Richard Dansky's Blog, page 29
January 17, 2011
Scenes from a Bastille Cafe
Tonight, I broke a rule.
I usually make a point of not eating at any of the places actually on the Bastille, on the grounds that they are A)chock full of tourists B)prone to the tourist surcharge on every meal and C)by all accounts, not nearly as good as the places you can find two blocks off the Bastille, but tonight I was in a hurry. And when you're in a hurry in Paris and want more than a crepe - and don't get me started on the giant stacks of pre-made crepes at the corner stands - you go to a tourist joint, because they're used to impatient Americans who don't know that meals are to be lingered over and enjoyed, but who instead want their Frenchified cheeseburgers and glass of red wine ASAP, damnit.
Yes, the place I ate dinner tonight had a cheeseburger on the menu. I restrained myself. It wasn't hard.
But I was in a hurry, so I ate there anyway. It was one of those places with indoor seating, and indoor-outdoor seating that could be placed under a protective canopy with plastic walls with needed, and then outdoor-outdoor seating for people who just wanted drinks. There weren't any of the latter tonight, as the temperature was skydiving noticeably, and as I sat there in the outside-inside portion of things, white-jacketed busboys hastily unrolled and put up those plastic walls.
There was symmetry in the seating, chairs to the left of the main door, and chairs to the right. At the first table on each side, closest to the building, there was an attractive young woman seated and nursing a drink of some sort. And that's where the symmetry ended.
On the right side, the lovely young lady was American. She was blonde. And she was chatting energetically with one of the waiters about her time working as a waitress, and as a restaurant manager, and what she was doing in Paris, and how her family had lived for a year on a houseboat, and all sorts of other pleasant things. The waiter (or perhaps manager; I really wasn't trying to eavesdrop) was a youngish sort of fella himself, good looking and clearly smitten, and he hovered around her table like a hummingbird in a Kool-Aid plant. There were other tables on that side, with other customers, but I'm not sure he made it back to them. At least, not while I was watching.
The woman on the other side was French. She was dark-haired, and she was reading, and the waiter who came over to talk to her was older. He had grey hair, parted down the middle instead of being spiked up with hair gel, and he didn't seem quite as impressed. They had an exchange, a short, sharp one, and then she got up. She threw a little cash on the table, yelled at him, stomped to the entrance to the plastic enclosure, yelled at him some more, left the enclosure, yelled one more time, and then left.
I looked around. Nobody else looked up. The waiter shrugged and walked back inside, but not before he picked up the cash.
Priorities, after all. Priorities.
I usually make a point of not eating at any of the places actually on the Bastille, on the grounds that they are A)chock full of tourists B)prone to the tourist surcharge on every meal and C)by all accounts, not nearly as good as the places you can find two blocks off the Bastille, but tonight I was in a hurry. And when you're in a hurry in Paris and want more than a crepe - and don't get me started on the giant stacks of pre-made crepes at the corner stands - you go to a tourist joint, because they're used to impatient Americans who don't know that meals are to be lingered over and enjoyed, but who instead want their Frenchified cheeseburgers and glass of red wine ASAP, damnit.
Yes, the place I ate dinner tonight had a cheeseburger on the menu. I restrained myself. It wasn't hard.
But I was in a hurry, so I ate there anyway. It was one of those places with indoor seating, and indoor-outdoor seating that could be placed under a protective canopy with plastic walls with needed, and then outdoor-outdoor seating for people who just wanted drinks. There weren't any of the latter tonight, as the temperature was skydiving noticeably, and as I sat there in the outside-inside portion of things, white-jacketed busboys hastily unrolled and put up those plastic walls.
There was symmetry in the seating, chairs to the left of the main door, and chairs to the right. At the first table on each side, closest to the building, there was an attractive young woman seated and nursing a drink of some sort. And that's where the symmetry ended.
On the right side, the lovely young lady was American. She was blonde. And she was chatting energetically with one of the waiters about her time working as a waitress, and as a restaurant manager, and what she was doing in Paris, and how her family had lived for a year on a houseboat, and all sorts of other pleasant things. The waiter (or perhaps manager; I really wasn't trying to eavesdrop) was a youngish sort of fella himself, good looking and clearly smitten, and he hovered around her table like a hummingbird in a Kool-Aid plant. There were other tables on that side, with other customers, but I'm not sure he made it back to them. At least, not while I was watching.
The woman on the other side was French. She was dark-haired, and she was reading, and the waiter who came over to talk to her was older. He had grey hair, parted down the middle instead of being spiked up with hair gel, and he didn't seem quite as impressed. They had an exchange, a short, sharp one, and then she got up. She threw a little cash on the table, yelled at him, stomped to the entrance to the plastic enclosure, yelled at him some more, left the enclosure, yelled one more time, and then left.
I looked around. Nobody else looked up. The waiter shrugged and walked back inside, but not before he picked up the cash.
Priorities, after all. Priorities.
January 16, 2011
Meandering
In front of Notre Dame, they were rollerblading.
Rows of tiny cones set up in long lines, techno music blaring from a boombox - my God, an actual boombox - and one at a time, they line up and snake their way down the rows with the best footwork they can manage. Some get applause. Some barely make it down the line. One girl, clearly the enthusiastic-but-not-yet-skilled girlfriend of one of the big boys, stumbling like a six year old on their first skating rink but somehow staying upright.
She got applause.
A woman standing next to me watches. She's wearing a fur coat, garishly dyed in ghastly bright colors. I look at it and wonder if it's made from Lorax.
Inside, someone's playing pipe organ. It's Sunday evening. Mass is being held. There's a sign at the door asking you to remove your hat when you go in. I do; the guy in front of me doesn't. He's politely but firmly dressed down by a security guard, while little old ladies swarm around him - Mass has just ended - and shoot him dirty looks of the "kids-today-got-no-respect" variety. In French. They're thinking it very loudly.
The pipe organ's still going, as the organist slowly winds down, the notes crashing off the stone of the interior and going up to play near the roof. It's cacophony, and yet somehow it all makes sense, and when the music finally stops and the last note sneaks out the open door, it's a little sad.
Dinner at a tourist trap near Shakespeare & Co. Two Australian women are seated next to me, one a dead ringer for Karen Gillan. She's got boyfriend problems, in that her boyfriend is a spendthrift who's got all of twenty bucks to his name. This is more information than I want or need.
She also talks about being a messy eater. Then she and her friend both order spaghetti bolognese, and medium sodas. (There are no larges, but the medium is deep enough to pearl dive in). They eat quickly, chattering the whole time, then take off in a rush - no dessert. There are things to see, after all.
Rows of tiny cones set up in long lines, techno music blaring from a boombox - my God, an actual boombox - and one at a time, they line up and snake their way down the rows with the best footwork they can manage. Some get applause. Some barely make it down the line. One girl, clearly the enthusiastic-but-not-yet-skilled girlfriend of one of the big boys, stumbling like a six year old on their first skating rink but somehow staying upright.
She got applause.
A woman standing next to me watches. She's wearing a fur coat, garishly dyed in ghastly bright colors. I look at it and wonder if it's made from Lorax.
Inside, someone's playing pipe organ. It's Sunday evening. Mass is being held. There's a sign at the door asking you to remove your hat when you go in. I do; the guy in front of me doesn't. He's politely but firmly dressed down by a security guard, while little old ladies swarm around him - Mass has just ended - and shoot him dirty looks of the "kids-today-got-no-respect" variety. In French. They're thinking it very loudly.
The pipe organ's still going, as the organist slowly winds down, the notes crashing off the stone of the interior and going up to play near the roof. It's cacophony, and yet somehow it all makes sense, and when the music finally stops and the last note sneaks out the open door, it's a little sad.
Dinner at a tourist trap near Shakespeare & Co. Two Australian women are seated next to me, one a dead ringer for Karen Gillan. She's got boyfriend problems, in that her boyfriend is a spendthrift who's got all of twenty bucks to his name. This is more information than I want or need.
She also talks about being a messy eater. Then she and her friend both order spaghetti bolognese, and medium sodas. (There are no larges, but the medium is deep enough to pearl dive in). They eat quickly, chattering the whole time, then take off in a rush - no dessert. There are things to see, after all.
January 15, 2011
Why I Am Not Allowed To Watch Rugby
To those who know nothing about the game, rugby highlights are the funniest damn thing ever broadcast.
It helps if there's booze involved, of course. But taken out of context, moments of rugby brilliance come across as a combination of schoolyard-era "kill the man with the ball" and Princess Bride-style Brute Squad recruitment videos, often performed by huge men wearing what appear to be tiny vinyl jockstraps on their heads.
I know, I know. It's really a very deep game with a great deal of strategy. But to the uninitiated observer, who has just spent ten minutes watching #8 for Agen fall down like a deranged rodeo clown in flip-flops on what seems like every single play while balls squirt out of piles of waving legs that look like they've gone straight past Human Centipede into something on the sea anemone aisle and brightly shirted referees make arcane hand gestures that look like they're summoning Pazuzu by way of the macarena, and throw in some hits that looked like a steam locomotive broadsiding a herd of buffalo, and, yeah. Wow.
Though to be fair, the whisky might have helped.
And seriously. #8? Every single highlight. It was like watching Elvis "Toast" Patterson reborn, except in tight, muddy shorts. Next time, dude, dive and get yourself off camera quick. It's safer for everyone that way.
It helps if there's booze involved, of course. But taken out of context, moments of rugby brilliance come across as a combination of schoolyard-era "kill the man with the ball" and Princess Bride-style Brute Squad recruitment videos, often performed by huge men wearing what appear to be tiny vinyl jockstraps on their heads.
I know, I know. It's really a very deep game with a great deal of strategy. But to the uninitiated observer, who has just spent ten minutes watching #8 for Agen fall down like a deranged rodeo clown in flip-flops on what seems like every single play while balls squirt out of piles of waving legs that look like they've gone straight past Human Centipede into something on the sea anemone aisle and brightly shirted referees make arcane hand gestures that look like they're summoning Pazuzu by way of the macarena, and throw in some hits that looked like a steam locomotive broadsiding a herd of buffalo, and, yeah. Wow.
Though to be fair, the whisky might have helped.
And seriously. #8? Every single highlight. It was like watching Elvis "Toast" Patterson reborn, except in tight, muddy shorts. Next time, dude, dive and get yourself off camera quick. It's safer for everyone that way.
Scene from Bastille
By all rights, she shouldn't have existed.
Spiky black hair, sharp features, she was a punked-up Amelie waif in a blue and red striped shirt, the kind you used to see in Benny Hill sketches on people with berets and toting baguettes. In short, a sort of shorthand of Frenchness so concentrated it didn't seem real.
She stood outside the window of the shop where I was eating lunch. Caught my attention. Smiled. And then took a cigarette, shoved it in her mouth vertically, and stuck her tongue out past it.
Then she waved and walked on.
Spiky black hair, sharp features, she was a punked-up Amelie waif in a blue and red striped shirt, the kind you used to see in Benny Hill sketches on people with berets and toting baguettes. In short, a sort of shorthand of Frenchness so concentrated it didn't seem real.
She stood outside the window of the shop where I was eating lunch. Caught my attention. Smiled. And then took a cigarette, shoved it in her mouth vertically, and stuck her tongue out past it.
Then she waved and walked on.
January 12, 2011
My Santa Chronicles IV: Nemesis
The nemesis of the party Santa has sprinkles.
OK, I don't know if it holds true for all Santas, but for me, the real terror was not in the ho-ho-hos, or the kids on my lap, or any of the usual stuff. No, the really terrifying thing was the cookies.
Cookies, you say. How could it be cookies? They're nummy and delicious and a sign that the folks you're Santa-ing for like you, right.
Well, right. Except.
Bear in mind that being Santa requires a couple of very specific pieces of costuming, including a beard. Unless you're blessed with the ZZ Top-like ability to grow your own, you wear a fake one. Fake beards are fastened at the back of your head by an elastic band, and generally consist of one large piece of fuzz with a roughly poked mouth-hole somewhere in the middle. Slap this on your face and you've got just enough air coming in to be able to Ho your Ho-Hos, but the tangle and straggle of various strands that loop and connect and knot across your beardly pie-hole is inevitably dense and gnarly enough that you can't get anything more substantial than air through it.
This does not keep the little kids from trying. Or, at least it didn't in 1985. Party after party, I had small children trying to feed me cookies that they'd made. Which was sweet, yes, except when you realize that "feed" meant literally "feed", as in "find the slot in the beard that looks like it's got a mouth behind it and then cram a cookie, pointed end first, into it like they're stuffing an All-Star ballot box for Derek Jeter. This inevitably snags on the strands of beard tangled across the mouth, threatening to pull the beard off kilter. If you try to eat the cookie, you end up chewing as much beard as baked good, and misaligning your whiskers even worse. And if you gently push the cookie aside, somebody's going to start crying.
Now multiply this by five cookies. Per kid. With multiple kids, and parents leaning over your shoulder wanting to know how you liked the sugar cookie with jawbreaking silver balls on it that little Elvis made especially for Santa, when the cookie is still snagged in beard and the kid's jamming it into your esophagus hard enough that the elastic band is threatening to rip off both your ears, and all you're tasting is nylon hair anyway.
So that's what Santas are afraid of.
OK, I don't know if it holds true for all Santas, but for me, the real terror was not in the ho-ho-hos, or the kids on my lap, or any of the usual stuff. No, the really terrifying thing was the cookies.
Cookies, you say. How could it be cookies? They're nummy and delicious and a sign that the folks you're Santa-ing for like you, right.
Well, right. Except.
Bear in mind that being Santa requires a couple of very specific pieces of costuming, including a beard. Unless you're blessed with the ZZ Top-like ability to grow your own, you wear a fake one. Fake beards are fastened at the back of your head by an elastic band, and generally consist of one large piece of fuzz with a roughly poked mouth-hole somewhere in the middle. Slap this on your face and you've got just enough air coming in to be able to Ho your Ho-Hos, but the tangle and straggle of various strands that loop and connect and knot across your beardly pie-hole is inevitably dense and gnarly enough that you can't get anything more substantial than air through it.
This does not keep the little kids from trying. Or, at least it didn't in 1985. Party after party, I had small children trying to feed me cookies that they'd made. Which was sweet, yes, except when you realize that "feed" meant literally "feed", as in "find the slot in the beard that looks like it's got a mouth behind it and then cram a cookie, pointed end first, into it like they're stuffing an All-Star ballot box for Derek Jeter. This inevitably snags on the strands of beard tangled across the mouth, threatening to pull the beard off kilter. If you try to eat the cookie, you end up chewing as much beard as baked good, and misaligning your whiskers even worse. And if you gently push the cookie aside, somebody's going to start crying.
Now multiply this by five cookies. Per kid. With multiple kids, and parents leaning over your shoulder wanting to know how you liked the sugar cookie with jawbreaking silver balls on it that little Elvis made especially for Santa, when the cookie is still snagged in beard and the kid's jamming it into your esophagus hard enough that the elastic band is threatening to rip off both your ears, and all you're tasting is nylon hair anyway.
So that's what Santas are afraid of.
January 11, 2011
A Few Things I'll Remember from 2010
New friend Ian Mayor pulling up a satellite image of an ash cloud on his monitor and saying "You may want to look at this." Later, a train ride south through the original Durham; leisurely walks through London with friends; a hotel out by Heathrow with rows of forlorn faces turned up to monitors that read "Flight canceled...flight canceled...flight canceled"A genuine Southern bed'n'breakfast meal with congenial strangers and seeing an unexpected friend walking up the stairs at the Cotton Exchange before a rescheduled book signing.Watching 4th of July fireworks over the roof of a terminal at JFK, en route somewhere else again.Standing on the street outside the Lincoln Theater, looking up at all the Raleigh equivalents of Lincoln Park Trixies hanging out on the patios of their condos drinking red wine and wondering how they're supposed to react to the Drive-By TruckersBull Spec's launch party in the downstairs room at the RegulatorStanding on Mt. Ranier, and seeing it go up and up and up from where we stood. Running into the work of Preston Singletary for the first time at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, and being gobsmacked. Getting up and walking out of a giant, unpleasant brewpub, and instead having lunch at a tiny local cafe whose walls were all painted up in classic pulp covers.Sitting with friends at Art of the Table in Seattle and hearing the entire room burst into spontaneous applause as the chef introduced a dish that was made, in part, with duck fat.Talking with a local artisan in Vancouver about sasquatch, and hearing that folks had apparently seen a pair of them not that far from where we stood. "Don't disbelieve the elders," he said. "They're out there."Playing the last scene in Splinter Cell: Conviction with Melinda on the couch next to me, and seeing her reaction. And then, much later, hearing the bit about the elephant during the credits.Losing my grandmother, a remarkable lady. And driving north with my mother, much later, and getting a lesson in family history through odds and ends and bits and bobs and things we took away. And, oddly enough, seeing my grandfather's roses for the last time.Taking a seat at the back of the Masonic Hall in Hillsborough and listening to live music accompanying a showing of Nosferatu. And not doing something untoward to the gents next to me who'd gotten liquored up - hey, it's a scary movie, right - and stage-whispering excitedly to each other, "I think that's a vampire!"Watching friends succeed, and being happy for their success. Amortals, Dapper Men, Dark Faith and more...Father's Day with the family at Five County Stadium, and Mother's Day at the General Store in Pittsboro and then a book signing at McIntyre's.Sitting in a hotel room in New Jersey, the night before my grandmother's funeral, editing game dialog at one in the morning.Unexpectedly connecting with Gary, Nancy, and Ben Frank in Durham and introducing them to Elmo's, because the lemurs were having none of it.My very own trade paperback.Walking in front of the room at GDC Online in Austin and riffing on game writing critique for an hour, and feeling the energy of the room as folks got into it. Later? Ginger Man, and drinks all 'round, and hearing the blow-by-blow of Write Club as told through many, many grins.Hearing Melinda tell a Cooper Mini salesman, with great calm and poise, that the car he was trying to sell her looked like a shoe.Watching my nephew play Little League on a USA Baseball diamond. The kid ain't half bad.Watching neighborhood kids alternately scream and squeal with delight on Halloween, and fiddling with trying to get glowing skulls into the trees.Nailing up my very own bat house, handmade by a friendAnd one hell of a party
December 25, 2010
My Santa Chronicles Part III: Swamp Fox and Low-Flying Boids
The day I was Santa Claus was the last day of the 1985 football season. The Eagles were playing their one and only game under an interim coach named Fred Bruney, who, near as I can tell never coached another game in his career, and it was the dark and dismal end of a thoroughly dismal season.
1985 had been the last year for Eagles coach Marion Campbell, who had been fired with one week to go in the regular season. Campbell was mainly known for being some kind of defensive genius, and for having a nickname that demonstrated a certain level of erudition to get, at least until Mel Gibson inflicted The Patriot on unsuspecting audiences. The defensive genius part of his rep was more or less accurate; over the first eleven games of the season the Eagles had given up twenty or more points three times. Keep the other team from scoring, and generally you win a lot of football games. But with week twelve, the bottom fell out, the roof caved in, and the defense suddenly turned into a sieve. And the offense, well, it's been a long running tradition in Philadelphia to hire defensive wizards who live up to the name by not having any idea whatsoever to do on offense. The Eagles scored 286 points that year, 24th out of 28 teams, and that included a 37 point spasm on that last insane day. They lost their last four games under Campbell, and by the time he was fired, it was kind of a relief to all concerned.
Really, Campbell was doomed from the beginning. He replaced a burned-out Dick Vermeil, the man who took the Eagles to the Super Bowl and stuck it repeatedly to the hated Dallas Cowboys. In a town as notoriously brutal on its sports legends as Philadelphia, Vermeil remains beloved to this day. He'd have to get caught naked and drunk with an underage goat on top of Billy Penn's statue while trading Cliff Lee to the Mets to tarnish his image in Philly, and anyone following him was going to have to do superhuman things not to look bad by comparison.
Campbell wasn't superhuman. He was an "almost" coach. His teams always almost won, and the Philly sports nabobs could say "If we coulda..." about one play or two plays, and dream of respectability. But they were that way every week, every year. In 1985, they lost three games by one point, and tied another. They were always almost, and after three years of it, folks had had enough of dreams of not quite there. Somehow, the bit got flipped from "if we do one more thing, we're over the hump" to "why can't we ever do that one little thing", and all that inevitably comes home to roost on the coach.
Which left us, that last Sunday of football season, listening to the one and only game of the Bruney era. I don't remember who the color guy was on the radio broadcast, but the play-by-play was by Merrill Reese, who is a Philadelphia institution. Much like the late Harry Kalas, Reese - still going strong - has a voice that can be characterized as unique and instantly recognizable. But where Harry the K's was all booming drawl and affability, Reese had - has - an innate tension, an ability to make every play feel like a Special Forces operation, in a voice that could belong to an auctioneer who gargled unfiltered cigarettes. "FIRST and ten on the Eagles' OWN thirty seven yard line, moving from right to left. Backs are in the I. Wide receivers split. Now Jackson goes in motion, moving to the near side. The ball is snapped. Jaworski's back. He's looking...looking...THROWS down the right sideline to Garrity, comPLETE for six yards." The staccato phrasing, the sudden and rare emphasis - that was the voice of Philadelphia in the fall, especially in the long drought between the Wheeze Kids and the current incarnation of the Phillies as Yankees-lite. By God, you listened to the man, and took what he said with breathless seriousness.
And so Dad put the game on in the car. It was, quite literally, the only game in town, and even though we knew they were going to find a way to lose - they always found a way to lose - they were at least interesting about it. Most of the stars of the Super Bowl team were gone - on offense, it was largely Jaworski and tight end John Spagnola left. Spagnola had a degree from Yale, and I'd apparently once been heard on national television yelling something rude about him after he dropped a pass. Because of that, I always shamefacedly rooted for him. But his career was winding down at this point, and the monstrous defense that Buddy Ryan would weld together was just starting to emerge. The stars on the team were either too old, like Jaworski, or too young, like the QB they'd just drafted to follow him, Randall Cunningham. But there were guys with personality, lots and lots of it. Hubie "Rockman" Oliver, a fullback from Arizona with hands like cinderblocks, but who made highlight-reel blocks. Herman "The Needle" Hunter, a kick returner who had precisely one season of glory. Free safety Wes Hopkins, already wearing a reputation as a homicidal maniac in pads. The only boring guys on the team were the frontline offensive skill players. The rest, well, they ran around and they hit people and they dropped balls and they got hit and they found interesting ways to lose.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that Dad turned the game on in expectation of reasonable amusement while I was off ho-ing my ho-hos. It was a reasonable expectation. But a funny thing happened. The game went on, and on, and on.
It shouldn't have, really. Both teams' seasons were over. The Vikings were playing out the string in their last season under legendary coach Bud Grant, a year which had become a mysterious disaster. They were far more talented than their record, ranking top 5 in both points scored and points allowed, but when they stopped people, they didn't score. When they scored, they didn't stop people. And they did it wit a bunch of bland nobodies like Wade Wilson and Darrin Nelson. But when they hit the field that day, strangeness happened.
It was early afternoon when I started my Santification. The pregame show was just about wrapping up. The game was expected to be over quickly, as everyone, including the fans, just wanted to go home already. But people started scoring. Lots of people started scoring. And the day crept on, and the sun got lower, and they kept scoring and scoring and scoring. Every time I came back to the car, the first question I had was "What's the score now?" A couple of times, someone scored as I was getting in. All it needed was pinball noises to be complete.
We went to dinner after wrapping up the bulk of the parties. The game was in the fourth quarter by then. It was full dark outside, and I was too tired to change out of my costume before eating. I just yanked the pillow out in the parking lot, took off the beard, and stuffed them in the car before we went in to eat. Dad looked at me, then looked at the restaurant, which was full of families eating on a budget. "I think you just killed Christmas for a couple of kids," he said. "I'm Santa's helper," I said. "I'll tell 'em the real one's out there. If they ask." Nobody did, but I gave out a bunch of candy canes anyway.
There were only two houses left to go at that point, and the last dregs of the fourth quarter. The first of the two went uneventfully, and as I got in the car, the game ended. The Eagles won, 37-35. It was, I believe, the most points they'd scored all season. It may have been the most points they scored in a game in that decade. Dad shut off the post-game show as we rolled to the last stop, a row home on a darkened street. He wasn't much one for the talking heads as opposed to the game - still isn't, to be honest - and whenever something like that came on, he'd mutter something like "We don't need to listen to the idiots." So the radio went silent, and the voices that had soundtracked our day together were gone, and the day itself, in every significant way, was over. Just one house left, after all. The anticlimax. The loose end.
And as we pulled up to that last stop, I saw somebody waiting for me on the porch, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and holding a beer bottle. I'm pretty sure he had a lighted cigarette as well. "That's funny," I thought. "He doesn't look dressed for a party. He doesn't look dressed for a party at all."
But I was Santa, and I was on the job, so I got out of the car in time for him to come off the steps, shouting.
The running started a few exchanges later. And my last thought before I started sprinting was, "Must be a Vikings fan."
1985 had been the last year for Eagles coach Marion Campbell, who had been fired with one week to go in the regular season. Campbell was mainly known for being some kind of defensive genius, and for having a nickname that demonstrated a certain level of erudition to get, at least until Mel Gibson inflicted The Patriot on unsuspecting audiences. The defensive genius part of his rep was more or less accurate; over the first eleven games of the season the Eagles had given up twenty or more points three times. Keep the other team from scoring, and generally you win a lot of football games. But with week twelve, the bottom fell out, the roof caved in, and the defense suddenly turned into a sieve. And the offense, well, it's been a long running tradition in Philadelphia to hire defensive wizards who live up to the name by not having any idea whatsoever to do on offense. The Eagles scored 286 points that year, 24th out of 28 teams, and that included a 37 point spasm on that last insane day. They lost their last four games under Campbell, and by the time he was fired, it was kind of a relief to all concerned.
Really, Campbell was doomed from the beginning. He replaced a burned-out Dick Vermeil, the man who took the Eagles to the Super Bowl and stuck it repeatedly to the hated Dallas Cowboys. In a town as notoriously brutal on its sports legends as Philadelphia, Vermeil remains beloved to this day. He'd have to get caught naked and drunk with an underage goat on top of Billy Penn's statue while trading Cliff Lee to the Mets to tarnish his image in Philly, and anyone following him was going to have to do superhuman things not to look bad by comparison.
Campbell wasn't superhuman. He was an "almost" coach. His teams always almost won, and the Philly sports nabobs could say "If we coulda..." about one play or two plays, and dream of respectability. But they were that way every week, every year. In 1985, they lost three games by one point, and tied another. They were always almost, and after three years of it, folks had had enough of dreams of not quite there. Somehow, the bit got flipped from "if we do one more thing, we're over the hump" to "why can't we ever do that one little thing", and all that inevitably comes home to roost on the coach.
Which left us, that last Sunday of football season, listening to the one and only game of the Bruney era. I don't remember who the color guy was on the radio broadcast, but the play-by-play was by Merrill Reese, who is a Philadelphia institution. Much like the late Harry Kalas, Reese - still going strong - has a voice that can be characterized as unique and instantly recognizable. But where Harry the K's was all booming drawl and affability, Reese had - has - an innate tension, an ability to make every play feel like a Special Forces operation, in a voice that could belong to an auctioneer who gargled unfiltered cigarettes. "FIRST and ten on the Eagles' OWN thirty seven yard line, moving from right to left. Backs are in the I. Wide receivers split. Now Jackson goes in motion, moving to the near side. The ball is snapped. Jaworski's back. He's looking...looking...THROWS down the right sideline to Garrity, comPLETE for six yards." The staccato phrasing, the sudden and rare emphasis - that was the voice of Philadelphia in the fall, especially in the long drought between the Wheeze Kids and the current incarnation of the Phillies as Yankees-lite. By God, you listened to the man, and took what he said with breathless seriousness.
And so Dad put the game on in the car. It was, quite literally, the only game in town, and even though we knew they were going to find a way to lose - they always found a way to lose - they were at least interesting about it. Most of the stars of the Super Bowl team were gone - on offense, it was largely Jaworski and tight end John Spagnola left. Spagnola had a degree from Yale, and I'd apparently once been heard on national television yelling something rude about him after he dropped a pass. Because of that, I always shamefacedly rooted for him. But his career was winding down at this point, and the monstrous defense that Buddy Ryan would weld together was just starting to emerge. The stars on the team were either too old, like Jaworski, or too young, like the QB they'd just drafted to follow him, Randall Cunningham. But there were guys with personality, lots and lots of it. Hubie "Rockman" Oliver, a fullback from Arizona with hands like cinderblocks, but who made highlight-reel blocks. Herman "The Needle" Hunter, a kick returner who had precisely one season of glory. Free safety Wes Hopkins, already wearing a reputation as a homicidal maniac in pads. The only boring guys on the team were the frontline offensive skill players. The rest, well, they ran around and they hit people and they dropped balls and they got hit and they found interesting ways to lose.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that Dad turned the game on in expectation of reasonable amusement while I was off ho-ing my ho-hos. It was a reasonable expectation. But a funny thing happened. The game went on, and on, and on.
It shouldn't have, really. Both teams' seasons were over. The Vikings were playing out the string in their last season under legendary coach Bud Grant, a year which had become a mysterious disaster. They were far more talented than their record, ranking top 5 in both points scored and points allowed, but when they stopped people, they didn't score. When they scored, they didn't stop people. And they did it wit a bunch of bland nobodies like Wade Wilson and Darrin Nelson. But when they hit the field that day, strangeness happened.
It was early afternoon when I started my Santification. The pregame show was just about wrapping up. The game was expected to be over quickly, as everyone, including the fans, just wanted to go home already. But people started scoring. Lots of people started scoring. And the day crept on, and the sun got lower, and they kept scoring and scoring and scoring. Every time I came back to the car, the first question I had was "What's the score now?" A couple of times, someone scored as I was getting in. All it needed was pinball noises to be complete.
We went to dinner after wrapping up the bulk of the parties. The game was in the fourth quarter by then. It was full dark outside, and I was too tired to change out of my costume before eating. I just yanked the pillow out in the parking lot, took off the beard, and stuffed them in the car before we went in to eat. Dad looked at me, then looked at the restaurant, which was full of families eating on a budget. "I think you just killed Christmas for a couple of kids," he said. "I'm Santa's helper," I said. "I'll tell 'em the real one's out there. If they ask." Nobody did, but I gave out a bunch of candy canes anyway.
There were only two houses left to go at that point, and the last dregs of the fourth quarter. The first of the two went uneventfully, and as I got in the car, the game ended. The Eagles won, 37-35. It was, I believe, the most points they'd scored all season. It may have been the most points they scored in a game in that decade. Dad shut off the post-game show as we rolled to the last stop, a row home on a darkened street. He wasn't much one for the talking heads as opposed to the game - still isn't, to be honest - and whenever something like that came on, he'd mutter something like "We don't need to listen to the idiots." So the radio went silent, and the voices that had soundtracked our day together were gone, and the day itself, in every significant way, was over. Just one house left, after all. The anticlimax. The loose end.
And as we pulled up to that last stop, I saw somebody waiting for me on the porch, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and holding a beer bottle. I'm pretty sure he had a lighted cigarette as well. "That's funny," I thought. "He doesn't look dressed for a party. He doesn't look dressed for a party at all."
But I was Santa, and I was on the job, so I got out of the car in time for him to come off the steps, shouting.
The running started a few exchanges later. And my last thought before I started sprinting was, "Must be a Vikings fan."
December 24, 2010
True Grit
I'm probably mangling the quote here, but once upon a time, Debbie Harry said about "Heart of Glass" that "the most punk rock thing we could do was release a disco song."
I think that's what's going on with True Grit. It is utterly devoid of the irony that is the defining element of the Coen brothers' body of work. It is a genre movie played straight and with exquisite craft, not transplanted into a bowling alley. It's a damn fine Western that's wry and understated and full of meditations on honor and duty and violence that are never handed to the audience. In places it's funny, in others it's brutal, and sometimes it's both. Men die badly in this movie, and for small justification.
Visually, the film is gorgeous. There are no long, loving flyover shots of wilderness immensity, just horse-level views of mountains and plains, big spaces being crossed by a few small people. The action sequences are largely shot from distance, the better to demonstrate how small the scale of the human conflict is against the immensity of the landscape. The score, by Carter Burwell, feels almost deliberately hokey in places, reminiscent of Last of the Mohicans and aggressively Americana in its instrumentation. And the acting is superb, from the unrecognizable Matt Damon to the relentless Hailee Steinfeld to, well, the whole cast is really good.
And that's what the movie is: really good. Not ironic, not a commentary on the genre, not meta. Just a well-made film which can be enjoyed and discussed on its own merits. Which, in a year when every film has to be an Event, is pretty damn punk rock after all.
I think that's what's going on with True Grit. It is utterly devoid of the irony that is the defining element of the Coen brothers' body of work. It is a genre movie played straight and with exquisite craft, not transplanted into a bowling alley. It's a damn fine Western that's wry and understated and full of meditations on honor and duty and violence that are never handed to the audience. In places it's funny, in others it's brutal, and sometimes it's both. Men die badly in this movie, and for small justification.
Visually, the film is gorgeous. There are no long, loving flyover shots of wilderness immensity, just horse-level views of mountains and plains, big spaces being crossed by a few small people. The action sequences are largely shot from distance, the better to demonstrate how small the scale of the human conflict is against the immensity of the landscape. The score, by Carter Burwell, feels almost deliberately hokey in places, reminiscent of Last of the Mohicans and aggressively Americana in its instrumentation. And the acting is superb, from the unrecognizable Matt Damon to the relentless Hailee Steinfeld to, well, the whole cast is really good.
And that's what the movie is: really good. Not ironic, not a commentary on the genre, not meta. Just a well-made film which can be enjoyed and discussed on its own merits. Which, in a year when every film has to be an Event, is pretty damn punk rock after all.
December 23, 2010
Because It Has Been Pointed Out To Me (The Santa Chronicles Continued)
Not every one of my stories starts with me getting chased by someone. I mean, sure, some do, like the one about the time I jumped into a creek while wearing chain mail, but really, that's more the exception than the rule. Also, I was much more partial to being chased when I was younger and thinner, and could therefore move a lot faster. These days I'm more likely to stand my ground and start swinging whatever cudgel-like object comes to hand, though thankfully this is largely a theoretical exercise.
Take the Santa story, for example. That didn't start with me getting chased. It started with my father driving me into the right neighborhood in South Philly - like I said, I was 15 at the time, so driving was right out - and my clambering out of his car in full Santa kit. Beard, check. Belly (artificial and suspiciously pillow-like), check. Hat, sack full of candy canes, you name it - all checked. And armed with stripey peppermint goodness by the double fistful, I set off for the address of the nice folks who were first on my list.
Dad, for his part, sat in the car and listened to the Eagles game. This was the first mistake of many that were made that day.
I was a party Santa, you see. My job was to come in, say "Ho Ho Ho", hand out some candy canes, and skedaddle. If the parents wanted pictures of their kids on Santa's lap, sure, that was all part of the service. But really, I was there to be jolly and make kids happy, and then amscray before anyone started tugging on the beard.
This, as you might have guessed, was a responsibility I took seriously. Very seriously. For one thing, I was terrified of screwing up. Scrawny Jewish teenagers from the suburbs are not generally your first candidates for South Philly Santas, and as this was my first time Santifying, I wanted to get it right. Besides, while we were blissfully Santa free in my childhood household - neighbors who tried to tell my three year old self that Santa had brought something for me were solemnly told that Santa couldn't stop at our place because we were Jewish - I figured it would be no fun for any kid to have a lousy Santa, and I didn't want to be responsible for any parents needing to confess awkwardly that Santa wasn't real any sooner than necessary.
So I psyched myself up to be Santa. Walked with a Santa stride. Slung my sack of candy over my shoulder jauntily. Muttered "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!" under my breath in a lousy basso profundo that sounded more bassoon in a tub of water.
And then I got to the address. It was a row home, solid and made of brick, and there were three steps up to the tiny porch at the front door. I stared at it for a second, gave a passing neighborhood kid a candy cane (not technically allowed according to the details of my contract, but who was watching? Besides my Dad, anyway, and possibly Santa. The real one.), and then marched to the front door. With a white-gloved hand, I rang the doorbell.
Maybe ten seconds later, a woman opened the door. She was, my brain noted but did not process, dressed in black. "Ho ho h-" I started, and she said, "I'm sorry. My mother died last night. We canceled the party."
I'm pretty sure I dropped the candy cane I was holding. My mouth hung open underneath my scratchy Santa beard. The woman pushed the screen door open a crack and shoved a twenty into my now-empty hand. "I'm sorry we didn't call," she said, and closed my fingers around the money.
"I'm sorry," I finally squeaked out in a very un-Santa teenager voice, but the door was already closed, and she was gone.
Take the Santa story, for example. That didn't start with me getting chased. It started with my father driving me into the right neighborhood in South Philly - like I said, I was 15 at the time, so driving was right out - and my clambering out of his car in full Santa kit. Beard, check. Belly (artificial and suspiciously pillow-like), check. Hat, sack full of candy canes, you name it - all checked. And armed with stripey peppermint goodness by the double fistful, I set off for the address of the nice folks who were first on my list.
Dad, for his part, sat in the car and listened to the Eagles game. This was the first mistake of many that were made that day.
I was a party Santa, you see. My job was to come in, say "Ho Ho Ho", hand out some candy canes, and skedaddle. If the parents wanted pictures of their kids on Santa's lap, sure, that was all part of the service. But really, I was there to be jolly and make kids happy, and then amscray before anyone started tugging on the beard.
This, as you might have guessed, was a responsibility I took seriously. Very seriously. For one thing, I was terrified of screwing up. Scrawny Jewish teenagers from the suburbs are not generally your first candidates for South Philly Santas, and as this was my first time Santifying, I wanted to get it right. Besides, while we were blissfully Santa free in my childhood household - neighbors who tried to tell my three year old self that Santa had brought something for me were solemnly told that Santa couldn't stop at our place because we were Jewish - I figured it would be no fun for any kid to have a lousy Santa, and I didn't want to be responsible for any parents needing to confess awkwardly that Santa wasn't real any sooner than necessary.
So I psyched myself up to be Santa. Walked with a Santa stride. Slung my sack of candy over my shoulder jauntily. Muttered "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!" under my breath in a lousy basso profundo that sounded more bassoon in a tub of water.
And then I got to the address. It was a row home, solid and made of brick, and there were three steps up to the tiny porch at the front door. I stared at it for a second, gave a passing neighborhood kid a candy cane (not technically allowed according to the details of my contract, but who was watching? Besides my Dad, anyway, and possibly Santa. The real one.), and then marched to the front door. With a white-gloved hand, I rang the doorbell.
Maybe ten seconds later, a woman opened the door. She was, my brain noted but did not process, dressed in black. "Ho ho h-" I started, and she said, "I'm sorry. My mother died last night. We canceled the party."
I'm pretty sure I dropped the candy cane I was holding. My mouth hung open underneath my scratchy Santa beard. The woman pushed the screen door open a crack and shoved a twenty into my now-empty hand. "I'm sorry we didn't call," she said, and closed my fingers around the money.
"I'm sorry," I finally squeaked out in a very un-Santa teenager voice, but the door was already closed, and she was gone.
December 21, 2010
Once Upon A Time In Philadelphia...
...I was chased around my father's car while wearing a full Santa Claus outfit by a drunk guy in a wifebeater and jeans. True story, and lest you doubt me, let me clarify that it was south Philly. Fortunately, I was a lot less Santa-shaped then, so I could stay ahead of my pursuer until my dad (I was all of 15 at the time, and needed a chauffeur, and I swear I'll explain the whole thing at a later date) could reason with the guy.
So when I see commercials like the one from Kay jewelers where a Santa tells some jackanapes to buy his wife a present from Kay because A)Santa's spilling the beans on wifey's unimaginative Christmas list or B)Santa did some of his shopping there for Mrs. Claus, in which case I weep for the psychological trauma to be suffered by the elves when the Clauses inevitably divorce, I find myself with the uncontrollable urge to shout, "Try that in South Philly, you @#$@$Q#@$#!" at the television.
Which is probably not in the appropriate Christmas spirit. Then again, I still don't have my remote controlled Christmas pterodactyl. So there.
So when I see commercials like the one from Kay jewelers where a Santa tells some jackanapes to buy his wife a present from Kay because A)Santa's spilling the beans on wifey's unimaginative Christmas list or B)Santa did some of his shopping there for Mrs. Claus, in which case I weep for the psychological trauma to be suffered by the elves when the Clauses inevitably divorce, I find myself with the uncontrollable urge to shout, "Try that in South Philly, you @#$@$Q#@$#!" at the television.
Which is probably not in the appropriate Christmas spirit. Then again, I still don't have my remote controlled Christmas pterodactyl. So there.
