I'm A Bad Guy!

Man oh man, I am so excited! I couldn't be more energized if I'd just jammed a knife into the toaster. I am so looking forward to the Calmar Fair that is coming up on August 15th. The reason I am twitter-pated about the fair isn't the humungous garage sale extravaganza with tables lining all three blocks of downtown Calmar or the many other entrepreneurial opportunists with tables on their yards. Nor is it the parade or the "Show and Shine" or the ball games or the bench show or the dunk tank or even the beer gardens (Yes, even the beer gardens!). The reason for my excitement stems from the old fashioned melodrama The Calmar Prairie Players are performing that day and, get this; I get to be the bad guy!

The play is a melodrama called "Calamity in Calmar or Dark Doings at the Finley Farm", and it features a hero to be cheered (YAY!) a damsel in distress to be sad for ("AWWWW!") and me, the evil, heartless, wicked villain. (BOO!) (No, I don't play a Bernie Madoff.) There is also the damsel's poor, aged mother who has a terrible saskatoon cordial addiction and a sordid past, a Communities in Bloom operative hot on the trail of fresh fertilizer, as well as an assortment of many other oddball characters.

In the production, written especially for the Calmar Prairie Players by Paula Bosse, I play Percival Portobello, a man who is, not only an evilly malevolent psychopath, but also not very nice at all. Portobello is single-minded in his pursuit of the Finley family farm so he can subdivide it into condominium developments, even if he has to kill farmer Finley, marry his daughter and run her ma off the property in order to do it. His total lack of regard for scruples or principles makes it obvious, if he wasn't in real estate, he would have surely have been in politics.

The reason I am thrilled about the role is that up to now, I have always been cast as a "bumbling fool" sort of character; sometimes even in theatre. Now I get to let loose and go over the top with a totally different performing face on; that of a bad guy! After all, who has more fun than bad guys? They practically invented the phrase, "Mwahahahahaha!" Good guys, however, have no sense of tee hee at all.

Let's use Batman, as an example. Like all the rest of the square-jawed hero set, this good guy is a rather humourless, intense sort of fellow. Even in the campy 1960's version, The Caped Crusader never cracked a smile, no matter how corny his line. Neither did Robin, come to think of it. And as unsmiling and grim as that Batman was, more recent movie incarnations show an even darker spirited person; an individual about as warm and cheery as, say, head lice. Let's face it; when Batman is at work, he laughs about as much as a funeral director.

On the other hand, who’s doing all the laughing? The Joker, The Riddler, even King Tut. And who can forget The Penguin's trademark cackle? True, it does sound an awful lot like someone clearing their sinuses, but at least he and his hired thugs have fun on the job.

Guffawing bad guys aren't limited to Batman comics, either. I'm not just talking about Superman's foe, Laugh-a-Minute Lex Luthor, or the myriad of mirthful arch enemies Spiderman faces constantly. (Ol' Spidey seems to have more foes than Kim Jong-Il). Us bad guys have always laughed throughout recorded history, in literature and performing arts. From Shakespeare’s time and before, the evil were a cheery lot. This was reinforced on the silver screen in the dawn of movie history to present day cinematic creepsters, (Austin Powers' Doctor Evil springs to mind) bad guys have always laughed more than a talk show host's sidekick.

But that's not all. There are other reasons being a bad guy rocks. For one thing, folks that are evil incarnate are usually quite well-to-do. That's how they can afford henchmen and a secret hideout. Even better, they always have awesome looking women around them... Gorgeous women... Bad women... Oh yeah… Sorry, where was I? Oh right, I was being bad! Mwahahahahaha!

The shows are at the Calmar Ball Diamonds, or, as we called it in my slow-pitch days, "Brewski Park" at 1:00, 3:00 and 5:00 and the cost is free, although be prepared for a hat being passed.
In the cast with me are Richard Jackson as Tom, the Hero, Jennifer Moore as the fair Fiona Finley, Cindy Thornton as The Widder Finley (also known as Diamond Gert!), Tammy Bateman as Pat Schmidt the Communities in Bloomer, Gloria Wilson in her debut appearance with the Calmar Prairie Players as Mrs. Bricco, the stuffy restaurateur and Prairie Player Angela Jahnke in a dual role. There are also cameo appearances by Sharon Shudra of SS Office Services, Rudy Seneca and Scouter Bob with his entourage consisting of Kamil and Gabriel Bitar.

The Origins of the Places

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the origins of the place names in our area. Our researchers covered the biggies; Wetaskiwin, Leduc, and of course, Alder Flats. Unfortunately for me, I was inundated with an angry letter from a reader that suggested I should have included all places within the Pipestone Flyer's trading area.

I'd have ignored the letter, since one always runs the risk of upsetting a certain segment of our highly valued readership with the type of hard-hitting, sharp-edged reporting I try and avoid. However, this particular letter came from my editor, Brian "You WILL Comply" Hahn, a man so mean, he once docked me a weeks pay for dangling a participle. So, without further ado, here are more place name origins from around the region.
　
Ma-Me-O-Beach: According to Wikipedia, which is almost as accurate as a dollar store watch, Ma-Me-O is a Cree word for "white pigeon". This is entirely erroneous. The researchers at Loco World Headquarters have discovered that this tiny summer village on Pigeon Lake had got it's name to honour the fact that it was the site of the provinces first mameogram in 1897. It occured when an elderly woman accidently got her breast caught between two heavy logs. (This one was Brian's, I hasten to add.)
Warburg: A small but vibrant village west of Thorsby and then over that way a bit, Warburg is...uhhh... did I mention it was small? The name of the village was coined during the bitter and violent "Burger Wars" of the 1970's when Burger King's Whopper went toe-to-toe with its arch rival The Big Mac of Macdonalds fame. (Get it? Arch rival? Never mind.)
Buck Lake/Buck Creek: These two aquatic features were named after Buck Owens and his Buckaroos. We're not sure why. Owens, of course, is most famous for his deep cerebral humour and profound insights into the human condition on the hit TV show "Hee-Haw". Also for "grinnin'".
Rolly View: This small municipality east of Leduc was named for the spectacularly gorgeous view of some guy named Rolly. Mind you, the guy I paid the twenty bucks to, for the information, may have been mistaken as he was rather drunk at the time. He promised me that he knew, though.
Kavanagh: This hamlet that boasts of a population of almost 50 people has little on their Wiki page other than this interesting tidbit of information; "Town council members/presidents are: Tim and Kim Rhodes, and Pat and Sarah Gillis, whom act not only as diplomatic, fair leaders, but also as the hamlets key law upholders that scrutinize all of the going ons that occur within Kavanagh. " My goodness, with that much scrutiny, no wonder there's only 50 people there! I couldn't find out anything about the origin of the village's name but apparently, after "googling" the place, I did discover the important fact that Matchmaker.com claims there are "thousands of women from Kavanagh" who want to date me!
Hoadley: The community of Hoadley, according to it's flashy, expensive tourism guide, lies between Breton and Rimbey on Highway 20 at the scenic junction of Secondary Highway 611. It was named after an early Alberta politician by the name of George Hoadley who championed the Sexual Sterilization Act of 1928. It seems the townfolk were extremely impressed that he would even discuss anything with the word "sexual" in it, in 1928, let alone act on it.
Rimbey: Rimbey is a quaint, typical small Alberta town of 2000 people, three cows and a goat. Its original name was Kansas Ridge but they broke up into two entities; the folk band Jeruselem Ridge and the rock band Kansas. The town now tours around the country doing folk festivals and rock revival weekends in the summer.
Ponoka: According to sources close to the municipality who wish to remain nameless, Ponoka is the Blackfoot word for "elk". This was a good choice as the Blackfoot don't have words for the community's other name candidates which included "rhinoceros", "wombat" and "giant kimodo lizard".
Winfield: This hamlet, in the County of Wetaskiwin is a place I have visited many times. Not on purpose, mind you, but I always end up there when I am looking for The Village at Pigeon Lake. The origin of the name is indicative of the history of the community. Apparently it was named after the first prize of a farmers' lottery in the 1800's. By the same token, the City of Winnipeg was named for a contest for pirates.
Drayton Valley: Drayton Valley is a modern Alberta municipality nestled between the mighty Drayton Mountains from whence it gets its name. The peaks of these majestic promontories are almost as high as the ones that gave Two Hills it's name.
That's all the places we have space for in this edition of our look into place names from around the region. In columns to come we will explore the stranger side of place names with close attention to such places as Boyle, Fallis, Bickerdike, Bonar, Harry Hill, Bredin, and no less than seven places with the word "beaver" in it.

The Karma Kid

Two The majority of us have them; two annoying avatars of behaviour modification that reside on our shoulders. One is an angel, guiding us to be the good, kind, decent people most only think they are. It encourages us to hold open doors for grannies, sign up to sponsor a World Vision child/village/third world country or shovel your neighbour's sidewalk. This angel goes by a number of names, including 'Restraint', ' Generosity', and 'Whatta sap!' I don't know about you but mine goes AWOL occasionally...

On shoulder ' B' is the other little dude that, instead of the ' halo, wings and harp' ensemble favoured by its 'Goody-Two-Shoes' counterpart, wears goat horns, a pointy tail and has skin colour that can only be gotten by being devilish or laying too long on a sunny beach.

He's the guy whispering in my ear to have another beer, stand up to Cupcake when I should just sit down and shut up, or suggest I eat an entire gigantic bag of potato chips with a huge tub of onion and garlic dip. His name is Temptation and unlike his partner, Restraint, is never, ever absent.

Most are well acquainted with these two competing sprites, but there is also that other guy. The scary one dressed in judge' s robes. The one we call Karma.

Karma is the only creature known to man that lives on irony. The way Karma works is this; if I listen closely to the angelic entity whispering in my ear, generally, good things happen in return.

However, if I live my life allowing my demonic side (oh, come on, we all have one) free rein, bad things follow like a bad smell. Your behaviour needn't be all that evil for Karma to sneak up and kick you in your ironic pants.

I have a case in point. Last weekend, Cupcake and I were working outside; giving the weeds a whack job, putting the blade to the grass, sprucing up the trees, that sort of thing. Since her cantankerous, arthritic knees doesn't allow her to kneel, (Dang! No begging!) she decided to sit on a small table. This way she could get down low enough to snip whatever low-lying branches on our apple tree she found offensive. Why they were deemed offensive I'm not sure. They weren't drinking beer or passing gas or anything. Either way, the table she was using is an ugly thing, pretty much an 18 inch square piece of countertop bolted to some tubular aluminum legs.

As she sat on the table, on the spongy soil that sits sheltered from the hot sun thanks to the tree's lush foliage, one of the tubular legs of the table began to penetrate the damp soil like a stick in a marshmallow. Cupcake immediately realized her ship was listing heavily to starboard but was unable to do anything about it given the aforementioned state of her knees.With arms and legs flailing about askew and akimbo like a lady bug flipped on its back, Cupcake slowly, inexorably ended up dumped unceremoniously on the ground.

I suppose I might have handled things differently. I could have tried to contain my amusement and show concern and compassion for my partner of 27 years. Unfortunately, rather than rushing to the aid of my poor, vulnerable, loving wife, I was busy being convulsed in hilarity. The look of shock, indecision and embarrasment on her face was beyond hysterical. I guffawed my guts out. The only thing that would have made the scene better was if we'd caught it on video.
That night, preparing to sleep on the couch, I realized that I should consider alternative strategies to my discredited 'laughing my face off' approach to helping Cupcake in a time of personal crisis. This was particularly made the next day when Karma paid a visit.

Once more, Cupcake and I were puttering outside. When we stopped for a break, we went inside our gazebo and I flounced onto one of our comfy, padded patio chairs. Suddenly I experienced the greatest sinking feeling I've had for years. It was like being on a dentist chair when he lowers it to let you escape. What was causing my change in altitude was the aluminum legs on the patio chair decided to give up the ghost and began splaying out like a squashed cartoon spider, albeit one with just four legs. I ended up on the floor of the gazebo unable to extricate myself from my awkward position.

Cupcake's face contorted into the very picture of mirth. Her eyes crinkled up like a chip bag in the firepit. She began making the oddest trilling noise until she finally dissolved completely into a five minute giggle fit. Very unseemly, I thought from my low-level vantage point. She didn't care. She was getting hers back in spades.

And so it goes with Karma. You reap what you sow. It is beneficial in life to be nice and kind with no expectation of gain. In other words, we should all strive to be good for nothing.