Month: May 2017

The Two Stooges…3

…Of course it didn’t come to that. Being juvenile in mind and in body both of us were placed on probation for six months with a stern warning. It worked as it was extremely embarrassing for us, especially me, given that the Morrison name was fairly recognizable in the hallowed halls of justice in this shit hole of a city. My Grandfather Morrison was a cop, his son-in-law was a cop and every cop of Scottish, Irish descent in this Orange shit city knew about this case. The Gaelic, Celtic grapevine was faster than today’s Internet. Like Minority Report, they all knew about me and this particular indiscretion before I did or before it even happened. I was doomed for in those days having any sort of record, misdemeanour or felony, was a fate worse than death as manual labour was about all one could hope to acquire in the employment world if one had a record such as this. As it turned out the son-in-law cop was very high up there on the cop scale so unbeknownst to me my name was expunged of any record. Whew! That would come in handy later.

Timmy always had a lot of money. Wads of it. His mother had him and his other siblings modelling for the various catalogues and magazines that were popular with the locals. He was paid very well for these showings. In fact his mother preferred these modelling outings to his schoolwork. He missed a lot of school and barely got by in Elementary School but in High School he had to repeat Grade 9 and 10 a plethora of times. Nevertheless, his financial largesse to us was his way into friendship, or so it seemed to him, as he played on this financial pecuniary card to fraternize with his so called favourite buds or eviscerate the feelings of those of us that he thought unworthy of his attention. In this way I felt sorry for him.

My mother was empathetic when it came to Timmy. He would show up at our door in the winter with the top part of his shoes missing, toes open to the elements, or wearing a thin summer jacket when temperatures were well below zero. It was obvious that he was neglected but at the time this never occurred to me. He was fun to be with, crazy in his outlook on just about everything and most of all he had money to burn! And, he loved the Stooges.

Timmy, Jimmymum, O’Grunts and I became inseparable in those drug induced summers of love days of the 60s. While everyone else it seemed had lost their collective minds to sex drugs and rock-n-roll we just carried on, squarely, boringly normal. We did form a band at one time with visions of rock n roll glory, had a few gigs, then disbanded as Jimmymum’s car was his real guitar, O’Grunts became somewhat of a druggie; a hipster in his Nehru jackets and exceptionally wide bell bottomed slacks. Bruce, our lead guitarist, left for India to discover himself. I told him that all he had to do was look in the mirror. Timmy and I just hung out…

The Two Stooges…2

…Ed Sullivan dominated Sunday evening’s showcasing new musical talent, including the British Invasion that revolutionized the music industry. There was also Shindig, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, Saturday Night Hockey, Wrestling…real wrestling, Wide World of Sports, Sonny and Cher, Smothers Brothers and Laugh-in, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Hee Haw and on and on it went and all covered off by just three national networks instead of the three hundred plus specialty channels that we have today with its paucity of talent, inventiveness, innovation and creativity. The sexual revolution was about to explode upon us in 1964 but damn it all anyway, at the tender age of 13, we were just a bit too young to appreciate what was going on or coming our way. The drug culture was also about to detonate like some psychedelic undulating, modulating explosive mind game but that only scared the bee-jee-zus out of us. No matter, the music was awesome and we spent many a Saturday afternoon at one of our houses, in the basement, or at the local restaurant, pool hall, plying what seemed to be an endless supply of nickels or dimes and quarters into that jukebox.

It was this sort of musical magic that got Timmy and I into a spot of trouble. One afternoon at the local mall, Timmy decided to lift a few albums that he had his eye on, placing them down the front of his pants. It wasn’t so much the square flattened bulge of his pants that gave him, us, away but his stiff legged robotic gait in getting the hell out of there. It was as if he had a large load in his pants. I am sure that they had us on their monitors as it came as no surprise to us that we were cornered by security on the way out. Timmy, the perp, and me, guilty by association.

We were charged and had to go to court. Timmy being Timmy had a brilliant idea. He didn’t let me in on his intent but before we came before the judge and prosecutor Timmy had his toothbrush ready to go, just in case. It was a standard brush but he attached a little bit of string to it with a small handle attached. It was kind of funny to see. One had to be there to see the humour in it. He was also ready with a retort if it came to that:

“So Mr Saunders” said the Judge “What do you have to say for yourself?

“Not much yer Honour”

“Given the evidence against you I do find you guilty and charge you with either 5 days detention or 50 dollars. What is your decision”

“Oh, that’s easy yer honour. I’ll take the fifty bucks: Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk”…

The Two Stooges

Hey Moe, hey Larry, nyuk,nyuk,nyuk.

I first met Timmy in Grade Six. I didn’t really hang out with him but just knew of him. And the fact that he was an alter boy, so I used to see him carrying on up there on the alter during some of the Sunday services I went to. Sitting there on a side bar of pews by the main alter joking, giggling, snickering with the other alter boys making fun of the priests and members of the congregation. He was a bit of a jester in that regard.

We sort of became good friends, not close though, in Grade Eight, just as the Beatles made their debut in North America, February 1964. We both loved their music but also the other bands of the so called British Invasion: Rolling Stones, Animals, the Kinks, The Who, Dave Clark Five, Moody Blues, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman’s Hermits, well not really Herman’s Hermits. Of course there were other American Bands that were also making an impact around that time such as the perennial favourite Beach Boys, Sam and Dave, Vanilla Fudge, Sam Cooke, Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan, Three Dog Night. Supremes. Temptations, Ugly Ducklings. Unfortunately Elvis was caught up in all of those crappy musicals at the time and wouldn’t really make a statement until his triumphant come back concert of 1968. And as the 60s progressed the music became even more awesomely progressive with the likes of David Bowie, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Procol Harem, The Moody Blues, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye and CCR. Musically, it was a great time to be alive.

Timmy and I had a great deal in common in that regard. We both liked the same stuff, were big fans of the Three Stooges and along with O’Grunts and Jimmy-mum carried on like Curly, Larry, Moe and Shemp. It was pure immaturity, sprinkled with a bit of idiocy that kept us sane in those days of great transformative culture in music, fashion, film and morality. From the romantic, wholesome and family fantasy world of Pat Boone, Perry Como, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Andy Williams, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Laurence Welk, World of Disney to the likes of Alice Cooper, Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joe Cocker, The Faces, Cream, Led Zeppelin and on and on it went. Movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rosemary’s Baby, Easy Rider, The Great Escape, Pit and the Pendulum, The Dirty Dozen, Cat Ballou, Bonny and Clyde, Wild Bunch, Lolita, and The Graduate were radically challenging censorship and violence while pushing the boundaries of the established mores of the day. TV may have been minimalist in its content and selection in those days but it was incredibly entertaining expanding the limits of creativity and freedom of expression.

Go West Young Man…5

…My routine after work and after supper with my sister and her partner never really varied that much. After a very long walk in the rain, I would hit a local fast food outlet and gorge myself on the standard acceptable food groups of the day: hamburger buns… carbs, hamburger patty… protein; cheese…dairy; fried onions… vegetables, french fries…carbs and starch; topped with mayo…egg whites; relish and mustard…sodium, sugar. It was always the same routine.  Livin the life.

I never met anyone other than family and Sandy the whole time I was out there. I just remember being very lonely while walking up and down those downtown streets at night and in the rain, the mist, the drizzle, the light rain, the light mist and the light drizzle amid the high rise apartments and sky high business skyscrapers, alone with my thoughts and a weird habit of conversing with myself while walking to keep myself company. It didn’t really matter being considered a nut-zo in a city such as this as the streets were almost always deserted. During the day the mice came out to play in the liquid sunshine of course, scurrying about as the city seemed to come to life but at night the place resembled a ghoulish, grey coloured morgue: eerily dark as only Hades himself could appreciate except for the glint of the dull yellow or faint orange glow of its street lights. The inhabitants seemed to be nearly dead and laid up, one on top of the other, in their individually marked trays or cocoons called apartment blocks.

After a couple of months I had had enough. I quit my job and returned home.

The west end of that city appears much the same today as it did 55 years ago.

It still rains. A lot!

Go West Young Man…4

…Every evening, after work, I would go out into the mist and go for a walk. My sister’s place was in the west end, a favourable part of the city because of its funkiness, its weirdness and its gayness. Unbeknownst to me this was the gay part of town. I guess I must have suspected it, especially the time that I inadvertently walked down from my sister’s apartment to the beaches area at the English sounding bay. There, just off the roadway, between the sand of the beach and the black blacktop of the avenue stood an old Victorian era styled bath changing rooms, for this was once a popular bathing and picnicking area. It was deserted now except for the whispers and the secrets of past encounters or the glorious and better days of a very distant memory.

The building was quite ornate, of mortar and concrete, with tunnels and porticos abound. On the one side there was the business of the avenue while on the other a concrete gangway adorned with a wrought iron railing and baluster separating the beach from the street scenes. Leaning against this railing I looked out into the blackness of the night sky, over the waters of the bay, which resembled a purplish but dark sheen of wavering velvet, or silken sheets. I could see lights far off into the distant shore and make out the synchronicity of the various green, red and amber lighted aids to navigation. Looking over this dark scene I wondered how they ever managed to enjoy swimming in the frigid water or to picnic in the pouring rain.  It is beyond my understanding. Perhaps these wet coasters were masochists as well. Vitamin D deficiency can play havoc on one’s disposition and mental well being or so I am told.

Standing there, looking out over the water, I sensed that I was not alone and was being watched. Turning back suddenly and with my back to the bay I could faintly see various shapes of various sizes mingling about in the tunnels and porticos of the bathhouse. It suddenly dawned on me that this was a gay hangout and a place for gays to hook-up. I got the hell out of there. I made a mental note not to pass this way again, at least not after dark. Unlike today, gay activity in this particular city was not unlike the city’s drug culture in that it was better left unsaid and to rest and fester in the darkest corners and recesses of the underbelly of what was considered then to be the acceptable norms of society…