Letters From the Desert (Abridged Version) -- March 21, 2005 (original)


Part I: Hard Scribbles from some Outpost in Heathrow


Slept, woke, packed for Arabia, and left for the airport.

Toronto to Heathrow was pretty uneventful aside from a little scene before takeoff in which I got to play a brief role:

Note: some names have been changed either to blatantly stereotype a character's nationality or to reinforce their disposition.

Scene: Airplane Cabin

Players

Angus: Scottish, mid-'40s, built like a tank, grey handlebar moustache, sitting in Row 31, Seat H(aisle)

Kris the Steward: English, mid-'30s, slim build, glasses, ambiguous sexual orientation

Nick: Canadian, early '20s, built like a guy who drank a lot in college, tired and condescending, sitting in Row 31, Seat K (window)

Madam Scourge: nationality unknown - possibly Italian, '50s, reddish brown hair, short, built like a Roald Dahl villainess.

Man in seat 29K
Stewardesses
Passengers

(Nick looks up and observes that there is a loud, abrasive woman getting visibly upset with a steward who is calmly asking her to switch seats as there was a change in the seating plan)

Madam Scourge: No, I am sitting here!

Kris the Steward (calmly): I'm sorry ma'am but we have had to switch you from 29K to 32K. You see, it is just three rows back and....

Scourge: No! I paid for this seat and I am sitting here! You're being unfair to me! I will not move back there! I paid for this seat!

Kris the Steward: I'm sorry but we have had to switch your seat, (points to the man in 29K) for this man requires a seat next to his infirmed mother who could very well be heading back to her homeland for the very last time.

Scourge: I don't care! I paid for this seat! This is unfair!

(Kris the Steward tries calmly to convince her to move and that seating charts can and do often change. Realizing that Kris is losing his patience with the Scourge, two stewardesses take over and give him a break from the madness)

Angus (to Kris the Steward, in a rough Scottish brogue): Arre therre eneh seats oatside the plane she could se'en?

(Kris the Steward does not hear acknowledge Angus' witty remark, as his ingrained imperialistic haughtiness will not allow him to laugh along with the Scot)

(Scourge, still on her feet, and defying all logic brought before her by crewmember or passenger, meets every stare with the fire and tenacity of an enraged bull. She eventually locks eyes with Nick who, despite feeling the intensity of a thousand hells tearing deep inside his very soul, bravely returns her stare)

Scourge: What? Do you not think it's unfair? I paid for THIS seat!!!

Nick: On the contrary ma'am, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I'd love to arrive in Heathrow three rows earlier. In fact, I hear that the food is better for those before Row 30, and not just on this flight, but in the whole of England! Just show the restaurateur or whomever your Boarding Pass and you'll have some of the finest haute cuisine ever imagined...on the cheap,too! If I were you, ma'am, I'd fight this tooth-and-nail. (the resulting glare from Scourge makes every hair on Nick's body stand up and it feels like his eyes are melting from within but the young man is resolved not to give this woman any quarter)

(finally, after many more minutes of nonsensical ravings, Scourge relents and lets Kris the Steward show her to her new seat, directly behind Nick)

Scourge: This is unfair! You see?

(shortly after takeoff, Nick decides to recline his seat back. Scourge, despite having her "unwanted" row completely to herself, finds a problem with this)

Scourge: Move your seat up! I cannot see my TV (of course she could).

Nick (after a brief deliberation - aware of the fact she could spend the next six hours kicking the back of his chair - turns around): I'm sorry, but that would be unfair.

(cocks his seat as far back as it will go, until he hears the metal creak. Angus and Nick down a bottle of whiskey with smiles from ear-to-ear)

End.

I kind of felt like an asshole after the last remark, but I had precious little time to dwell on it: I had six-and-a-half hours and I would be damned if it were going to involve self-realization. I mean, hell, The Incredibles was coming on soon.

When I landed in Heathrow to the "Clear Skies" (foggy as 'ell) as reported by the GPS and our pilot, I had a few hours to enjoy a latte and a couple fags (I'm in England remember) and scribble some embellished garbage about some lady who wouldn't change seats or something like that, in my lovely Dalhousie ledger.

The second flight was uneventful:

I tried to watch Closer, but I fell asleep instead. Until the dinner cart ran over my toe.
I tried to eat some lamb for dinner. Airplane lamb...mmmmm.
I tried to read, but it wasn't going to happen. I was too tapped out.

At long last I arrived at the Abu Dhabi airport, where I was ushered about like a child by a lovely young Chinese woman who whisked me through customs and baggage claim, wasting no time with the plebs in line. Now, the Abu Dhabi airport is like Halifax International on acid: maybe a bit larger, the walls and ceilings are adorned with a garish lime-green and yellow mosaic pattern and people were hacking butts everywhere.

I was struck with wonder at how these Arab men, surrounded all day by plumes of acrid smoke, tar, and nicotine, can keep their man-dresses so pristine and white.

But then, there's a lot about the Muslim faith I do not understand.

Eulogy for Chris Penn -- January 27, 2006 (original)


Sometimes you wake up in the morning, a thin coat of cold sweat clinging to your body, muscles tensed as if jolted by an electric pulse, eyes bleary, and you just know something is wrong; something is terribly, terribly wrong. You cringe when you pick up the paper, hoping against hope, praying that you're just being silly or falling ill. But then..........BAM! A cold shower, a punch in the face, the collective shrieks of every baby on every flight you've ever been on: combined, these are all minor inconveniences, definitely not worthy of an email, compared with what I found on the third page of the fourth section of the free paper I found stuck to the floor of my bus this morning:


I speak, of course, of the passing one of the great actors, nay, legends of the silver screen:

Chris Penn, 1965-2006.

Known outside Hollywood circles primarily as Sean's younger, more talented and better-looking brother, Penn's distinctive thespian talents hoisted him head and shoulders above his contemporaries.

Lest we forget the tearjerking sensitivity conveyed by Mr. Penn in his hauntingly subtle performance as Manetti in Starsky and Hutch, nor can we disregard the fact that the success or failure of the Best of the Best franchise rested squarely on his broad, pockmarked shoulders (which will ultimately be for the historians to decide). I will reluctantly mention Reservoir Dogs and True Romance, admittedly two of his less celebrated performances, though the films themselves have acquired something of a quiet cult following, or so I'm told. In no small part thanks to Penn, of that I am certain.

While today's younger generation will most likely remember Penn as a roly-poly instigator in films like Corky Romano, Rush Hour, and his winning cameo in that episode of Entourage, many of us cannot help but hearken back to an earlier, more innocent time: 1984.

Without the instinctive comedic timing and sophisticated buffoonery only he could bring to the role of Willard Hewitt in Footloose, Denise Williams' "Let's Hear it For the Boy" would probably just be another pop music castoff left to toil obscurely in the annals of '80s movie soundtracks.

Sadly, we can no longer hold out hope that Mr. Penn will break out the dancing shoes with Kevin Bacon for a Footloose sequel, nor can we expect his triumphant return as Floyd from Beethoven's 2nd, but each and every one of us can hold on, and tightly, to our favourite memories of an actor John Lithgow once described as, simply, "too handsome for celluloid."

Let's Hear It For Chris Penn.

(What? Too soon?)