Okay, Chrismuss is two days over already, so ya got no excuse fer not payin’ attenshun ta th’ real world again. I kin say that, cuz, as a fickshunal character, I get kinda tired’a all’a you so-call’d “real” people workin’ my side’a th’ street.

So here’s yer post-Chrismuss reality check, courtesy’a me, Sparky. I don’ hafta ask any’a ya if ya got one er two things fer Chrismuss that made ya wanna fly a squadron’a drones over th’ North Pole an’ carpet-bomb Santa outta bizness. It’s a sad fact’a life that th’ joys’a Chrismuss is inevitibbly tempurred by th’ despair’a getting crappy Chrismuss prezzunts. Th’ main problem is, whaddaya do with ‘em? A lot of ‘em’ll be given to ya by people ya like, an’ they may not necessarily join ya in watchin’ a rented steamroller flatten th’ rejects from yer Chrismuss gift pile in quite th’ festive spirit ya’d anticipated. Take it frum th’ voice of experience here.

So, as a public service, but mostly ‘cuz someone left a computer unguarded, I’m gonna give ya a few friendly hints an’ tips as ta whut ta do with and/or about whut Uncle Fun refers to as “Yuletide detritus”. I think that means “crappy gifts”, but I also heard him say it while we wuz watchin’ the 87,031st rerun’a It’s a Wonderful Life on TV, so it may have multiple connatashuns.

Anyway, here goes. Getcher pencils an’ papers whut’cha found under th’ tree instead’a sumpin’ funner, an’ prepare ta take notes:

• Most lit’rutt folks like me loves books, but not all of us gets th’ books we wants fer Chrismuss (did I see 101 Ways to Tunnel into Fort Knox and Out Again wit’ a bow an’ my name tag on it this year? No). Not all’a yer unwanted Chrismuss books is useful in a doorstop er a proppin’ up a table leg kinda way, either. Those are yer bathroom books. The right place fer th’ right thing, I say. Havin’ a book ya don’ really wanna read in th’ bathroom is extra incentive ta finish up an’ get on wit’ the rest’a yer day. An’, once they’ve outlived their usefulness, ya kin take ‘em ta other people’s bathrooms. Er public washrooms, even. Be civic-minded, I say—share th’ Chrismuss joy. B’sides, yer doin’ everyone a favour if th’ stall ya leave th’ book in runs outta paper.
• If someone gave ya a DVD that’cha ain’t so fond of, ya don’ hafta repurpose it as a coaster, er take up skeet shootin’ ta dispose of it. Jus’ put ‘er in, hit th’ mute button, crank up th’ play speed ta sumpin’ like 8 er 16 times fast, an’ have a infinutt loop’a “Yakety Sax” by Boots Randolph goin’ in th’ background. Trust me—ain’t no form’a entertainment so unentertainin’ that turnin’ it inta Benny Hill can’t make it at least a li’l better.
• Evrybuddy knows that Chrismuss is th’ time fer people ta pass off inedible foods as gifts. B’fore ya clog up th’ composter wit’ all those frootcakes, plum puddin’s, mince pies, an’ other globular blobs’a guck, why not see if mixin’ ‘em all tagether makes ‘em palatable? Th’ worst that kin happen is you’ll need ta add “new blender” ta yer Chrismuss wish list fer next year. 
• R’lated ta th’ food thing is ugly Chrismuss clothing. You know, th’ kind made’a all kinds’a clashy colours’a itchy wool that feels like it was sheared offa sheep who turned nudist, then took ta wearin’ overcoats made’a Brillo pads ta keep out th’ cold. Yer gonna git yer share of it, but ya kin cut yer losses by gettin’ a friend wit’ th’ prerekwissit skills ta knit it all up inta one monstrosity instead’a severull. If nothin’ else, ya’ll have a conversashun-starter when ya wear yer brand new Chrismuss scarf-an’-mittens-socks-an’-sweater-hat.
• Along wit’ puke-inducin’ food an’ rash-inducin’ woolens, Chrismuss is first an’ foremost a time fer fun novelty items. Th’ av’rage person gits approximittly 650,000 er so’a these in their stockin’ durin’ a lifetime’a Chrismusses. A lot of ‘em do make th’ effort’a unwrappin’ ‘em basick’ly worthwhile, but more of a share of ‘em than is fair wooden’a bin novel to a caveman, an’ have about as much fun to ‘em as getting a combination colonoscopy-an’-tax-audit. Whatcha wanna do with these is take a page outta th’ book’a a Germun named Kurt Schwitters (this is one book not ta leave inna public washroom). Get yerself a vat’a hot-melt glue, slap ‘em up on th’ walls’a yer house, an’ call it art. Better yet, glue ‘em up on the walls’a someone else’s house…on th’ outside. Friend er foe, it duzzent matter—ya don’ even haftya know ‘em. Nobuddy ever said life wuz gonna be fair ta them any more’n they did ta you an’ me. Mebbe this kinda objeck lesson will make one person take a cold sober second look at any Chrismuss novelty fun items b’fore they haul off an’ buy ‘em fer their next unsuspectin’ victim.

Well, there ya have it—that’s my after-Chrismuss prezzent ta you. Do with it whatcha want. I won’t be offended if ya rent a steamroller. Jus’ save me a good seat, is all I ask.

Sparky

 

Vasco da Gama, episode #13 (or, “Deep and crisp and Vasco”)

     Not every series has to do a Christmas episode. But, it’s a good way of getting an episode out of the way without having to spend too much time thinking up a plot for it. Basically, every Christmas episode of every series ever has something to do with The True Meaning of Christmas. The wonderful thing about The True Meaning of Christmas is that there are as many true meanings as there are people who want to tell you What It Is. For the participants in the first one, The True Meaning of Christmas was Affordable Family Accommodation with an En Suite Hayloft. I suppose I really could have cheated and let the Vasco gang pass a mike around and tell everybody what they thought The True Meaning of Christmas was, while I went down to the pub, but I guess I figured that writing something wouldn’t be as much of a hassle as editing all that chitchat down.

      So, the Christmas episode of Vasco is about The True Meaning of Christmas. This much you’ve figured out so far. And (no surprise to anyone), it means that Lovably Cynical Fictional Rob gets stuck with being the guy who has to Find the True Meaning of Christmas. Fortunately, that’s pretty easy, because, for L.C.F.R., The True Meaning of Christmas is pretty much like the true meaning of any other day—it’s all about finding a way to get away from other people and have some peace and quiet.

     The upshot of this is that Lovably Cynical Fictional Rob isn’t even in the final scene of the show. He’s found his peace and quiet. The rest of you are on your own. As for me, The True Meaning of Christmas seems to have something to do with making fun of everything to do with Christmas. I don’t know why it is, but when the coloured lights and tinsel start coming out, I get to feeling like a kid with an AK-47 in a shooting gallery. It’s has to be genetic. I’m pretty sure my baby daughter’s winding up for a right hook in her first picture with a mall Santa.

    That’s probably as much wrapping as this stocking stuffer needs. It’s Christmas, after all, and the best Christmas presents are always a surprise. I’ll let you get back to your families and your loved ones. Um, I mean, your loved ones and your families. Um…no…there is no good way of rearranging those words, is there? Says a lot about Christmas, really, when you think about it. Ah, humbug. Click on the link, already, and listen. Pour yourself a cup of eggnog. Then pour it down the drain, if you know what’s good for you.

Vasco da Gama, episode #13

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. One joke that I regret not working in to the Christmas shopping scene in this one was a crack about “A Mall and the Night Visitors”. Not that anybody would have got it—but, hey, it’s Christmas, so I deserve to give myself the cheap gift of a strained culture-vulture pun. Plus, it would have been better than the oblique reference I did make to the Gian Carlo Menotti opera in question.

 

 

 

 

 

     If you haven’t planned ahead for Christmas like Sparky has (“planned a head”? Get it? Oh, never mind), it’s still not too late to make up for lost time. this year, as always, the Uncle Fun and Sparky Holiday Clearing House and Discount Factory Outlet is the place to go for all your last-minute Christmas gift ideas. (It’s also the place to go if you want to buy a discount factory, but that’s another story.)

     Before we move on to this year’s hot holiday items, I’d like to put in a word for one of our newest suppliers, Bob’s Fine Wines and Small Engine Repair of Funsville. It’s a relatively new business, but one which is already garnering renown for their work on lawn mowers, mopeds, and rototillers, as well as their unique blends of the choicest vintages of Chardonnay, Moscato, and Valvoline. Bob tells me that there’s been a run on his own private label, Chateau Intake Manifold. Apparently, they can’t keep it on the shelves. That may have more to do with the quality of the carpentry in Bob’s storeroom than the quality of the wine, though.

     Now that I’ve swapped that cheap plug for a case of Venezuelan Riesling, on to some gifts that are sure to bring joyful exultation (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) to all those who receive them this Christmas. Here we go, then—On, Dasher! On, Dancer! On, Discounts! On, Bargains!

 -And, for starters, on the general principle that anyone who’d follow a star over hill and dale just to see a baby in a bale of hay isn’t exactly among the upper intelligentsia, we bring you Stooge Manger.

 

This charming nativity scene features all the usual cast of characters—and, front and centre as the Three Wise Men, Larry, Moe, and your choice of Curly, Shemp, Joe Besser, or Curly Joe DeRita.

-Those who prefer their cinema a little more on the intellectual side will appreciate our newest holiday goodie: Candy Citizen Kanes. Like the film that inspired them, they take a bit of getting used to—some people aren’t too keen on the whole idea of licking Orson Welles, and others are put off by the strong aftertaste of rosebud.

-Speaking of edibles…if you like Christmas, and you enjoy the wholesome goodness of frozen French fries, you’re sure to love Kringle Cut Potatoes. These tasty tater treats come in the shapes of all your favourite North Pole personages—elves, reindeer, Mrs. Claus, and of course, jolly old St. Nick himself. Heat up a batch on Christmas Eve; leave a plate of them out for Santa; make them for Christmas dinner; stuff the turkey with them. They’re a great after-Christmas snack, too—if you didn’t get all the presents you were hoping for, you can get even with Santa by biting his head off.

-A truly special holiday gift item designed by (and for) my darling M’Dear is Jiggle Bells. They’re like those tassels worn by exotic dancers, only…well, if you know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, ask a friend.

-Not everyone experiences the joy (?) of celebrating Christmas in a cold, snowy climate. Many of our fair-weather friends are also interested in conserving the planet’s precious natural resources. This Christmas, they can do both, thanks to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Rain Barrel.

 

Not only does it help you save up water for…well, whatever it is people save up water for, but Rudolph’s nose lights up when he’s full, to prevent wasteful overflow and spillage.

-Last but not least…(take a deep breath, Uncle Fun—you can make it through this)…Every year, we let Sparky design and test-market a new Christmas toy, and this year is no exception. Sparky’s been concerned about what he perceives to be a distinct lack of edge, or oomph, or what have you, in the traditional Christmas characters and stories. To counteract this, he’s come up with a brand new action figure. This, hot off the drawing board, is the concept sketch for Ebeneasyrider Scrooge.

 

     Hmm…maybe next year will be an exception.

     Merry Christmas to you and yours (and to somebody else’s as well, if you know them) from all of us (and then some),

Uncle Fun

P.S. If th’ Larry, Moe an’ Curly nativity scene goes over big this Chrismuss, next year I’m gonna do The Three Scrooges.

Sparky

 

 



Vasco da Gama, episode #12 (or, “Me, my stick, and my lion”)

     Here’s an early Christmas present for all of you—one of my favourite episodes of Vasco. This episode marks a turning point in the series—not since Episode #6 (“The Maltese Vasco”) had the writing flowed as well for me; this is the episode where I felt like I was finally in some kind of groove, a happy frame of mind which would allow me to braid as much freewheeling silliness as I damn well pleased into a basic (if flexible) structure.

     Make no mistake, this episode is SILLY. It makes no apologies for being silly. And it takes every opportunity to poke fun at how silly it is, thanks to Rob. This is really where I started to get a handle on how to write for Rob Vincent the character, and for Rob Vincent, the actor playing the character. Rob’s more than just a put-upon straight man in the Bud Abbott mould—he incorporates the real Rob’s appreciation of the absurd. Even while grumbling about what an utter waste of time and effort the latest absurdity is, he plays along with it, like a cat playing with a toy mouse. Like kitty’s facsimile rodent, the circumstances at hand aren’t likely to go anywhere, or offer any surprises, unless they’re given a bit of a nudge. Both Robs, real and fictional, know this; when the fictional Rob works best in Vasco, he’s a kibitzer at the crap table of life, making wry remarks on how obviously loaded the dice are, just to see how quickly it makes some sucker go bust trying to prove him wrong.  

     The game in this episode is one called “How to Get Away with Murder”. As in “The Maltese Vasco”, Rob shows up just when the bodies begin to drop. This time around, he’s stumbled into every British murder mystery cliché I could cram into a half-hour…well, I’m pretty sure they’re from British murder mysteries, anyway. Confession time: I like watching British murder mysteries, but I have a hard time staying awake through them. I have a knack of passing out sometime between when Suspect Number Three is introduced and Dead Body Number Two is discovered, and not waking up again until just before the closing credits. I’ve never figured out why this is. It could be that my subconscious latched onto the idea that the explanation you get right at the end of even the best British murder mystery makes the same amount of sense whether you’ve watched any of the rest of it or not. It’s also a fact (insofar as I’ve been able to tell before dozing off) that the victims in British murder mysteries always seem to have it coming. Maybe I find the prospect of the cream of British twitdom being bumped off one by one particularly soothing.

     There’s more to this episode than silly British voices (as if that isn’t enough right there) and Rob making a bid for the Commonwealth record for laconic sleuthing (Laconic? He makes Inspector Lewis look like Jerry Lewis). But that’s enough to go on for now. It is a murder mystery, after all…it wouldn’t do to spoil the suspense.

     I see you haven’t clicked on the link yet. Maybe that’s because I haven’t given it to you. So here it is, already:

Vasco da Gama, episode #12

     I’ll ditch the Master of Suspense act long enough to let you in on a secret about one of the sound effects you’re going to hear. We needed the sound of a basketball being dribbled and shot with an audible lack of expertise, and we needed the sound to sync up (more or less) with the dialogue we’d already recorded. Imagine my surprise to find that no such effect could be found in any catalogue of pre-recorded effects. Our solution was simplicity itself. Just beside the recording studio was (and still is) a poured-concrete stairwell with all the aesthetic charm of a Cold War-era Polish prison. Its lack of visual beauty was (and is) more than made up for by its acoustic properties. Put a microphone in the right place in this stairwell, and you can fake anything from Mammoth Cave to the Grand Canyon. We set the mike up to fake the echo of a school gymnasium, and, guided by the faith that just the right thing would appear because we now needed it to, went in search of the basketball that someone was sure to have left lying around a campus radio station in case someone should ever need to bounce it in a stairwell and record it for posterity.

     I should mention that it was about 3 AM at the time, so this line of thinking made perfect sense—and, if not exactly perfect sense, then at least no less sense than any other line of thinking we were likely to come up with on short notice. Because we were young then and our hearts were pure, our faith was rewarded with…a half-deflated volleyball. Not exactly what we were hoping for, but if Providence (or any other city in Rhode Island) sends you a half-deflated volleyball, even without a pump to blow it back up, at 3 AM, in a place where there shouldn’t be any volleyball at all, half-deflated or not, you don’t quibble—you just dribble.

     Child’s play, really. If only we’d had a child handy to do it for us. Chasing a half-deflated volleyball down three flights of stairs at 3 AM loses its charm after the third or fourth time.

 

 

 

 

 

Give Mary a rest, ye gentlemen (or however that goes), I’m here.

Yes, back by popular demand if not utter necessity, it’s me, Milady Madeira M’Dear, brewer of potions and thinker of notions (and applier of lotions, but only by special request). We’ve got us another Friday the Thirteenth, and this one’s just before Christmas, so I’m on duty again, as this space’s provider of aid and succour to the superstitious (and when it comes to superstition, there’s a succour born every minute).

Anyway, you can all uncross your fingers, leave your four-leaf-clovers in the old safety deposit box, and put the horseshoes back on the horse. When it comes to Christmas (and Christmas is coming, after all), thirteen is a very lucky number. Today, December 13th, means that there are thirteen days, counting today, until Christmas, counting Christmas (and who doesn’t count Christmas?). And, don’t forget -- there are only twelve days of Christmas, not thirteen. That’s plenty lucky. If you had a house full of swans a-swimming, geese a-laying, pipers piping, drummers drumming, lords a-leaping, partridges in pear trees, and whatnot, the last thing you’d want to see on Day 13 would be another delivery van pulling up to your door.

But wait -- there's more. There are thirteen notes in the first three lines of “Good King Wenceslas” (well, the first verse, anyway -- that's all I know), and thirteen notes in the first and third lines of each verse of “Away in a Manger”. And I’ll bet you there were only thirteen rooms at that inn with the manger (you know the one), and that it was the thirteenth inn that Mary and Joseph stopped at. Even if it wasn’t, it should have been. And that’s the true meaning of Christmas, now isn’t it?  

With all that in mind, since there’s a few shopping days left (thirteen, counting yesterday, which doesn’t count anymore), I thought I’d give you all some holiday gift ideas involving that lucky Christmas number, 13:

-         A baker’s dozen donuts. Heck, a baker’s dozen of anything that bakers make. Seriously, who sells things in baker’s dozens anymore? Cheapskates...as if we needed any more proof that we’re in a recession.

-         A deck of cards with all thirteen hearts marked, for playing hearts with. This is especially useful if you play hearts for money. (I was Rookie of the Year on the international celebrity pro-am hearts tournament circuit before anyone got wise.)

-         The Marx Brothers made thirteen movies, so a DVD of any one of those’ll do you good. Okay, maybe not so much any of the ones they made after A Night at the Opera. Well, the first half of A Day at the Races isn’t bad, I guess. And their first one --The Cocoanuts -- kind of drags in places, too. So maybe there’s only really five Marx Brothers movies you’d want to get as a gift. Five out of thirteen is a heck of a good average for comedy. You try being funny thirteen times and see if you get five good laughs.

-         Some Louis XIII furniture would be nice to give someone (like me)...if you can afford to give it. If you can’t, just pick up any old wooden chair at a garage sale or a St. Vincent de Paul store or wherever, and scratch “Louis XIII was here” on it. It’s the thought that counts, you know.

-         If you’re a New York Yankees fan, the best gift you could get would be somebody other than Alex Rodriguez inside the number 13 jersey next season. If you’re a fan of any team that plays against the Yankees...well, the opposite of that.

-         A great gift for everyone in Canada would be 13 Conservative MPs pulling a no-show for a confidence vote (especially if it involves a motion of censure or, better yet, a bill of impeachment).

So, don’t get all hung up on thirteens -- like everything else about luck, numbers are what you make of them. Remember, lucky old number 7 is really a 13, as far as base 4 is concerned. The best thing you can do for yourself this Friday, December the 13th is to enjoy a couple of base 4 thirteens -- or, as it’s usually called, a seven and seven. Get right into the spirit of the day (you bet that was a pun intended), and have it in a nice tall 13-ounce glass. I know I’m gonna.

 

Milady M. M’Dear



Vasco da Gama, episode #11 (or, “Boy, does my suit hurt”)

     Here’s what you need to know before you listen to this one: Vasco disappears. That’s apparently all any of us at Vasco da Gama Memories Central have found noteworthy about it. Ian McKay supplied the original idea and some of the material for this episode, which takes us to Vasco’s home (He has a home? Who knew?), a comedy club, and an immigration office before landing us back in the studio. All I can really add to this terse description is an apology to the friends I’ve made among touring comedians since this episode was first broadcast. My description of the meaning and purpose of comedy clubs might be just a bit skewed and unfair.

     My view on something skewed? Unfair? The mind boggles. Actually, I think the word I’m looking for here is something more along the lines of “Marxist”. The representatives of the artisan class who ply their trade on the comedy club circuit don’t get much of a break in the “control of the means of production” department. I don’t want to say that comedy club owners are bourgeois capitalist oppressors, but I also don’t want to say that they rival Robin Hood exactly when it comes to sharing the wealth. I also don’t want to say that comedy club owners fall into two categories, but if I did, I’d characterize them as follows: 1. Failed comedians; 2. Failed comedians. Those who can, do; those who can’t, charge admission and collect the profits.

     Yeah, I know, that puts me just to the left of Trotsky. Hey, he had to be in charge of the Soviet Red Army before the club owners would let him do a set on anything but open mike night.

     Other than that, you’re on your own for this one, comrades. There’s the link below—click and listen:

Vasco da Gama, episode #11

     And no, I don’t remember what the deal was with that running gag about the Swiss, either. Maybe Ian or I was thinking about sealed trains and Lenin in disguise. Probably not, though.



P.S. Ever self-deprecating, Ian has this to add: “I look forward to a MacSnoopeigh-heavy episode. It makes for a good drinking game. One sip every time I swallow a word, two if it is a punchline. A shot for every time I mispronounce a word or stumble on a line.” Actually, the comedy club scene is pretty much a two-hander between Ian and Kel, so there’s a fair bit of MacSnoopeigh in this episode, but I don’t recall any stumbles. This may be because I was busy deliberately stumbling over my jokes as one of the stand-up comics heard in the background. You can all drink to that if you want to.

 

 

 

 

Greetings, Children of God,

     And I call you that because I don’t know you…I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. You could all be the illegitimate children of Wilt Chamberlain (whatever that means), as far as I’m concerned. In case you don’t know (and you obviously don’t, or I’d have heard from all of you…greeting cards and so forth -- baskets of fruit, exotic cheeses, that sort of thing), I am St. Nicholas, and this is my day.

     Yes, today -- December 6 -- not Christmas. I am NOT Santa Claus. What I am is the patron saint of children, among other things, those other things including (but not limited to) fishermen, sailors (the International Seafarers’ Union found out I was representing the fishermen, and charged me with restraint of trade…do not mess with the I.S.U., if you know what’s good for you), coopers (those are wooden barrel-makers, not wooden movie actors who needed to empty their minds of the wit and wisdom of Ayn Rand and fill them up with a few pointers on delivering their lines with conviction), broadcasters, the falsely accused, repentant thieves (same basic category for those last three), merchants (same as the last bunch, minus the “falsely” and “repentant” parts) and druggists (a group I find I have to seek out altogether too much after dealing with all those other ones). My one and only connection with Christmas is that I’m also the patron saint of pawnbrokers. I’m not talking about that O. Henry story with the watch and the combs, either -- these days, the true meaning of Christmas seems to be to get as far into hock as possible before the fiscal year draws to a close.

     As for Christmas, yes, I used to have the job of handing out presents, but thankfully that’s been handed over to that revoltingly jovial fellow Santa Claus -- who, I repeat, is not me, and bears as much resemblance to me as a mall Santa does towards…well, towards any recognizably human form of life. He can have the job, and he can keep it, and if he wants to give it back, he can go to some exchange counter with his gift receipt, and leave me holly-jolly well out of it.

     It’s not as if I asked to do it in the first place. I was…I believe the phrase I’m looking for is “army volunteered”. I should have known that something was up when I got wind that they were planning on giving me a feast day in December. (This is where St. Christopher has it over all the rest of us -- if I’d been patron saint of travellers, I’d have booked myself an extended vacation where no-one could find me.) One thing led to another, and after a lot of “since we’ve done something nice for you this close to Christmas, we thought you wouldn’t mind”, I’m stuck with a sack on my back and a list of addresses, and all without so much as a by-your-leave or a would-you-like-a-truss-to-go-with-that.

     It’s not as if other saints don’t have feast days a lot closer to Christmas -- but wouldn’t you know that St. Rufus, St. Lucian, St.Theodulus, St. Ammon, St. Bodagisil, St. Hunger, and all the rest of those goldbricks were conveniently absent when roll call was taken. (By the way, how does a saint named “Hunger” even rate a feast day? I really should speak to someone about that.) No -- what I got, along with a bag of trinkets and a hernia, was the lame explanation that I was the biggest sainted celebrity among December honorees, and thus to me fell this signal and dubious honour. Star power, and all that.

     To that I say “and what exactly is St. John the Apostle doing until his feast day on December 27th?” I can tell you what -- he's pulling rank on me…not to mention sitting with his feet up, sipping Galileean port, and having a grand old apostolic laugh at my expense, while I schlep around playing UPS man to an ungrateful human race. Forget a helping hand from any of the other Apostles, either -- loaves and fishes they can pitch in with…for me, nothing. Too busy speaking in tongues in an attic somewhere for the likes of me, I suppose.

     Would you like to know all the aid and comfort I ever had with all of this holiday haulage and cartage?

     I had a horse.

     A horse.

     One. Singular.

ONE.

Lousy.

HORSE.

     No sleigh, no team of reindeer -- just one single, solitary, broken-down, exhausted horse. If it wasn’t broken-down before Christmas, I can tell you that it finished as a total write-off. I went through a horse a year -- and with no chance of a decent trade-in, thanks to the condition they wound up in, thanks to you greedy lot.

     So Santa Claus can have the job, and six or seven others like it, if he wants to. I’m content to have this day (which nobody notices anyway -- would an e-mail kill you people? A text message? I’d settle for something that said nothing other than “LOL”, or was composed entirely of those little smiley faces made out of punctuation), get it out of the way, and spend the next two-and-a-half weeks looking for someplace to be where I don’t have to hear sleigh bells, hoofbeats on the roof, or any of the rest of that claptrap. The rest of you can have Santa. You deserve each other. Anyone who laughs “ho ho ho” should be relocated to a padded cell…or at the very least, be put to work selling frozen vegetables.

     Matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if that nutcase was moonlighting as the Green Giant. You can’t switch that level of jolliness on and off…it needs an outlet the other 364 days of the year. I mean, honestly -- do you know how giddy you would have to be to put up with living at the North Pole?

     Yours, etc. (oh, what do you care? I know I don’t),

Nicholas

(Saint and Christmas Present-lugger Emeritus)

 

P.S. A postcard...one miserable little postcard -- is that too much to ask?



Vasco da Gama, episode #10 (or, “Café Coincidence”)

     Allow me to show you to your table at the most transparent framing device ever. It’s all pretty simple, really—Rob and MacSnoopeigh go to a restaurant where everyone they meet is somebody they know. Not only that, but every one of those somebodies has a story that segues into a completely unrelated scene.

     A cheap cop-out? A way of recycling old or unused material? A testament to my laziness as a writer? Well, only partially. I knew in advance that Kel wasn’t available for this episode. No Kel means no Mrs. Vasco da Gama, and no Mrs. Vasco da Gama means no “Vasco” scene, since the “Vasco” scene is basically all about Mrs. Vasco verbally cutting her husband down to size. This is the only essential difference in basic format between this episode and Episode #4 (“Occupation: Unemployed”). It may be that one of the scenes in this Vasco is a leftover from a draft of that earlier episode—it’s about Rob interviewing for a job.

     Another scene is a definite Vasco first—well, two firsts, actually. It’s the first face-to-face (voice-to-voice? Take your pick; it’s radio) meeting between Science Boy and Professor Proteus, and the first time in Vasco that I played against myself in the same scene. And I do mean the same scene—what you’ll hear is not the result of intercutting or overdubbing, but almost-careful writing. The Expositron machine in this scene should really have been called the Let-Rick-Take-a-Breath-and-Switch-Characters machine. That’s what it’s there for…other than getting off a few sarcastic sallies at the expense of Science Boy, of course.

     I haven’t much else to say about this episode. (This is a testament to my laziness as a chronicler.) For his part, Ian has “a hazy memory of Kel and Rick doing their Mel and Flo from Alice”. That’s pretty hazy, alright…Kel wasn’t there, and I think we’d all have remembered her telling us to kiss her grits.

     I’ll add one more thing about framing devices, though: blame it on Joseph Conrad. I was a quite the Conrad nut at this time in my life; a lot of his major works are structured around the framing device of people sitting around swapping stories. So, while you’re listening to “Café Coincidence”, just imagine that everyone’s on a boat instead of at a restaurant, and is talking about mysterious goings-on at sea, or merchant captains gone rogue in the far reaches of the African jungle. And, while you’re at it, see if you can spot the framing device that frames the main framing device for…  

Vasco da Gama, episode #10

     That last bit wasn’t a framing device, folks—it was just a cheap hand-off to a link. Joseph Conrad, eat your heart out.

 

 

Now we know why he’s been keeping such a low profile lately…

Vasco da Gama, episode #9 (or, “Vasco Confidential”)

     Memories are what you make them…and what better place to explore that idea than at a high school reunion? I can think of a few without really trying, but that’s the theme of this episode of Vasco, so we’re all stuck with it.

     I probably shouldn’t give you the impression that I know anything about high school reunions, since I’ve never been to one. Everything I’ve seen about them in movies and on TV portrays the institution of the high school reunion as a giant game of “can you top this?” in a gym festooned with crappy crepe paper streamers. I’m not particularly keen on hanging around people I’ve been trying to avoid since I was sixteen, just to hear them tall tales about themselves. The only possible interest for me would be to compare the tales with the ones they told about themselves when we were in high school.

     There’s one character at the reunion in this episode who does nothing but tell tall tales, and wouldn’t you know that one of his most blatantly obvious exercises in falsifying memory led to other people hearing what they wanted to hear to give an ego boost to their own worldview. Yep, high school all over again, folks.

     Here’s the background on it: in the early 1990s, Wal-Mart had just come to Canada. Their stores are all over the country right now, and I’d be lying if I said I never shopped there. What galled me about Wal-Mart at the time was the rah-rah employee culture they tried (and subsequently failed) to impose on the minimum-wagers who were reduced to seeking a paycheque from them. Uniforms are a necessary evil in retail—although this doesn’t explain the countless times I’ve been asked by a fellow customer in one store or another “do you work here?”, even when I’ve been wearing a shirt that couldn’t have been a more obviously different colour from the ones that the store employees wore if I’d just finished dipping it in a vat of dye with everybody watching me. As I said, uniforms are all well and fine, but making cash register jockeys sing fight songs and do cheers at the beginning of every soul-sucking shift starts to veer towards the totalitarian. I’m also pretty sure it’s against the Geneva Convention. I’ll lay a wager that enforced singing was at least mooted as a possible addition to the list of charges at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

     People who are aware of some of civilization’s less-than-finer moments from the Twentieth Century might be able to guess where this is going. One of the scenes in this episode is an anecdote by a character who has already been proven to be the proud owner of an unreliable memory whose chief defining characteristic is hyperbole. He compared working at a Wal-Mart-like department store to being in…

     …wait for it…

     …a World War II German prisoner of war camp.

     Everybody get that? A prisoner of war camp. NOT a concentration camp. There’s a difference (see “Geneva Convention”, above). Not only that, but it’s based (albeit ham-fistedly) on a specific FICTIONAL German prisoner of war camp—the one in the movie Stalag 17. I’m going to digress for a second to mention that the key German military personnel in this film were portrayed by actors who had fled Nazi Germany. Not exactly members of the Hitler Fan Club, any of them. As a matter of fact, one of the points that Stalag 17 made, and rather graphically, was that collaborating with the Nazis—no matter what nationality you were—meant that you deserved to have the crap beaten out of you. This is one of the functions of art in a civilized society, folks. It forces us to look at things we might prefer to remember never happened, in an effort to ensure that we understand why they must never happen again.

     I mention this so you have some sense of why I hit the ceiling when we got that letter from Simon Fraser University’s radio station. SFU was one of a handful of little outfits across Canada that broadcast Vasco da Gama during the time we were trying to turn the show into a cottage industry. It never got past the status of a lean-to, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, my memories of the emotions I felt are coming back very clearly to me (I think “seething rage” is a fair, if understated, description), so now is a prudent time to turn the floor over to others in the Vasco gang who remember the whole thing with considerably more sang-froid than I do. Ian’s memory of the experience runs like this:

There was a joke in this episode where an idiot character compared the department store they worked in to a POW camp. I believe Rob, the character, called him an idiot. I seem to recall a line about the Germans rounding up everybody with more skin pigment than Ronald MacDonald. Our friends at Simon Fraser got upset about any reference to World War Two, any reference (no matter how tangential ) to the Germans putting people in camps without specifically referencing their persecution of homosexuals and gypsies, and the worst crime of all was mentioning a corporate shill in the same sentence as any of this stuff. That diminished the importance, etc., etc. The interesting thing was that we did the math and SFU must have ran the episode at least twice before they got upset and pulled it. This is either a testament to how tolerant our audience was or it tells us that not even the people playing the tape were paying attention.

     You read that right, folks. People who made it to all the way to university—and a university with one of Canada’s best political science departments—didn’t know the difference between a POW camp governed by a set of internationally-agreed-upon rules and places like Auschwitz, which were governed by terror, hatred, racism, and every other unpleasant aspect of human nature you can imagine. I don’t even want to speculate on whether they could tell the difference between the prison at Guantanamo Bay and the song “Guantanamera”, whether sung by Trini Lopez or not.

     Okay, now I’ve got bad music running through my head, so over to Kel, who remembers that “we actually had a character who sounded like Hitler…I believe that triggered their upset”. Well, the character was based on a Nazi, but not quite so high-ranking or factual a one. As writer and performer of this particular role, I can tell you that what you’ll hear was my bargain-basement impression of Otto Preminger as the POW camp commandant in Stalag 17. I think Kel must be remembering what I sounded like in the studio between takes while we were recording…

Vasco da Gama, episode #9

     Like how I just seamlessly slid into the link there, folks? It’s a good thing that all this stupidity happened so long ago, and that I’m over it. Otherwise, I’d use the rest of this space to say some things to the Thought Police from Simon Fraser who sent us that letter…things about how vital it is to get your facts straight before going off half-cocked—particularly when you work in a university setting. However, I’m sure that the greater sense of justice that governs the Universe has taken care of this. If they haven’t learned to think first and speak only when they’re sure of what they’re talking about, the sort of advancement that a post-secondary education is supposed to provide will have been denied them, and they’ll be working in a Wal-Mart somewhere.

     Of course, there is always the remotest possibility that justice has been delayed, and that they’ve gone on to post-graduate degrees and teaching positions. In that case, I’m sure that their inability to leave preconceived notions and biases aside when examining facts has made them the laughing stock of one student body after another as they’ve bounced down the pedagogical ladder, watching their careers disintegrate into hopelessness on their descent. In the faint chance that hasn’t happened, I’d probably advise current university students not to be too quick to trust any statement made by a professor who waxes nostalgic about their carefree college days of the early 1990s, when they ran Simon Fraser’s radio station.

     Fortunately, I’m above that sort of thing now.

     Or am I…? I really can’t remember…