The Annekenstein Monster

There’s a title that’ll guarantee some disappointed google searchers when they stop by.

One of my greatest failings, I think, is my inability to self-promote. There are many reasons for why I resist talking up my ‘artistic’ pursuits. Chief among them lies in the adage ‘do unto others what you would want others to do unto you’ (or whatever it is). Basically, I don’t like it when people aggressively promote themselves, so I tend not to promote my self at all. I find it too… desperate. I understand the need for self-promotion, but I seem to rail against it, to the point where I probably hinder the potential success of projects in which I am involved.

In other words, I am so scared of becoming a media/promotional whore that I go too far in the other direction.

Also, (even though this will likely come across as immodest) I think I am modest, to a fault. I enjoy receiving praise for my work, but I go to great lengths not to pull praise out of people. Again, probably at a detriment to my potential success.

With all that in mind, I feel compelled, however, to promote Sketch 22. It really is a very funny show.

See? Almost 200 words of justification and preamble just so I can be comfortable enough to say “It really is a very funny show” and not feel like I’m a cheap theatre-hooker.

And still, I feel like a cheap theatre-whore.

That’s a hard ‘g’, there in the title.

How much do I hate cutting the grass. That’s not a question. I absolutely dread cutting the grass. It’s a chore that takes my breath away, causes me to sweat to within an inch of a heart attack, I am sure, and causes untold numbers of muscles and bodily-apparati to rebel against me. It’s a solid two hours of hard-labour, wide expansive lawn, tortuous hills and valleys to navigae. By the end of it, I am a dripping, walking, moaning zombie.

I so hate cutting the grass that I cannot take any pleasure in its being cut. My wife oohs and aahs at how nice the lawn looks after its cut. But I don’t see that. All I see is grass that will only need to be cut again in a week or so. From the moment the lawn-mower (a gas-powered push mower, by the way. I’d never whine and complain if I had a ride-on mower. Rich benefactor, are you listening?) powers down, I start dreading the fact that it’ll have to be done again in a week’s time. Seven short days. Yes, as soon as the last blade of grass gets mowed, instead of celebrating an accomplished task, I begin to get depressed that the chore will have to be repeated again in a week.

That’s how much I hate mowing the lawn.

Now, though, there is a bit of relief. My son has finally reached the age where he can help. Over the course of the summer so far, each grass-cutting, he has taken more and more of the responsibility, to the point where there is currently a 2/3 to 1/3 labour distribution ratio, me taking the higher. It would be a fifty-fifty split if there weren’t the ditch and hill parts of the lawn to cut. I don’t think he’s old/strong enough to handle those clines yet.
His motivation for helping is not driven by mere humanity, helping the old man kind of feelings. No, it’s strictly economic, and I have no problem with that.

He is truly saving my life. Truly. For that, I pay him well.

Maybe next year, the entire lawn-mowing responsibility will be with him, and I’ll be free. Gloriously Free!! One day it will be so.

And on that day, I will understand, a little, how joyous the French felt in June, 1944.

I was watching Last Comic Standing last night, and the challenge they faced was to pitch a sitcom idea with only 2 hours to prepare. The only rule was that each comic had to star in the sitcom they pitch. My wife supposed that I would have no trouble with that challenge as I likely have a couple of sitcom ideas floating around in my head.

I do, in fact. I have two.

Right away, I thought of Bolo. I think it’s time for a sitcom starring a monkey, and Bolo The Monkey is that monkey. At first , I was going to call the sitcom “The President’s Monkey”, but after some thought, I think “The Monkey’s President” is better. In “The Monkey’s President”, I star as a high-ranking presidential aide. Through a complicated series of events that nobody can quite figure out (perhaps involving a gift from a foreign diplomat), I am given a monkey – Bolo, The Monkey – as my assistant. Naturally, high-jinx abound as Bolo causes, and (at the end of each episode) solves untold numbers of hilarious problems. “We can’t let the press find out that a monkey is running the country!” would be a common utterance. “Bolo!!!!” would be another. This idea is Gold, I tell ya. Gold!!!

So, that’s “The Monkey’s President”.

My other idea for a sitcom is called “Jumping The Shark”, and I think this one might actually be worthwhile. The phrase “jumping the shark” refers to the episode in Happy Days when Fonzie jumped the tank full of sharks on his motorcycle. Now, “jumping the shark” is a phrase that’s used to represent the episode in any episodic television program in which, through a desperate and absurd stunt, the series loses its credibility or believability.

The premise of Jumping The Shark would be that every episode would be the jumping the shark episode of the series. Every episode would revolve around that implausible event or stunt that causes fans to say ‘oh come on’ in disbelief.
I’m not sure, yet, exactly what the episodes would entail. Whether it would center around the same group of individuals, or whether each week would showcase a different sitcom.

I kinda like the idea that each episode would be about a different sitcom. That way we could spoof the various genres. There’d always be a core group of actors who would star in these jumping the shark sitcom one-off episodes. The challenge, since each week would showcase a different one-off sitcom, would be to ensure that each sitcom feels lived-in, inhabited. As if they were running for a couple of years, have run out of ideas, and have resorted to pulling this week’s stunt in order to keep the viewers.

There. What a great idea! Sign me up, producers.

When I become Mayor-Hole of this burg, one of the first crazy laws that I will force all establishments to follow is this: in restaurants of all description, any and all burgers will come with cheese as the default. If you want a burger without cheese, then make that special request. Unless it’s specifically called a “Hamburger”, I expect cheese on something that has the ‘burger’ suffix.

I went to A&W for lunch today, and ordered a Poppa Burger. Only when I opened the thing, did I realise that cheese is not the norm on a Poppa Burger. Why oh why not? Still, it was a fantastically great burger. Where else does that happen? Well, with the Whopper at Burger King. One must remember to order a Whopper With Cheese. When I am Mayor-Hole, I will force Bush Dumville to change it so that one must order a Whapper Without Cheese if one doesn’t want cheese.

By the way, another of my plans for when I become Mayor-Hole is to take over the Tim Hortons on University Aveneue (by the KFC) and have it set up as a Drive-Thru Complaint department. It will be, in fact, the only place in town where The City will take note of complaints. And only Drive-Thru complaints. There will be no Walk-In complaints. If you don’t have a car, tough crap. If you want to complain about it, hire a taxi to take you through the Drive-Thru Complaint Department.

Oh, I have all kinds of crazy ideas for when I become Mayor-Hole.

This post over at xtcian, about running into a tureky, reminded me of a bird experience I had about 20 years ago. (you know what? I had originally typed ’10 years ago’, thinking it was actually 10 years ago. I then had the sudden explosion of realisation that it was actually 20 years ago. Holy crap! 10 years just flew by my eyes. Am I that old?)

At that time, I used to golf quite a bit, with college buddies. One day we were on our way to Green Gables (this, in the days when one’s PEI golfing options could be counted on one hand) for an afternoon round. I was driving my military green 1978 Honda Civic, and as we were about to drvie down into a little valley, I noticed on the road on the incline on the other side of the valley, a crow was standing in the middle of my side of the road.

Being a goof, I told the guys to watch this, we were gonna play chicken with a crow. I gunned the motor, and charged towards the bird. As we kept approaching, the crow kept its back to us. “He’s playing us” was the general consensus from the car. Suddenly, about 10 seconds before we reached where the bird was, it turned around and stared at us. It stared us down.

It stared me down. The driver. The only one who really mattered in this test of wills. Our eyes locked, and I could tell that this crow was not going to budge. If we were to win this game of chicken, we’d have to hit the crow.

At the last second, I swerved out of the way and drove past the crow. The crow did not move. As I drove away, up and over the hill, I looked in the rearview mirror. Shivers still go down my spine as I recall the icy stare of that crow in that mirror.

Yes, I was beaten by a crow.

I was walking back to work a couple of days ago, when I saw a Winnebago type RV driving towards me. In the big window behind the driver, in the area where I imagine the dinner table and the semi-circled upholstered bench was, I saw a teenage girl. She was looking out the window. Just an everyday kind of girl, but what drew my attention to her was the smothering suffocation of boredom that was contained in her look. If her sadness would have allowed it, we’d have made eye contact. As it was, she simply dirged past me, shackled to her misery, in her motorized prison.

How sad did she look? Well, if she was placed in amongst any random train-car, sardine-packed with WWII occupation-enslaved Jews on thier way to the death-camp, she’d stick out as ‘the sad-looking one’. How sad did she look? She looked like it was her third time watching Nancy Beck’s latest show. It was as if she had Matthew’s death-scene (where Marilla sings “I Can’t Find The Words”) in Anne of Green Gables on permanent replay loop in her mind. That’s how sad she looked.

She looked so sad that I immediately thought, after the RV drove past, that if I had only three wishes, I’d waste one of them just so I could make time go back fifteen seconds, so that when she drove past me again, I’d wave at her, and hopefully instill some small glimmer of kindness in her life. Even if it only boost her spirits for a moment, and only if the boost was miniscule, it’d be worth it. For humanity. That’s how sad she looked.

Then I thought: she’s likely on vacation, in her parent’s lovely big RV which means she’s probably in a family that’s economically stable, most likely pouting because she’s not in Cavendish and her parents are gonna force her go on an afternoon walking tour full of Charlottetown history, while I’m trudging back to work on a sunny 27 degree day on PEI, while my car rusts out. My car’s in such a sorry state that the stereo can’t even play cassettes, and the back-end is making noises like an elephant squealing at a mouse.

My final decision was not to use one of my three wishes on her. I decided instead that she can take her sullen sorry ass and give it a kick.

Well, seven months of casual preparing, followed by a month of pretty intense preparation all culminated in our opening night last night. I’m not sure of the number, but it looked like the house of 130 seats was about 3/4 full. Of course, the usual post-premiere audience-member thing to do is give accolades and props, whether deserved or not, but everyone seemed genuinely thrilled, excited and encouraging.

There were great big laughs where we thought there’d be big laughs, big laughs at moments that we hoped would get laughs, and only a few times when the laughter wasn’t as big as we thought it’d be for certain lines/moments. I’ve been to shows, and in shows, where the auidience laughter is generated as polite encouragement. I shudder at that type of laughter. Fortunately, the laughter for our show was, generally, at such a height and pitch that it was obvious that it was real and honest. Only a couple of times did I think the audience was laughing to support the material, rather than laughing at it.

From the performance side, it was a really good show, especially for a first night. No major mistakes (I froze and then blanked at a moment near the end of the show. Dammit.), and only a few technical hiccups. A great job by everyone involved.

So, good on us.

I find weeks go quicker when I have a TV Program To Look Forward To.

Since the end of this season’s (fantastic) The Sopranos, I’ve only had one TVPTLFT. That being Sunday night’s Six Feet Under. I’m sad to say that so far, this season hasn’t been satiating my year-long hunger of anticipation for it.

Now, though, I have a new TBPTLFT: The Amazing Race 5. Yes, it’s back, on Tuesday nights. I’ve been waiting for awhile for this, my favourite “reality” tv show. After one episode in, it’s like being re-acquainted with an old friend. Phil is exactly the same smirking bemused host. The contestants are another batch of typical flustered contestants.

Here’s to The Amazing Race remaining a TVPTLFT.