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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-06-07, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2012. PAGE 5. “A wife says to her husband you’re always pushing me around and talking behind my back. He says what do you expect? You’re in a wheelchair.” I was a stand-up comedian in a Vancouver night club for one night. Scratch ‘one night’ – about three minutes and 20 seconds. But it felt like it went on all night. That’s the one thing the audience and I agreed upon. They jeered and they hissed. They made unkind references to my lineage and addressed me in terms usually reserved for unmentionable parts of the anatomy. What they did not do is laugh. I have dog-paddled in shark-infested waters; I have let a live tarantula walk up my arm. I even mock-grappled with wrestler Gene Kiniski but I have never felt as desperate and lost as I did for those three minutes and 20 seconds in front of a hostile night club audience. Not surprising. Studies show that the greatest fear for most people isn’t falling off a cliff, being struck by lightning or getting mauled by a grizzly – it’s standing up and speaking out before a roomful of strangers. That applies to you and me perhaps, but not to Henny Youngman. The American (actually he was born in Liverpool, England) King of the One-Liners stood up in roomfuls of strangers virtually every day for over 70 years. He never took vacations or a weekend off. His audiences ranged from The David Letterman Show to dinky wedding receptions in whatever hotel he happened to find himself in. The film critic Roger Ebert remembers: “I once ob - served Henny Youngman taping a TV show in the old NBC studios. We got into an elevator together. It stopped at the second floor, a private club. A wedding was under way. Youngman got off the elevator, asked to meet the father of the bride and said, “I’m Henny Youngman. I’ll do 10 minutes for $100.” He also did nightclubs (200 nights a year), the odd movie and a regular gig on Laugh In. Youngman’s humour was rapid-fire, machine-gun style. His act was only 15 or 20 minutes long but he could cram a hundred different jokes into that time frame. Nobody ever complained about the length of Youngman’s performances. Their sides were aching too much. Youngman’s wife Sadie was the butt of a lot of his jokes – including his trademark gag: “Take my wife – please!” He had others: “My wife said to me, ‘For our anniversary I want to go somewhere I’ve never been before.’ I said, ‘Try the kitchen!’”, or: “Last night my wife said the weather outside wasn’t fit for man or beast, so we both stayed home.” In fact, Youngman was nuts about Sadie and she returned the ardour. They were married for over six decades and towards the end, when her health declined he had an Intensive Care Unit built into her bedroom because she was terrified of hospitals. Sadie died in 1987; Henny plowed on for another decade, finally closing his remarkable one-man show in 1998 at the age of 91. Henny could spark laughs anytime, anywhere from anyone, but it never went to his head. For Henny it was a job. "I get on the plane. I go and do the job, grab the money and I come home and I keep it clean. Those are my rules. Sinatra does the same thing, only he has a helicopter waiting. ‘Keeping it clean’ was a big deal for Henny. I met a young comedian who got to sit beside him on an airplane once. The kid asked Youngman for his secret. “I keep it clean!” thundered Youngman. “All these young punks with their sewer mouths and their gutter jokes – stupid! Sure they get laughs but they don’t get asked back because they offend people who don’t like bad language. Best advice I can give you, kid – KEEP IT CLEAN!” Then without missing a beat, Youngman buttonholed the flight attendant and said: “Now where’s my #%$ing scotch?” Arthur Black Other Views Here’s to Henny’s famous one-liners Head to your computer, pull up the trusty search engine Google and type in “How to defend against...”. The predictive text begins to fill in the most popular options, which are 1) Dogs 2) Cougars (the animal I’m assuming) 3) Wolves and 4) Zombies. The internet can be a crazy place, but this time maybe it isn’t that far off the mark (gruesome details to follow). Every once in a while there is a news story that turns heads, whether it be for its sensationalism or just how bizarre the crime, or its motives, happens to be. This week, however, there have been four separate incidents, in four separate parts of North America that have raised a red flag for many and it has to do with that aforementioned fourth-most-popular Google option. By now we have all heard the story of Rudy Eugene and the Miami face-eating. Eugene, allegedly high on bath salts, the world’s newest and deadliest drug, was naked when he happened upon homeless Ronald Poppo, attacked him and began feasting on his face, tearing off his nose, face and eyes. After he initially growled at police, it took them five gunshots to take him down. Poppo remains in critical condition. Later in the week, police were called to the home of a Hackensack, New Jersey man who had stabbed himself repeatedly with a 12-inch knife. Police were “having no luck” subduing the man, according to Hackensack Police Lieutenant Timothy Lloyd. That was when the man began throwing pieces of his own skin and intestines at police officers and the SWAT team was brought in. After being subdued with two full cans of pepper spray, the man was eventually taken down by the SWAT team and brought in for surgery. Members of the SWAT team had to be decontaminated after the incident due to the amount of blood. Late last week local police in Harford County, Maryland were tipped off about 21- year-old Alexander Kinyua after human remains were found in the basement of his family’s home and body parts were found in a nearby dumpster. Police have charged Kinyua with first degree murder, saying he ate his victim’s heart and part of his brain. Kinyua is currently missing, as is his former roommate who had been reported missing a week earlier. Police strongly suspect Kinyua’s roommate is the murder victim, although they have been unable to identify him yet. Meanwhile in Germany, police have arrested Canadian Luka Rocco Magnotta after identifying him as a suspect in a case where a severed foot was mailed to the Conservative Party of Canada and a severed hand was stopped by Canada Post just short of its destination, The Liberal Party of Canada. Police are saying an internet video being circulated entitled “1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick” possibly shows Magnotta murdering and dismembering 33-year-old Lin Jun, resulting in the extremities that were mailed to Ottawa. The video was originally believed to be a realistic, yet fake snuff film. However, as evidence has rolled in, police believe the video depicts Magnotta committing a murder in Montreal, including decapitation, dismemberment and defiling a corpse. So is the zombie apocalypse truly upon us? No one knows for sure I suppose. However, boning up on our firearms skills and building bomb shelters couldn’t be a terrible idea. And if movie stores still existed, I’d suggest a viewing of the Evil Dead films. It’s time to worry To start I suppose I should apologize for misleading anyone with that title. It will probably lead you to think this will be some kind of some kind of insurance-, disaster-, weather- or financial-related story. Well, it’s not. With Shawn tackling the signs of the coming zombie apocalypse, I thought I would put forward my considerable experience in dealing with the living dead so you know exactly what to do when the dead start to stir, groan and rise from their resting spots. What are my qualifications? Well I’ve survived every kind of zombie infestation and developed a large arsenal of techniques for surviving against the undead. The first thing you need to know is what kind of zombie you are fighting. There are three different types of undead in the apocalypse and knowing what you’re up against can make all the difference. • Shamblers: These are your average zombies. They move slowly usually in large groups and are attracted to noise. As far as undead go they are the easiest to deal with. • Runners: These zombies spent a little more time at the undead YMCA training. They can run and can possess strength and speed rivalling or beating those of your average human survivor. Also, they may organize. • Supers: This classification of zombie covers a large group of potential threats. These undead can follow no rules and even possess powers that make them seem to be the next step in human evolution. They can run faster, jump higher, shoot things out of their mouths and other orifices and often command their fellow undead. If the brand of undead plague that you’re facing contains these I have four words for you: may God have mercy. The cause of the zombie infestation is something that needs to be discovered early if you, my fellow survivors, hope to continue that pesky habit of breathing you have. Your basic zombie end-game is caused by one of three major groups: • Weapons: Whether it’s a biological attack or a chemical attack, these man-made agents cause the recently-deceased to rise. Usually the disease is spread through contact after the initial attack, but it can often be airborne and only those with some natural resistance to it can survive. If you’re alive don’t get scratched, touched, bitten or spit on by the infected. • Bacteria/parasite: Maybe the common cold got tired of being so common or maybe we created super-viruses through antibiotics. Whatever the cause, a bacterial or parasitic outbreak is similar to weaponized zombie creation except, instead of doing it to ourselves, we brought it on ourselves. • Magic/divine intervention: As with the different type of zombies, the last cause is the hardest to deal with. Whether you believe in magic or the hand of God doesn’t matter. The simple fact is there seems to be no rhyme or reason for the disease or outbreak. Good luck. Figuring out how to deal with the zombies is job number three. You need to know what you’re dealing with before you can prepare for the end-times. Like the Energizer Bunny, zombies don’t quit unless you remove the thing keeping them going. For some breeds of zombies, that means piercing the brain to lay them to rest. Others may require you to remove the head from the body to stop the gnashing and clawing. Others still will keep coming at you even if you remove their head and their limbs, leaving them nothing but a rolling torso attempting to get to you. Knowing their weakness determines your arsenal. If a head-shot is enough, your obvious focus is going to be on ballistics. If, however, you need to remove the head you’re going to be looking at melee weapons. With the latter style of zombie, or if you haven’t figured out how to stop them yet, fire is always a good bet. Regardless of the type of zombie, the following is the kit I would suggest when zombies are discovered. • Firearms: Size does matter here. If you’re shooting zombies in the head, small calibre munitions will likely do the trick and be easier to handle if you’re not a seasoned expert like myself. If you’re more worried about fellow survivors trying to take what is yours, nothing says “How you doing?” better than a shotgun. Also, crossbows and bows make great silent weapons with recoverable ammo. • Melee weapons: If you can find a long- bladed sword, you’re good to go. If not, anything with an edge that can be sharpened that’s longer than a foot should work. • A flamethrower: This could be military equipment or a Super Soaker with a lighter taped to it as long as it works. A wall of flame usually deters the undead. • Camera: I wouldn’t be without one. • Transportable canned food: For obvious reasons. • Friends: You need friends when you’re facing hordes of zombies, never forget that. • Medical supplies: For non-zombie related injuries only. • Anesthetics: For injuries taken from zombies. Give the victim the shot and leave them. Trust me on this, it’s the only way to survive. • Otis: I call them Otis, but basically this is a teammate you could sacrifice if push came to shove to get away. You call me cold, I call myself a survivor. • A fuel-efficient car: Gas will be scarce. • A dog: Man’s best friend, even at the end. Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense Denny Scott Denny’s Den Preparing for the worst can help you