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The Weigh In

by Dana Place

The other day I was lying on the couch working on my pale, watching European football, when my mailbox started calling for me. “Dana”, it said. “Daaaannnnaaaaa, I have a surprise for youuuu. Peel yourself off the couch and come to me”. Well, when your mailbox starts yearning for you, you have to, absolutely have to, answer the call. So, at the next commercial break I did. My mailbox didn’t let me down. Movies, wrapped in red paper, just like Christmas. Perfect for a beautiful Saturday afternoon glued to the couch. The only thing interesting in this batch of movies was Lemony Snicket and a Series of Unfortunate Events. When I first heard about the movie and saw one of the trailers, it reminded me of one of the most original little dark comedies I had ever seen, Mousehunt. Now if you haven’t seen Mousehunt, run out to your local video purveyor and pick it right up. Genius stuff that is. Directed by, Gore Verbinski, the guy that did Pirates of the Caribbean and the Mexican (ok so we can’t all have home runs). Lemony Snicket, as opposed to Mousehunt, left me feeling unfulfilled. The thing that made this worthy of writing about this week isn’t the movie, the level of paleness my body crossed into this week, or even the talking mailbox. It was something in the movie, the diamond in the rough, the potato in the dungpile if you prefer. A short little Scottish herpetologist that the helped Beaudelaire children escape the clutches of the overdramatic Count Olaf… A man whose thick Scottish brogue reminds of my days living as a young lad in Glasgow, the green rolling hills, running through the morning fog, the grassy plains playing havoc with my kilt, and of course the peat, ah the peat. Morning meals of haggis and goat’s milk, and chasing my friends through my father’s herd and “accidentally” flashing any unsuspecting goat in the process. Simpler times. More innocent times. The man I have to thank for bringing back these memories is Billy Connolly. The first time I saw this wiry little Scotsman was at the tail end of a little tv series called “Head of the Class”, and I have been a fan ever since. But, with the exception of his comedy specials, he pretty much gets relegated to character roles behind actors like Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, and Paul Walker. More Billy Connolly, dammit. More characters like Il Duce from Boondock Saints. It doesn’t even matter what you have him do. Have him standing around talking to a wall for an hour and a half, I don’t care. Just do it dammit. No more token Scottish guy, or else I’ll have to turn the hordes of my loyal followers on the gates of your precious city and watch it burn, BURN, BURN. Don’t take my hordes too lightly, we are numerous and if we can ever get off the couch long enough to mobilize into one big mob, I am sure we would be a force to be reckoned with. EXCELSIOR!!!!! To join the mob and get your very own decoder ring, be sure to drop me a line at DPlace76@yahoo.com Disclaimer: Any reference to Scottish kilt flashing and burning cities was purely for affect and may or may not be true.