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Happy Elephant Car Wash

There’s nothing like a happy elephant. Not from what I’ve seen. Elephants, in their nature, are happy.

That’s what we like to see. An elephant enjoying life.

December 10, 2016. Five o’clock. Ryan Reynolds reigns supreme. A few parents had their kids out tobogganing on Alder Street tonight. I’m on foot coming home having decided to leave the car in the parkade today. Such a brave man. I had a job to do.

The barricades are out and there’s no cars. The white stuff, which was late and started slow, has fulfilled its promise and makes a nice change. Alder street in this block is steep and perfect for tobogganing, something I’d never thought about before.

If I wasn’t so lazy I’d go back out there and do some tobogganing myself. Tobogganing. Good for you. Fond memories of tobogganing as a child. Oh, to be a child again. No thanks.

It’s safe to say the season is on.

December 12. Up early expecting a close, but reality intervened and I got some Christmas shopping done. Great. You drive around. You need fuel. The red carpet love is strong. Although I know that for weeks the spotlight has been on Emma Stone there’s nary a premiere that she’ll miss and, as usual, I’m good with that. The price of gas has gone up two cents since yesterday and I’m the kind of person who notices right away. I thought it was still…

I put $40 in and drive off. It’s great. I was just down at the car wash and the black sedan is as clean as it’s been in weeks and me and the car are both feeling pumped. A clean car runs better. The guy ahead of me at the car wash driving a Mazda 3 complimented staff on his way off.

“Thanks. Cars are really dirty now.” He’s talking about the weather in the last couple of days.

It’s bright and clear today and I was surprised to see the car wash not busier as I made my illegal left turn across the painted island to get in there. Obviously it’s going to save me going around the block to come in from the westbound lane which is what I should be doing. Right this instant, at this moment in time, for some odd reason I can’t quite understand, there is no traffic coming in the usually busy westbound lane and that’s when I went for it.

While I’m waiting in the five or so car queue I reflect on how I need to do something about my driving. An employee is soap-brushing my wheels and I notice he is wearing a “Happy Elephant Car Wash” logo fleece-type of warm jacket in black. The logo is in orange lettering.

Scant moments before that I’d witnessed a large SUV up on Broadway cavalierly cop a full U-turn right in the intersection at Burrard Street, as it’s called, which had thrown me into my by now predictable tizzy about U-turn-ers and how I hate them. And it was still bothering me. “Bad driving habits are contagious,” I repeat ad nauseum whenever I get the chance, and I’d just proven it.

December 13. A brilliant, bright day. I mean, it’s called “silly season” for a reason. Bringing a defenceless tree into your home and sticking it in a metal pot for a couple of weeks is silly. Why do we do it? Because we did it last year and the year before. We’re those kind of people.

It’s tradition. That doesn’t make it right, but it is silly. We were at it again last night.

December 14. That’s what I’m thinking. We have to be careful. I inadvertently cut off a car making a lane change on Burrard this afternoon after closing out this deal. Blast of the horn twice and then, of course, the red car I cut off roars up beside me. I, the bad driver, and I admit it, no excuses, ignore ignore ignore. I haven’t cut anybody off in years. It’s been too long.

It worked. The car backed off. The driver must have realized the danger he or she was in, getting into a road-rage incident on Burrard Street with a guy who looks as dangerous as me.

No, sadly, it wasn’t a Ferrari. It was an older beater.

But now, in a sense, I understand that driver’s U-turn yesterday. That was on Burrard Street too. Maybe this should be called Burrard Street. By the way, for all our American viewers and all our fine non-locals everywhere who may not know how to pronounce “Burrard” it’s not “Burr-Erd” it’s Burr-Ard”. I don’t know. Some Britisher sea captain or something. I’d look it up but there’s just no time this time of year.

Because this driver, this U-turner, and who am I to judge now, saw the peril on Burrard. The street’s had the crap ripped out of it for many months for new water mains or whatever it is. It’s been blocked off completely in some places, or restricted to one or two lanes. And it’s frustrating. Especially if you don’t know it’s happening and could have gone some other way. And the guy just couldn’t face it. He must have panicked. And I forgive him because it’s the thing to do.

Back after these quick messages

Kirk Douglas

A hundred doesn’t mean much, especially when you are. I’ve no idea, but if you cross me in this deal I’ll see you hang. I’d trade the bunch of you for a couple of campfire girls.

100 years old today. Born 1916. Kirk Douglas. Incredible. Mom, Dad. You’re driving me insane. Pop… You better have something for me. I got the bullets.

Kirk was the king of the Capital. And the Orpheum too. The Paramount. The Vogue. The Cascades. The Hillcrest. The Circle. The Varsity. The Palisades. The Dominion. The Studio. The Bayview. The Ridge. The Belmont. The Clova. The Dunbar. The Fraser. The Strand. The Stanley. The Hollywood. The Colonial. The Lougheed Drive-in.

It doesn’t matter now. You haven’t played straight with me for five minutes since I met you. And keep that gunsel away from me. I’ll kill him. There ain’t but one way out of here and this here is it.

When you side with a man you stick with him. If you can’t do that you’re like some animal. You’re finished. We’re finished. Blast. Madness. Madness. We were talking about a lot more money than this. You gotta get your offer way up there in the air where it belongs.

Those are our troops, General. Think it over. You’ve got five minutes. Then you’re either in or you’re out. For keeps! That’s right. Joe couldn’t find a prayer in the bible. Let’s go down to the bar. We can cool off while we try to impress each other. I hate surprises myself.

He was good in “Out of The Past. He had moments in “Man With A Horn” and was good in “Paths of Glory”. Then he really got famous. Frank Gorshin used to do a great impression of Kirk Douglas. And look what happened to Frank Gorshin. He never got to act in “Spartacus”.

Just as a quick aside do you ever get fed up with predictive text? I do. Who started it and if we find that individual, as Jimmy Pattison says, “Send him to me.” Or her. Send her to me.

I won’t obey that order. You make me sick with your heroics. You’ve got the stench of death about you. You carry it around in that packsack like the plague. I stick my neck out for nobody. Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.

Of all the gin joints in all the world and she walks into mine. High-ho Silver. Only a sap’d head out on a caper with a dame and a dog. You go down there, General. You go down there. Stellaaaaaa….

I don’t care if it short-dicks every cannibal on the Congo. You will not like me. I’m sorry, sir. Those are the numbers. Sucking the life outta real cops because you don’t have the guts to be one yourself. Let’s go!

There’s no place like home. I coulda been a contender. If you’d come to me the people who ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. We want Angel. We’re not hanging onto anything. We are advancing constantly. America loves a winner. And will not tolerate a loser.

What are you rebelling against? Whadya got? My army of beggars, cutthroats and thieves is ready to march. I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy, but it can be done. Never get out of the boat.

And that’s just about all the old movie dialogue I can remember. Some of it’s Kirk’s, some of it isn’t. Doesn’t matter. It’s what the man represents. This is a tribute. I am Spartacus. It’s the dimple in the chin. It’s a world unto itself. Always. They’re paying for it, you eat it.

Take the rest of the day off, man. You’ve earned it. 100. I salute you. C’est incroyable.

Image grabs

Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You don’t think I’d go into battle with lose change in my pocket, do you? Feeding you, Jack. Feeding you. Ya sweat your guts out! The great spirit moved in me and I decided to spare these villages. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. What happened to your mission, Captain? Nha Trang forget all about you? We don’t need no stinking badges. May the force be with you.

Big thanks to CSNicol for additional old movie quote help

Cyril Connolly

“Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.” — Cyril Connolly

Cyril Connolly. Cool. I was bemused that it was my dear brother who shall remain nameless that introduced this Cyril Connolly quote to me. I wasn’t familiar with it. It’s me, not him, that’s read Cyril Connolly, including Enemies of Promise, The Unquiet Grave, and, in addition, The Evening Colonnade.

My brother is the last person I would have thought could and would quote Cyril Connolly, especially to me. After all, it was me who held him in my arms when he was a little baby. At the age of two as he sat on the kitchen counter, I, many years his senior, gave him a little brotherly kiss he was so cute. I could have dropped him on the floor. Now he does this.

This is a picture of my brother. He looks a bit grumpy, and, you know what? He can be a bit grumpy. But he’s a man among men and there are manifold reasons in this fine world to be feeling, on occasion, grumpy. I’m grumpy myself occasionally, but is that any reason to back off from denouncing my brother?

If I’m Friedrich Nietzsche I say, “No reason at all.” If you think you can get out of Eton College and Balliol, Oxford you’re bloody soaked, man. You’re for it. With nothing to show but the brilliant man you are? It could be worse. I mean as Oxford goes you should have seen my rooms in Magdalen. I remember looking up that staircase and thinking, “Is this medieval set-up something I’m dying to do? I don’t care about the ‘Deer Park’. There’s plenty of bloody deer back home.” I chuffed it but Cyril Connolly stayed on across the street, decades earlier, and I was thinking about that boarding the train.

And so, years later, I visited the stacks and had a look at my much depleted Connolly collection, noticing how old it’s looking. “The Unquiet Grave” is a paperback edition published in 1967, years before I was born. “Enemies of Promise” is a 1976 paperback edition and looks in worse shape, today, than me. I remember when it was a fine new paperback I bought at the bus station in Tulsa on that nightmare trip to Oklahoma.

It’s terrible. The pages are dark with discolouration and when I searched for a favourite old remembered section the spine broke. Crack! It was a little “crack” but it made a big impression. Right at that instant something changed for me. I knew I had to have a new copy. And I really hate discolouration. Even the word makes me puke.

Because I’m smart I knew that the University of Chicago Press had brought out a new edition of “Enemies of Promise” awhile back. And that there were likely scads of copies lying around even now, looking for buyers, because there just aren’t scads of people interested in literature although there are scads who don’t even know what that is. So I’ve ordered a copy that should be here just in time for Christmas.

Fredrick Nietzsche Not Long After He Died — Friedrich Nietzsche Not Long After He Died

Cyril was obviously talking about the semi-useless art of blogging. He was psychic, far ahead of his time. Blogging’s a bit like smoking cigarettes, something else I gave up awhile ago. You keep hoping the next one will taste better and that’s why you keep lighting up.

There’s more I could contribute to this important discussion but we’re off to get a tree and I just don’t have any time right now.

Plus the “Snow Warning” has ended on the weather site, but that has had no effect on the fact it’s still coming down. So it’s time to move into traffic and maybe get in an accident.

Talk soon

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