ELVIS GOES POSTAL?

HANG ON, RUPERT! THE ZOMBIE CATFISH ARE COMING!

There are zombie catfish in Texas that hibernate in the mud of dried-up ponds. But it only takes the next good rain to bring them back to life again - paler, thinner and hungrier than ever!


Tabloid hacks are like that. And I say that as an Old School hack, myself.


But never fear, Rupert, in this time of troubles, your tears have watered our ponds. And your legions are reviving!


Now, I don't mean to go all comic book writer here, but there are some striking mythological (even mystical) aspects to this current persecution of dear Uncle R.


You know! All that pulling a sword out of the stone stuff! Only, in this tale, the Black Knight is really the good guy. 


But never mind! Plenty of time to explain all that later, once we've saved the Black Knight from himself.


For I hear your cries, fellow creatures of the slime.


"Doesn't this world understand that without people like The Great M, there would be no news?!"

Well, call me an old tabloid romantic with an air-brushed view of life, but what I see when I look through my tab-coloured glasses is a news magnate who's spotted a hole in the fabric of journalism... and heroically thrust himself into it!


What greater love?! 

And still, some people insist on harassing him! And for what?! 


For having a son who's either incompetent or non compos mentis?! 


For wanting to throw money at police or politicians or anything or anyone to insure the chance of making more?!


People!


It's time to do some file-searching in your own soul! 


Oh, and while you're there, don't forget to wipe those e-mails, eh? 


You know the ones I mean.

***  

BAMBI: THE FINAL RUN

This weekend, one of the best-known people in Thunder Bay died. 

She wasn't born here. She doesn't live here now. And when she did, it was only for a few months - and most of that, spent in a cell. 

But in that short time, Lawrencia "Bambi" Bembenek worked as a waitress, taught aerobics (in the building just across the street) and met and made more friends than some who've lived in the Lakehead all their lives. 

This wouldn't be quite so strange if it weren't for the fact that this popular newcomer arrived in the City fresh from a prison break.

A Wisconsin court had convicted Laurie (a Milwaukee police officer) of murdering the ex-wife of her boyfriend (who was also on the Force). Her persistent denials went unheard by all but a few who suspected that a woman with enemies in a predominantly male occupation might well have been framed.

In any case, at some point, the imprisoned Bembeneck decided not to wait for appeals to run their course, teamed up with the brother of another inmate, effected her escape and split for Canada.

And for a brief and blissful span thereafter, the couple enjoyed the peace and contentment of life on Banning Street.  

Then, one dark day, as Nature showed its disapproval with simultaneous snow and thunder, Dudley Do-Right (acting on a tip from an avid viewer of AMERICA'S MOST WANTED) showed up on their doorstep, identified and arrested them and left a lot of locals scratching their heads.

Now, it would have been impossible for an old tabloid "reporter" like me to stay out of a story like that. But I told myself that the writing course I was giving at the community college and some freelance work I was doing for CBC was more than enough and that I should leave this one to the professionals.

What I'd forgotten was: that's not the way it works. Stories chase writers - not the other way 'round!

So, it shouldn't have surprised me when (next day) I was chatting with a waitress in my favourite cafe and she happened to mention that she'd known Bambi. 

I'd just been telling her that Bambi had served me coffee once. But I had to admit the only thought that ran through my head at the time was: "Hey! Louis is hiring prettier help."

My waitress chuckled.

She and her boyfriend, she told me, used to meet Bembeneck and hers at local donut shops. They'd have a coffee and chat, then get back in their cars and play a mobile CB-radio game of hide-and-seek called "Cat And Mouse".

"Laurie always wanted to be Mouse," the waitress recalled.

She sighed, shook her head and started to walk away, when something prompted me to stop her and ask, "Oh, by the way, what was Lauri's CB 'handle'?"

The waitress looked at me as if I were thick as a brick.

"Bambi, of course!"

And suddenly, I knew there was no sense fighting it.  I had no choice but to do a piece for radio.

And in it, I talked about Lawrencia serving coffee to the cops whose station was just around the corner from the restaurant where she worked. I talked about Bambi's boyfriend tipping a fellow cabbie of mine twenty dollars for a three-dollar trip, then whispering, "That's for not telling the cops where you took me." (He needn't have bothered. The cabbie had no idea who he was.)

My point, of course, was to show that the real mystery in this case was not how these fugitives had been caught but how they'd managed to avoid it as long as they did!

At any rate, Bembeneck was eventually transferred to Toronto, and the excitement faded. A few years passed; and although the controversy over Bambi's extradition (or guilt) seemed destined to continue, her story was no longer front-page stuff.

I was saying as much to a friend, when her niece (who'd worked as a border guard) piped up.

"I'm the one who let her in, you know," she said, in a very matter-of-fact tone. "But it wasn't really my fault."

She explained that a flu epidemic had thinned the ranks of her co-workers at the border crossing so severely that managers had to be called in to take their places.  Consequently, on that particular day, she found herself with only the assistance of two managers who (it goes without saying) were decidedly irritable.

So, when she came to them to report there was something not quite right about the folks she'd just been interviewing at the drive-through, they just grimaced.

"They say they're coming for a visit," she explained, "but the back seat of the vehicle is loaded with things like a toaster oven and bed linen and towels and all sorts of household goods. So, I think you'd better come and check them out."

The managers glared at her and demanded that she stop wasting their time. 

"For God's sake, wave them through!" they said. 

And so, she did. And Bambi's Run continued.

But now, at last, it's over. Or is it?

I don't expect anybody will be satisfied with the way things turned out.

Those who still consider Bembeneck a murderess will go on scolding American prosecutors for dropping some charges against her and accepting a plea deal and time served in order to justify her release on the other. 

Those who think she's been wronged will still cry for a posthumous pardon and a re-opened investigation of the murder that started it all.

But then, there are those who say that the best kind of agreement is one that's not completely acceptable to any of the parties. And by that standard, I'd say the resolution of Bambi's Run is just about perfect.  

                                                                      ****

TOURIST ALERT #1: FUNNY MONEY

An American band played their first-ever Canadian gig at a club in Halifax, but they began to feel uneasy once they noticed that patrons were flashing horse-choking wads of cash about. And being from Chicago, they knew what that meant!

They were all set to complain to their manager about the shady sort of place he'd picked for them to play, when somebody explained the bills weren't "real money" but cleverly-crafted commercial coupons made to look like currency which were redeemable for merchandise only - and then, only at Canadian Tire stores. 

The club owner, it was explained, needed to make some renovations. And since most of the supplies he'd need for the job would be bought at the local Canadian Tire, the coupons were as good as cash to him. 


And his scheme was wildly popular, too, since there isn't a Canadian alive who doesn't have at least a few bucks' worth of C.T. scrip lying crumpled in a drawer somewhere. 

In fact, I've always contended that if the world economy went in the crapper tomorrow (and Canada's legal tender with it), we could always fall back on our coupons.

And they don't carry the stigma of food stamps. 


You needn't be ashamed to have them in your wallet; because they're ever-so-elegant! They're printed on fine quality paper with a Scot on one side (to remind ye to be frugal) and a fine-lookin' lass on t'other (to remind ye there's more to life than money). 


And they come in almost as many denominations and lovely colours as the government ones.

I did a piece for CBC some years ago suggesting the answer to Canada's tired currency was Canadian Tire currency. And I urged an immediate switch-over. I pointed out that people in Third World countries who'd had the stuff passed off on them by unscrupulous tourists would finally be able to afford that trip to Toronto they've always dreamed of taking.

But, for some reason, nobody ever picked up that ball and ran with it.

I suppose there are those who would argue that Canadian Tire currency relies solely on the continued success of one, homegrown, big-box retailer, whereas the full force of the Canadian Government (Le Gouvernement De Canada, no less) stands firmly behind its bucks.  But given the persistent pace of privatization and general disassembly of government infrastructure, I'm beginning to wonder which will outlast which.

In the meanwhile, I can only say, "Visitors beware!"


When someone in this country tries to pass you funny-looking money, the only important question to ask is: "How much will this buy me at Canadian Tire?" 

There! Now, I can rest, knowing I've done my bit in the ever-challenging and never-ending tourist education campaign.


And yet, I still can't shake the feeling that I owe W. C. Fields an apology?

THE BIGGER THEY ARE, THE FASTER THEY SINK!

I was sharing Fellini's LA STRADA (1954) with a friend recently, when I turned to find her in tears. Now, while I'd had no reason to expect she wouldn't be moved by a film that never fails to move me, the intensity of her reaction was startling; and it reminded me of the power films can have in our lives - especially when they're really well made.

It got me thinking about the other side of that coin, too - about when disaster movies are bigger disasters than the ones they portray. And I think the best example of  this is James Cameron's TITANIC (1997).

Oh, I can hear women screaming now! 

I hear them demanding a retraction, insisting that the scene with Leonardo and Kate at the bow of the ship (facing into the wind like a pair of hounds with their heads out a car window) has become one of cinema's classic icons. 

Sad to say, I must admit it has! Unfortunately, unlike Marilyn's blowing dress or Orson's lips forming the word "Rosebud", the bow-sailing sequence stands all by its lonesome in TITANIC.  And one memorable scene does not a great film make.

I have to think Cameron would have done better to have stayed at the dock - or stuck to making a doc. Still, given his considerable talent and near-obsession with the subject, it's hard at first to understand why he went as far wrong as he did. 

He began with the one thing many current blockbusters lack: a coherent, compelling story. Blessed with the world's best-known shipwreck as a theme and a seemingly endless public appetite for its tale of pride and peril, Cameron assembled an all-star cast, the latest electronic special effects gadgetry and amassed a truly titanic budget to pay for it all.  

Any industry insider watching would have said he was on the verge of launching one of the biggest box-office successes ever.

But it's like Pauline Kael always said. The history of Hollywood films is the history of near-misses, leaving us again and again with that bittersweet thought of what might have been.

RMS Titanic was the biggest liner ever built. So, naturally, the film had to be "super-sized", too. Right?

But it seems they forgot that the Titanic went down, because the people who built and operated it believed that size was everything - surely more than enough to save them from disaster.

And how did that work out?

No, for my money, there's one movie that's done a much better job of capturing the truly awful drama of that truly awful night. It was made in Britain over half a century ago - and on a budget that probably wouldn't have covered Cameron's catering costs. 

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER was produced for Rank in 1958 by William McQuitty and directed by Roy Baker. And while you may recognize only a few of the actors (Kenneth More, Honor Blackman and David McCallum, surely), I doubt you'll ever forget the performances they gave or ever escape the eerie sense the film created of actually having been on a sinking ship.

What this simple-but-powerful production stresses is what Cameron failed to make a priority in his own: namely, the intensely human drama of facing certain death.

Held up against its more recent, more lavish competitor, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER proves that money isn't everything and that there are times when those epic qualities of scope of action, intricate detail and inescapable horror are best left to the greatest special effects generator ever invented: the one between our ears.

Icebergs or not, I intend to hold my heading where TITANIC is concerned. And I'll continue to maintain what history has proven over and over again: the bigger they are, the faster they sink.

TORONTO IS CLOSED

On the whole, we Canadians are a welcoming lot; but there's such a thing as carrying hospitality too far. And if we were searching for that "line in the sand" that marks the limits of our patience, I suspect we're about to find it!

I don't normally expect to wake to news reports of masked "anarchists" rampaging through downtown Toronto, smashing and burning as they go. And I don't much appreciate it.

Come to that, I don't much appreciate the idea of barricading off a big part of the downtown core of our largest city just so a group of so-called world "leaders" can enjoy a little get-together and plan policies in private that the rest of us will have to endure for years to come.

And I'm especially miffed about having to pony up ONE BILLION DOLLARS for the privilege of hosting these puffinjays and the nasty little crowd of violent sociopaths they always seem to draw.

Don't get me wrong! I'm a child of the 60s and, consequently, more than familiar with (and not unsympathetic to) social protest. But I must admit that the small-time terrorists I see on the streets of Toronto ( who are "brave" enough to burn police cars but too cowardly to show their faces) don't strike me as protesters; because, while they delight in tearing things down, they apparently have neither the brains nor the balls to offer any realistic plan for rebuilding something better.

And even among the more enlightened marchers, I see signs like "CAPITALISM SUCKS" which leads me to wonder if they actually think the mere sight of that will shock Obama into repentance, bring the world's banks to their knees and startle an uninformed public into action.

As part of that public, I can tell you this much, people: You're preaching to the choir!

It reminds me of Winston Churchill calling democracy an awful system but insisting it was still the best we've got.

I guess I've always mistrusted utopias (and the people who advocate them); because utopias are never designed to accommodate those most characteristically human traits: the power to screw up and the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

We will never completely overcome those, and I'm not sure I'd want us to. After all, they are what make our species so interesting.

So, my suggestion to those Canadians demonstrating on the streets of Toronto this week is this: Go home and do something useful. Begin organizing for the next federal election, since that's the surest, most immediate step to making changes in your world.

Let's concentrate on ousting a federal government that represents only one in three Canadians and seems hell-bent on pushing their own unpopular agenda. And all it takes to do that, folks, is to get off your ass, travel a few blocks to a polling station and make an X on a piece of paper.

Of course, that will be just the beginning of a long, laborious process. But it's worth it - and bound to be more effective than simply shouting and waving signs. And here's the best part: it won't cost anything like a billion bucks!

DUCK AND COVER

I suppose I learned most of what I needed to know about living with the threat of nuclear annihilation when I was 10. We were living in Wayne's World at the time (Aurora, Illinois); and the Cold War was clearly heating up.

The horrors of World War II were all too fresh a memory, and a madman in the U.S. Senate kept insisting there was a Communist under nearly every bed in the nation.

So, it was hardly surprising that emergency drills were held in schools and elsewhere to prepare citizens for the possibility of an atomic attack.

But, even as a child, I realized that effort was futile.

St. Mary's was (like so many other Catholic grade schools of the period) an aging brick and timber structure, festooned throughout with wainscoting which had been varnished so many times over the years that even a hot breath could have ignited a conflagration.

I may not have known much about the physics of a nuclear blast, but I knew the building I was in wouldn't stand up to a really strong wind, let alone Armageddon. 

I knew that, should a missile hit anywhere within 100 miles of Wayne's World, we were toast!

Nevertheless, I played along and followed the routine like everybody else: duck and cover. 

And the space beneath my antique desk became familiar territory, even if I never believed that an inch of oak and a cast iron frame could keep me from being shredded in a nuclear blast.

It's hard to explain what goes through a child's head when confronted with the never-ending threat of instant obliteration. It's hard to explain, because those of us who've grown up with it are still trying to works out the answer for ourselves.

Today's kids may have to carry the burden of the fear of terrorism in their backpacks - but I doubt their nightmares (or daymares, for that matter) have the same cold inevitability as ours did.   


Now, it's true that today's kids would stage an uprising if forced to follow the sort of ridiculous procedures we did. And I congratulate them. But that doesn't mean they're any less at risk than we were. 

In fact, given that the planet's nuclear powers are still trying to arrange a proper disarmament (as well as a plan for weapons destruction that won't let terrorists get their hands on them), I'd say it's time some sort of alarm was sounded.

In Wayne's World of the 1950s, we had an air raid siren, located just two blocks from my house - but more than capable of reaching everybody in town with its ear-drum-splitting howl. 

For some folks, that horn became the most important (if most dreaded) piece of municipal equipment - and a device that needed regular testing.

So, every Tuesday afternoon at 4:30, they'd set it off. And that meant that every Tuesday afternoon at 4:30, people all over Aurora would wince and plug their ears and swear.  But I doubt that any of them ever bothered to stop what they were doing to duck and cover. 

How many of them spared so much as a thought for world crises or world wars or incoming missiles, we'll never know. All I can ever remember thinking was: "I hope the Russians never find out about this drill." 


Because it was obvious to me (even at that tender age) that all the Soviets would have to do was time their attack for Tuesday afternoon at 4:30; and they'd catch us with our pants down!

Of course, when it comes right down to it, I suppose that's as good a way as any to greet the end of everything. 


It makes more sense than duck and cover.