THANK YOU (YES, YOU), BUT PLEASE REMAIN FULLY CLOTHED

Who are you, anyways?

The strange thing about me writing this blog and you reading this blog is that we are separated by distance and time. If I'm writing this in Cambodia at twelve noon, it's about twelve midnight (the day before) back in Canada. So my midday is your end-of-day. And yet somehow the message skyrockets across the globe and onto your screen. And the ' you' who I'm writing this to remains unknown to me.

But the mystery is deeper than that, isn't it? It has to do with the actual person writing this, and the actual person reading it. This is the 'online' me, as opposed to the 'you' that is online. There's a difference. What I know of you: Nothing. What you know of me: My words. And nothing but. (Unless, of course, you actually know me, in real life.)

That's cool. That's as it should be, in some ways, that mystery. What I like about reading is that it allows you, practically demands you to become co-conspirators with the author; it enables you to agree, disagree, accept or reject anything or everything that he/she writes, and you are using somebody else's words to create mental pictures in your mind. To build castles of ideas that may not have ever been constructed if you had not read the fundamental bricks and mortar of somebody else's ideas. And the author him/herself remains a forceful entity, yes, but completely ethereal. (And it's very bizarre to suddenly meet an author who've you read and absorbed for years and years. I've met John Irving and Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates and Paul Auster and David Foster Wallace, and it's very strange to spend a morning reading one of their books, having your head filled with nothing but somebody else's thoughts, and then you find yourself greeting that same person hours later. It's bizarre. Not sure why, but it is. It's also always strange to read the thoughts of someone you know well. There's just such a disconnect between the reality of walking, breathing, spitting person and the eloquence of letters arranged in distinct patterns. Which is one of way saying: Don't be disappointed if you ever run into me, okay? And for those who know me, they know I disappoint them on a regular basis anyways, so they don't have their hopes up.)

Long story short, this is my way of saying that I truly appreciate all of those thousands upon thousands of people who read this blog on a regular basis. (Okay, okay so maybe there's not thousands of people reading this, no, but there are at least hundreds. Well, alright, hundreds might be pushing it, but there are dozens, at least. Fine, a handful, in any event. Ah shit, there's gotta be one?)

I guess you could say that this blog is divided between those people who know me who read it, and those who don't. Sometimes it's a little disconcerting to allow those voices inside of my head an outlet on this page; it's kind of like going to confession on a daily basis, only what I'm confessing is not necessarily sinful, and the people on the other side of the little-sliding-barrier aren't Catholic priests but anonymous cybersurfers.

Sometimes I try to picture whoever is reading this blog. Which means I'm trying to picture you, yes you, at this moment, now, in front of your screen. Perhaps you're sipping a Coke. Maybe you're waiting for the phone to ring, or killing time before C.S.I. starts. Or you could have stumbled onto this site accidentally, and are slowly, gradually nodding off even as I type these words. You might be in a three-piece suit or your jammies. You may be naked, for all I know. (If you are naked, for the love of all things holy, please, put on some clothes. It's nothing personal, it's just that this ain't that kind of blog. Unless I get numerous requests to make it into that kind of blog, of course. ) You may be getting ready to settle in for the night, or about to start your day. You might have just told your spouse 'I know, I know, I get it, you told me already a thousand times'. You could have just decided to get divorced. To get married. To buy the house. To ditch the plant in the living room. To run the bath. To change the diaper. To renew your subscription to Newsweek, but not Cosmo. A million mundane decisions, large and small, are going through your mind as you are reading this sentence -- and I'm privy to none of them.

But somehow we connect, despite the dissonance.

The anonymity of the web allows us to view different lives from alternative, somewhat skewed electronic angles. There is a lot that you don't know about me, and even more that I don't know about you. But for a few moments here and there each and every day I can ramble on about all the random things that I think about, and a few moments (hours, days, weeks) later, you can log on and read about it. (Even if you're nude.)

I'm still not sure what all this means. Does the world get bigger, because we can connect online, or does it contract, because we no longer feel the need to knock on our neighbour's door?

I'm not sure. But connections, however we make them, online or otherwise, are always, well, when you get right down to it, nice. Aren't they?

So:

Thank-you for dropping by.

(And, before you switch sites, if you remain unclothed, at least put on a housecoat, will you? Or a pair of slippers or something. I'm not saying you don't have a nice body, but still.)

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: WHY JAMIE FOXX AND DON KNOTTS DESERVE OUR RESPECT AND ADMIRATION

The prostitute played by Elizabeth Berkeley (of SAVED BY THE BELL and SHOWGIRLS fame, or infamy) in Oliver Stone's ANY GIVEN SUNDAY had it right -- there's something about his eyes.

Jamie Foxx's, that is.

The other night I watched ANY GIVEN SUNDAY for the sixth or seventh time, and it gets better with every viewing, denser, and Foxx's performance gets better, too. (You have to understand: I am an Oliver Stone nut. A whole other Stone post awaits, so you've been warned.)

There's a scene near the end of the film, right before the big game, where Al Pacino, playing football coach Tony D'Amato, gives his pre-game speech. And what a speech it is, the end-all, be-all of pre-game speeches. It is not about football, but about life. It is not about his team, but about himself. It is not about Pacino, but about Stone. It is heavy handed and over-the-top and wonderful. And there's a passage in the speech where Pacino talks about teamwork, about being there for one another, and the camera stays on Foxx's face, slowly, slowly tracking into his eyes, and his character, who throughout the film has been a loud-mouth, arrogant prick, changes; his character alters. We see it right before our eyes, and it's nothing magical, nothing tactical; we simply see a level of sudden compassion and understanding and emotion in Foxx's eyes that tells us everything we need to know.

Foxx is the real deal. He was brilliant in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY, and even more so in Will Smith's ALI. I thought he was great in Stone's flick; after seeing him play the middle-aged, overweight, black, Jewish, white-woman loving Bundini Brown in ALI, I thought to myself: My God, this man is an actor. He's not just a comedian, even though I don't really believe there's such a thing as being 'just' a comedian, as I explain below. This may sound ludicrous, but Foxx (real name Eric Bishop, from small town Texas), reminds me a little bit of DeNiro. Foxx does not play a persona; he plays a character, and becomes the character, and we believe it. Completely.

Then came RAY, of course, which I saw most of on DVD. ('Most of' because the film cut out near the end -- did he get his sight back?) The most remarkable thing about that performance was not the mimicry of the real musician, but the fact that Foxx pulled it off without the use of his most powerful asset -- his eyes.

Last night I watched one of Foxx's stand-up comedy specials taped in 2002, and the man is very, very funny. Not Eddie Murphy funny, but funny nevertheless. His impressions are unreal -- Shaq, Prince, Pacino. He is not afraid to diss his fellow black entertainers: Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, and LL Cool J all come under fire. (His bit about LL Cool J is particularly funny, talking about how his co-star in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY didn't seem to realize that they were making a movie, not playing a real football game, and that the angry words Foxx was exchanging with him were based on a script, not reality.) Oh, and his rationale for why O.J. is guilty simply based on his body movements is hilarious. (Ask me about it sometime.)

Now, Foxx has very little in common with Don Knotts, but I have to give Knotts his proper props, given that he's been in the news lately, mostly because his home state of West Virginia is about to give him a star on their newly formed walk of fame. And if getting a star on the West Virginia Walk of Fame is not prime material for a blog, then what the hell is?

The thing is, both Foxx and Knotts are comedians. And understand me here: I love Don Knotts. I think his work on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, not to mention THREE'S COMPANY, is classic. It's real. It's honest and it's human.

Comedians like Foxx often become great dramatic actors because comedy is all about finding the truth of a situation. If something's real, we laugh. If it isn't, silence rules the room. But I don't think comedians should be relegated to the back room of actingdom. I think somebody like Don Knotts is sincerely, genuinely worthy of our admiration because when we laugh at his antics, at his eye-rolls, out his sheer ridiculous, we are laughing because he has struck something authentic within ourselves. When we laugh, we are connected to something outside of ourselves, and great comedians can provide that link. (Not to mention how much of my childhood was spent imitating Don Knotts as Mr.Furley doing his karate chops. As Jim Carrey once said: 'Imitation is the sincerest form of copying.' But it always brought a good laugh...)

So here's to Jamie Foxx and Don Knotts, unlikely partners in crime, separated by two comedic generations, but deserving of all the accolades that are coming their way. (You can debate amongst yourselves what's worth more: An Oscar or a West Virginian star.)

We look to comedians to provide a respite from the realities of, um, reality. And I have to say this: Whenever I see these two guys in action, I laugh. (And when I see Foxx do drama, I empathize.) I relate. When I see Knotts do his schtick, I'm reminded of the silliness inside of ourselves we so rarely allow out.

That may not sound like much to you, but in this short life of ours, a little bit of laughter, a little bit of empathy, can go a long, long way.