There ain't nothing like a Dame

Phillipe and Jorge are all atwitter at Dame Edna Everage’s imminent arrival at the Providence Performing Arts Center, for performances from January 20-25. As some of the televised ads show, by virtue of her body language and facial expressions, Dame Edna could well be Eddie Izzard’s grandmother, although we would never accuse Eddie of being Dame-derivative, since he’s a wonder in his own right.

Dame Edna is not just the character that Americans have come to know in the recent past. Her creator, Barry Humphries, is a British and Australian cult comedy legend who is exalted in Oz, his homeland, and England, above and beyond this character. In the early 1970s, whilst living in London, Phillipe and Jorge discovered Humphries in the pages of Private Eye, the legendary British satirical magazine started by the late, amazingly gifted comedian Peter Cook, famed member of the Beyond the Fringe stage group, and erstwhile partner of Dudley Moore. (Private Eye and Humphries’s contributions, detailed below, were inspirations for P&J.)

Humphries was the author of a comic strip, drawn by Nicholas Garland, called The Adventures of Barry McKenzie. It was the story of a naïve Ozzie who comes to London on vacation, pockets full of money after months of hard work on a construction project, to see the motherland. He spends most of his time getting bilked by the locals, drinking Fosters, throwing up, and reckoning he’s going to shag every pommy Sheila he sees — but not without visions of romance. A memorable line while getting teary-eyed discussing love with a mate: "All I want is a girl who bangs like a shithouse door in a gale and goes off like an alarm clock."

Touching, yes, but also the most hilarious comic your superior correspondents have ever seen, as Barry gormlessly gets himself in and out of all sorts of ridiculous predicaments. Humphries also contributed to the literacy of the English-speaking world with creative descriptions of urinating ("splash the boots," "shake hands with the wife’s best friend," "point Percy at the porcelain"), and vomiting ("play the whale," "laugh at the ground," "Technicolor yawn," "park the tiger").

The cult stature of Barry McKenzie was such that it was made into a movie, which happened to be the directorial debut of a young Australian named Bruce Beresford. Included in the cast were Peter Cook and another British legend, Spike Milligan. In addition, Humphries appeared in it as Dame Edna Everage, in what we believe was her coming-out party. The film wasn’t available on tape until last year, issued in video to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Barry McKenzie series. So when you see Dame Edna on stage at PPAC, realize that you’re viewing one of the comedic stars of the universe who is just now becoming appreciated in America as she/he should.

PHIL SPACE

We understand that all Urinal editors must sign binding agreements to feature anything any Vo Dilunduh does anywhere that has national or international connotations — or conversely, report the ties that any national/international newsmaker has to the Biggest Little. This, of course, includes revelations that icebergs in Antarctica are "the size of Rhode Island" — already a worldwide knee jerk comparison.

Although some people might get a kick out of this cutesy stuff — if they don’t use it to justify their very existence — P&J get a bit worried about the quality assurance checks on Fountain Street when such content appears as news and actually plugs a product.

We refer to the page-three story in the Saturday Urinal of January 10, headlined "Dr. Phil’s weight loss challenge helps local man gain back health." Search as we did, we could somehow not find the little words "advertisement" surrounding the story, as is typically the case with other little tidbits, like, "Man hits golf ball farther than pros and re-grows entire head of hair," that find their way into the newspaper. At a time when ethics violations run rampant locally, and the Bushies continue to make a debacle out of Iraq, we are treated to a story about a guy in Barrington who lost 100 pounds on the laughable Dr. Phil’s diet-of-the-month? (Hope this quiets the "Why can’t we get some good news for a change?" crowd.) The hard news in the story was that our local hero has actually been asked to fly all the way to Los An-juh-lees, Cal-i-for-nye-a, to appear on Dr. Phil’s unwatchable televised talk show. "Well, lookee who’s on TV, Charlene! It’s that fat guy down the block!"

If this is journalism, we’ll eat our Weekly World News Batboy T-shirts. (News update: Army intelligence used Batboy’s superior smelling abilities to ferret out Saddam in his spider hole. Details at 11.) It’s beyond common sense to give a product a plug in the headline. Please, let’s put this kind of drivel where it belongs — in the back of the paper in Deadbeat. There’s enough important stuff going on in the Biggest Little — unreported upon by the Urinal — that makes this even more insipid.

PLAYING FOR TIME

Your superior correspondents are sorry we didn’t get a chance to visit the Hummer dealers in the metropolitan New York area this past weekend. By doing so, we could have seen which Time editors were using the money from the backhanders they were no doubt fed by pig-boy Karl Rove for running a preposterous, arse-kissing action figure photo spread on Dubya the Dumb in the magazine’s January 12 issue.

With Howard Dean featured on the cover and inside, Time’s higher-ups, perhaps wetting their Dockers about how the Bushies would accuse them of being "liberal media," ran four pages of suck-up photos of Boy George at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Yes, the one he bought with help from his sale of the Texas Rangers, a special get-rich opportunity to be sure. Looking about as home on the range as Ralph Lauren in chaps, Dubya was photographed in poses that merged Sears’ catalogue men’s underwear style with overpriced outdoor clothes for the over-privileged.

Holy Ronnie Rayguns, here’s Georgie Boy with a chainsaw and sunglasses. Don’t turn it on, Dubya, it’s really, really loud! Here’s President Flight Suit fishing for bass with his dog, waiting for the underwater Navy Seals to stick a good-sized bass on his hook. Then a couple of shots of him at teleconferences in the de rigueur blue jeans — hey, he works hard at the ranch, he’s not just a lazy fool who wants a nap. And one of him and First Stepford Lady Laura walking and no doubt chatting with Jesus — Dubya driving his pickup — and a "concerned farmer" shot, with machinery in the background, that could have come from the cover of a John Cougar Mellencamp album. (Of course, Dubya is just calculating what his subsidy will be this year. He’s gotta take off the work gloves and cowboy boots to add that high.)

Since P&J saw this suite of photos nowhere else, we can only assume Time bent over to get an exclusive — or other major news outlets had sufficient ethics not to publish campaign photos for the Bushies. A disgraceful display, nonetheless. We’re sure the Dubya the Farmer figures are already being cast at Hasbro or some other toymaker.

DOES ANYONE CARE?

Anyone who saw the January 11 appearance by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill on 60 Minutes would be hard-pressed not to acknowledge how, at the very least, the Bush Administration used a lot of misleading rhetoric to promote the war with Iraq. At a recent Iowa Democratic candidates’ forum, presidential wannabe Dennis Kucinich wondered why the entire nation isn’t up in arms about O’Neill’s revelations.

Those revelations, appearing in a new book by former Wall Street Journal scribe Ron Suskind, indicate that the Bush Administration was searching for justification to go to war with Iraq from day one after taking office. Of course, some opposition folks have been saying this for a long time, primarily based on the saber rattling of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and company throughout the ’90s. Now we have not just O’Neill’s testimony, but actual documents to show that plans to attack Iraq were already greased long before 9/11. Another document shown on 60 Minutes indicated that the Iraqi oil reserves were not far from the minds of the charging Bush officials. Blood for oil? You bet.

Unfortunately, our dozing nation seems not to heed of any of this. Do we not care how this makes us look to the rest of the world? Apparently not, as Bush continues to sustain a leg up over all opposition contenders, at least according to recent polls. Of course, the Treasury Department is now "investigating" O’Neill. Think they’ll try to detain him without counsel as a suspected enemy combatant?

SHAMELESS

A fine piece last week by BeloJo editorial columnist Froma Harrop on the remorseless faux apologies by John Rowland, Connecticut’s dead duck governor, and Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s major league liar. Let us add to the list the laughable "apology" issued last week by North Providence’s DPW chief, Vincent Guglietti.

You’ll recall in last week’s Cool, Cool World that we relayed the details published in the Urinal of Guglietti’s New Year’s Eve celebration (the one that ended with the town’s police reportedly having to restrain him with a stun gun). Nought Providence Mayor Ralph Mollis insisted that Guglietti compose a letter of apology to Police Chief Ernest Spaziano for his bad boy behavior, and excerpts of the letter were published in the Other Paper last week. Here’s a classic line: "Obviously, to be charged with resisting arrest, it was the opinion of the responding officers that I was not cooperative during this incident," explains Guglietti, as if he was a mere bystander, rather than the alleged reason for the ruckus. Your superior correspondents would suggest that, unless you’re dealing with rogue cops, law enforcement officials generally do not utilize stun guns based on mere "opinions."

Guglietti goes on to apologize for his "perceived actions" during the incident. Give us a break!

Most entertaining was Mayor Mollis’s statement: "I was actually involved in the initial drafting of [the letter]" because "certain language in the letter was important to me to include." What "important language" might that be? The lawyer-like phrases where behaviors are considered opinions, and actions are not taken, but merely "perceived"?

Nice going Ralph and Vinny, a (Pete) rose by any other name.

KUDOS AND CONGRATS . . .

. . . for the BeloJo editorial last week praising British rock veterans the Kinks. This is, to be sure, not your grandfather’s Urinal. And, while we cannot say for certain who penned this unsigned tribute to Ray Davies and company, it certainly looked as if it had editorial page editor Bob Whitcomb’s paw prints all over it.

Send The Kink Kronikles and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j@ phx.com.