vertigo Tour we couldn’t do the show without it. Even I was slightly staggered to witness Ash (the guy who wrote the control system software for our video set-up) updating the system yesterday. Why so strange? Well, the system was set up in Denver and Ash is in San Francisco. Or possibly London. Actually I have no idea where Ash is, other than being nowhere near Denver, but there he was – moving the on-screen cursor, writing code, installing new elements. Its witchcraft, I tell you…… "


23.04.2005
In Denver

"Come the evening Smasher announced he was off to see a band composed of one-legged midgets who play for a while and then wrestle (apparently). Not 100% sure of how to respond to that."