Tag: hamilton

FEELS

Now Kids, Put Down Your Guns and Let Me Tell You A Story

X. Jupiter Hart

If you grew up in Canada and are of a certain age, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was part of a complete childhood. I learned a few weeks ago that it is currently available for binge-watching on Tubi. Originally produced by CHCH-TV in Hamilton, Ontario in 1971, it aired for only one season. Yet that one season would be shown in syndication for nearly two decades thereafter, where it would find its way into the cockles of the collective heart of Gen X Canada. A sketch-comedy/sitcom hybrid for the whole family with a regular cast of oddball characters (most of which were played by the same actor), set in a medieval castle where Halloween never ended. A diminutive vampire character on this show (specifically the one who was always talking on the phone in Count Frightenstein’s coffin) allegedly served as the inspiration for Mini-Me of Austin Powers fame. Vincent Price was a regular contributor to boot…

Vincent Price was a god who walked among men.

One of the recurring segments on Frightenstein was Grizelda the Ghastly Gourmet, which was a take on TV cooking shows featuring a witch as the star chef. Since a picture’s worth a thousand words, I’ll just post a clip of one of those segments here…

Whilst watching Frightenstein at 4:20 the other night, I was suddenly reminded of how convincingly female Grizelda seemed to the sensibilities of my eight-year-old self. The fact that she was actually portrayed by a man in drag never dawned on me until junior high school. It might shock some people to hear this, but my young impressionable mind found nothing traumatizing or world-crushing about that revelation at all, and was even somewhat amused by it. You see, drag performers have been entertaining audiences young and old for literally centuries, and for most of our history it was actually possible to have a man in drag entertaining a group of kids without a permanently enraged mob of cultists throwing a violent temper tantrum.

I totally get that these cultists are out to avenge their dogmas. But it has to be said that the rest of us are not at fault for their own costly public relations failures, and their actions are thus unwarranted. Decades of sleaze, corruption, pointless scapegoating and trying to attract flies with vinegar (to say nothing of coöptation by a political party) arguably contributed way more to the recent spate of ecclesiastical bankruptcies than any drag queen. Drag queens don’t text dick pics to fifteen-year-old girls. Pastors do.

May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage, and Happy Festivus.
The Bullhorn of SILVER BROWN

Now Playing: Chapter Thirteen

X. Jupiter Hart

Chapter Thirteen of SILVER BROWN is currently being tossed into the deep dark Twitterverse for the reading pleasure of the good people of Planet Earth (and maybe a few of the bad people too, as long as they promise not to bring their guns) at a rate of one page per day. In this chapter, an unseen character who has been mentioned several times in the narrative thus far formally introduces himself to the audience. I like to think of this guy as the cigar-chomping white rabbit who leads Florys MacNab down the rabbit hole. Or an earthier version of Indiana Jones. Take your pick. Named after a street I used to live on years ago. One of the streets depicted in the screen capture below, specifically. If you can guess which one it is on the first try, you don’t win shit.

The Journey of SILVER BROWN

Hamilton

X. Jupiter Hart

I spent some quality time in my old stomping grounds during the Canada Day weekend, revisiting a city that was my hometown for seven years. Seven years spanning a period in my life when I was a big-time lush. But it wasn’t spirituous beverages that brought me to Hamilton this time. All the bars in this city I frequented way back when have long since been demolished by the economic tsunami that hit the planet back in 2008, with the exception of two. One of those two was forced to close its doors because the building itself had been condemned – a turn of events that was completely unrelated to the recession. The city eventually had the property converted to a parking lot; I remember part of me died the day they brought in the bulldozers. The other actually survived that nasty storm and is still in operation to this day, but only because they sold their mortal soul and consented to becoming a miserable shadow of their former self.

Lack of historic watering holes aside, it’s always an interesting experience to return to a city you once inhabited after being away for a number of years, just to see how things have changed. Indeed, Hamilton has changed. A bit. Several businesses have predictably changed hands since I last set foot here. The downtown skyline is a little more manhattanized than it used to be. The new city buses are sleek and sexy as all shit, and handily beat the hell out of those boxy canary-yellow jobs that are presently being phased out. For a split second, I could have sworn they also got rid of the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald that stands on the eastern flank of Gore Park, but that turned out to be little more than a cannabis-induced paranoid reverie.

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In that simpler and quainter period of human history when everybody was fully convinced that Dubya would reign as Worst President Ever until the end of time, glass condo towers like this would have been considered very un-Hamiltonian. But no longer. Shit changes.

Whilst out on Sunday morning reacquainting myself with The Hammer (also nicknamed Steeltown, The Birthplace of Tim Hortons or The Armpit of Canada, that last nickname mostly used by stuck-up latté-sipping types from Toronto who for whatever reason think wheat gluten is a deadlier substance than Agent Orange), I came upon this street sign, and took a picture. This is where my main character’s surname ultimately came from. I guess I can say that publicly without getting sued.

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