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Alter Egos - I Am Done Watching This

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Thursday, November 30, 2006

To Be Sure To Be Sure - Bertie Ahern Swallows A Brick




So Bertie (see Wise Guys and Bertie Ahern) when pressed on US torture flights through Ireland assures us that he asked The Pres about it: "I was sat closer to him than you are now and I looked at the great President Bush and said to him I wanted 'to be sure to be sure' and he assured me."

"The great...." Ugh phumph tropf...

Sorry that was Dead Beat choking on a communal glob of Irish embarrassment... which is better than swallowing a brick, I suppose.

W.C. Fields Juggles Great Literature



Did you know that W.C Fields started his act as a juggler and a very fine one at that? - now Dead Beat knows these things - so how come Fields ends up one of the best loved movie comedy stars?

Juggling of course - timing - This is Dead Beat's point all along. If you can juggle, you can make people laugh, if you can make people laugh, you can write great literature.

Just ask Beckett.

Dead Beat and The Marx Brother's Scrapbook


Dead Beat is in his element.

You know he has been feeling like hibernating. Then he went to his favourite doctor who recommended a good dose of The Marx Brothers. Well ain't life a bucket of coincidences as Forrest Gump might have put it...right?

Dead Beat is up to his usual hanging out at the hockey arena for four hours a night routine while his Little Dead Beats get their adrenelin rush. So he gathers up a handful of Little Dead Beaters and heads into the frozen waste of Pinawa. Now you have to understand Pinawa has little...very little... but perversely it has a second hand bookstore. Strangely (perversely) Dead Beat does not go there that often - mainly because the Literature section has been reduced to a half-shelf -

Anyway he goes there and although he already owns three copies of Annie Dilliard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek he buys a fourth copy because he cannot believe it is sitting there on the shelf for the pricely sum of three Canadian dollars and because it makes this feel like Dead Beat is in a secondhand bookstore in some far flung hive of literary activity.

Anyway To Cut A Long Story Short Dead Beat looks across and spots a tattered copy of The Marx Bros. Scrapbook by Groucho Marx and Richard Anobile.

For those other lovers of the brothers this is the bible.

$5.50. A snap.

D.B. is in such a good mood he splashes out $8.00 on the philosophy of The Simpson's for Eldest Little Dead Beat .

Next up - Forrest Gump and the Nietzsche Connection

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Mad Trapper Meets The Brothers Marx


Dead Beat reads that they want to exhume the Mad Trapper once again (see Cranky Meets the Mad Trapper). People want to nail down once and for all just who he is.

We're like that, you see. We need to know people's names, where they came from, what nasty little secrets they have locked away.

It's a way, is it not, of finding out something about ourselves without having to look too closely.

We laugh at the guy slipping on the banana skin because we are grateful it is not us.

Slapstick you see. The Brothers Marx. Beckett too stole the hat swapping roputine in Godot from Duck Soup. He made Film with Buster Keaton. Bim and Bom (entertainers from civil -war time Moscow) are mentioned in his work.

The heart of comedy is tragic.

The tragedy of The Mad Trapper will not be undone by digging up his body. The mystery of who he is remains the most relevant aspect of this whole story. As long as we do not know his identity, he will always be you and I.

Who is he? Just who is he?
He is. He really is.

Dial-A-Prize Winning Novel (1-800-Booker-Nobel)


Dead Beat is offering a new service - Dial-A-Prize Winning Novel (1-800-BOOKER-NOBEL)

All you have to do is provide me with your credit card number and personal taste in books.

Dead Beat will provide the political back drop, the politically aware theme, the oppression, and the full frontal display in Chapters, Indigo, Coles and all other independent-bookstores-who-care-about-literature-more-than-they-do-about-money-hah-hah-!

If Dr. Phil rejected you, Dead Beat wants your story.

Mass murderers and serial killers need apply.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Brothers Marx and Other Literary Giants


Okay Dead Beat has been getting very serious (see previous posts) - time to lighten up - and Dead Beat's true belief - you want to know anything about writing, don't look to The Brothers Karamazov but look instead to the Brothers Marx.

The Infamous Swordfish Scene from Horse Feathers.




Bouncer: Hey, Baravelli!
Baravelli: Whadaya want?
Bouncer: Watch the door for a few minutes. And don't let anyone in without the password.
Baravelli: Alright, what is it?
Bouncer: "Swordfish" is the password, d'ya understand?
Baravelli: Okay, I got it.
Bouncer: Well, what is it?
Baravelli: Password.
Bouncer: Swordfish! Swordfish!
Baravelli: Alrighta! Swordfisha! Swordfish!
Bouncer: Aahh...
Baravelli: Piazza mosco santa rumbolla fatcha duzzi patsi!
There's a knock at the door. Baravelli opens the peephole.
Baravelli: Who are you?
Wagstaff: I'm fine, thanks. Who are you?
Baravelli: I'm fine too, but you can't come in unless you give the password.
Wagstaff: Well, what is the password?
Baravelli: Oh no, you gotta tell me! (pause) Hey, I tell you what I do...I give you three guesses...It's the name of a fish...
Wagstaff: Is it Mary?
Baravelli: Ha, ha! Atsa no fish!
Wagstaff: She isn't? Well, she drinks like one. Let me see...Is it sturgeon?Baravelli: Hey, you're crazy! A sturgeon, he's a doctor cuts you open whena you sick. Now I give you one more chance.
Wagstaff: I got it! Haddock!
Baravelli: Atsa funny, I gotta haddock too.
Wagstaff: What do you take for a haddock?
Baravelli: Well now, sometimes I take aspirin, sometimes I take a calomel.
Wagstaff: Say, I'd walk a mile for a calomel.
Baravelli: You mean chocolate calomel. I like that too, but you no guess it. (Slams door. Wagstaff knocks again. Baravelli opens the peephole again.)
Hey, whatsa matta? You no understand English? You can't come in here unless you say swordfish! Now, I give you one more guess.
Wagstaff: (thinking) Swordfish...swordfish...I think I got it! Is it swordfish?

To Cut A Long Story Short

Okay, you see Dead Beat first came to Canada for a short adventure before settling down in his home country of Ireland. He had done some traveling before and had lived in Africa and the US for a while and in a remote fishing village in Cornwall, and so he thought, "Ice." Dead Beat needs ice as a Dead Beat does. And so Dead Beat sought out ice.

Dead Beat is keen to experience a new culture too.

Mrs Dead Beat and all the little Dead Beats are just as keen. So D.B. finds ice. He finds the Cree culture. In Norway House in Northern Manitoba.

Coincidentally Dead Beat discovers that it is but a stone's throw from Churchill, a town Dead Beat had read much about (having a great passion for polar bears - who knows why) but quite honestly had no clue where it was truly located.

And so Dead Beat and his family (the youngest a mere five months) pack their bags. They have found Nirvana.

Anyway to cut a long story short (fellow Dead Beaters a piece of literary advice - always cut a long story short) they intended staying there a year and then returning home - three years later they were still in Norway House - and although they have now moved, eight years later they are still in Manitoba.

Dead Beat found his ice. he found his bears, and yes, he found his nation. Norway House First Nation. The First Nation People of Canada.

And so The Government of Canada form a nation - Anyway to cut a long story short - No First Nations Need Apply.

That Darned Hudson!


So Hudson says, "You already are a nation, Dad - A damnation! Ruff!"

Monday, November 27, 2006

No Irish Need Apply












Let Old Dead Beat sing you a tune (See Dead Beat Forms A Nation).

NO IRISH NEED APPLY.

Written by JOHN F. POOLE, and sung in the good old days, with immense success, by the great Comic-Vocalist of the age, TONY PASTOR.

Dead Beat doesn't quite have his timing, but he has his flair.


I'm a dacint boy, just landed from the town of Ballyfad;
I want a situation: yis, I want it mighty bad.
I saw a place advartised. It's the thing for me, says I;
But the dirty spalpeen ended with: No Irish need apply.
Whoo! says I; but that's an insult—though to get the place I'll try.
So, I wint to see the blaggar with: No Irish need apply.
I started off to find the house, I got it mighty soon;
There I found the ould chap saited: he was reading the TRIBUNE.
I tould him what I came for, whin he in a rage did fly:
No! says he, you are a Paddy, and no Irish need apply!
Thin I felt my dandher rising, and I'd like to black his eye—
To tell an Irish Gintleman: No Irish need apply!
I couldn't stand it longer: so, a hoult of him I took,
And I gave him such a welting as he'd get at Donnybrook.
He hollered: Millia murther! and to get away did try,
And swore he'd never write again: No Irish need apply.
He made a big apology; I bid him thin good-bye,
Saying: Whin next you want a bating, add: No Irish need apply!
Sure, I've heard that in America it always is the plan
That an Irishman is just as good as any other man;
A home and hospitality they never will deny
The stranger here, or ever say: No Irish need apply.
But some black sheep are in the flock: a dirty lot, say I;
A dacint man will never write: No Irish need apply!
Sure, Paddy's heart is in his hand, as all the world does know,
His praties and his whiskey he will share with friend or foe;
His door is always open to the stranger passing by;
He never thinks of saying: None but Irish may apply.
And, in Columbia's history, his name is ranking high;
Thin, the Divil take the knaves that write: No Irish need apply!
Ould Ireland on the battle-field a lasting fame has made;
We all have heard of Meagher's men, and Corcoran's brigade.
Though fools may flout and bigots rave, and fanatics may cry,
Yet when they want good fighting-men, the Irish may apply,
And when for freedom and the right they raise the battle-cry,
Then the Rebel ranks begin to think: No Irish need apply

Hup ye boys!

Dead Beat Forms A Nation


So let's get this straight. The Canadian House of Commons has overwhelmingly passed a motion recognising the Quebecois as a nation within Canada.

Now let us understand what a 'nation' is:1) a human group bound together by ethnic ties i.e. ties of blood; 2)a territorial unit that exercises political independence.

Well the latter does not apply as they are a nation within Canada so it all boils down to having the right blood. And blood does boil.

But no that is not what our leaders are saying (because that might not be so politically astute). What we have is a 'civic nation'.

The Government when asked to explain if it included every resident of Quebec regardless of which boat their ancestors came over on? (i.e. why not Quebecers and not just Quebecois) answered, "No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Let's be clear on this." They were then asked to explain to anglo Montrealers why they are not Québécois, but they insisted they didn't say that.

How clear can you get?

Dead Beat is so glad he is Irish where we just engage in civil wars, terrorism and 'peace' processes.

Dead Beat is thinking of forming a nation of his own in Seven Sisters Falls.

No Irish or Quebecois Need Apply.