The Citizen, 2001-05-30, Page 5Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2001. PAGE 5.
Other Views
The quirky side of a double's life
Saddam Hussein, I'm sorry to say,
probably has a better shot at immortality
than the rest of us. That's because the
Iraqi tyrant surrounds himself with doubles -
people who look so much like him they could
be his twin brother.
The story goes that whenever Saddam
makes plans to leave one of his palaces, a half
a dozen black limos appear in the courtyard,
each bristling with its own team of armed
bodyguards. Each limo also includes, deep in
the back seat, one limited edition Saddam
lookalike.
The limos then simultaneously scoot out
different exits at high speed.
One of the cars has the real Saddam Hussein
in it, but even a sharpshooter couldn't pick out
which one. One of these days somebody might
shoot a guy who looks like Hussein. It may be
some time before we know if they got the right
one.
It's not a new dodge. Albania's whacko ex-
tyrant, Enver Hoxha regularly used a double to
stand in for him at public spectacles. Fidel
Castro routinely kept one or two fatigued
beardos in combat fatigues on call.
Josef Stalin employed a whole series of
doubles, trading them in on 'later models' as he
aged in office.
The usefulness of doubles is pretty obvious.
Guys like Saddam, Castro, Hoxha and Stalin
have more than a few folks who would love to
see them sniped, knifed, poisoned or blown up
real good.
How convenient for the targets then, to have
a stand-in to be the fall guy in any
assassination attempt.
A bit about
/don't know what it is about the Germans
that makes them want to create new words
of remarkable length. This is not, in fact, a
recent fad; they were at it long before I spent a
year as a young student at one of their
universities.
I would have thought that .they had got it out
of their system by now, but apparently not.
Before I give you the latest example of their
word-building prowess, let me say that the
German language lends itself to stringing a lot
of words together without resorting to hyphens
or other forms of punctuation. English on the
other hand is flexible enough that you can turn
a noun into an adjective without altering the
spelling. Thus it is possible to say Southern
Ontario Regional Alphorn Manufacturers
Association without anybody feeling that
inexcusable freedom has been taken with the
language.
Not so in German! Their way is to take all
the words required and attach them in
the proper order until you . have one
word containing the entire idea you want
to portray. Thus you get words like
Oberschleswigholsteinzentralnoergelstelle or
KunstSachverstaendigenstellvertreter. Most
Germans. are as comfortable with such
creations as they are eating sauerkraut or
drinking beer.
When we as students were sitting in the
Beerkeller near the university, (admittedly an
infrequent occurrence; most of us were poor
and had to study pretty hard) we used to try to
put together all sorts of comical combinations.
We even incorporated them in a play to the
great merriment of all, or at least most of the
students; there are always some whose German
sense of humour is out of order and saw
nothing funny about our creations.
At any rate I was reminded of all this when I
recently came across news of the formation of
a German labour union out of a lot of smaller
But there are body doubles who have
significant peacetime applications too.
Think of all the drecky and largely
meaningless meetings, award ceremonies,
parades and presentations a world leader is
expected to attend week in and week out.
Wouldn't any overworked Supremo at least toy
with the idea of hiring a clone to impersonate
him while El Jefe gets to chill out back at the
palace with his feet up, his shoes off and a cold
one in his hand?
It's a great idea when you think about it.
Personally, I'd love to be able to send my
double to the weekly staff meeting at the office
- not to mention having him play me at those
dreary Sunday afternoon tea parties at Aunt
Edna's. I know that nobody would miss me and
maybe for once I could get all the way through
The Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.
As a career calling, being a professional
duplicate has a definite plus side. Doubles can
make good money.
American actor Tim Watters never even met
the last U.S. president, but he had the nose, and
the curly hair and the big, wide, infectious
Arkansas grin.
And for the past few years, Watters made a
bundle doing comedic impersonations of Bill
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
unions. The new creation is, in fact, the largest
union in the western world and is called
Vereinte DienstleistungsgewerkSchaft or
United Service Workers Union.
Getting that on the intemet proved to be a
chore for the sharper minds within the union
and they had to settle for ver.di, a brevity that
must be too much for those addicted to long
words.
Another more serious matter has also come
up recently. I was surprised to read that no less
than the president of the country, Johannes
Rau, believes it is not acceptable for a German
to say that he is proud to be a German. He can
be glad or grateful but definitely not proud.
One can, said the president, only be proud of
something like a personal accomplishment.
I surmised that there had to be something
behind all this; presidents do not ordinarily
make such statements out of the blue. It seems
that Mr. Rau's comments were prompted by an
earlier statement made by a politician who
Final Thought
Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks
through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a
moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of
daylight in the mind, and fills it with a
steady and perpetual serenity.
— Joseph Addison
Clinton at conventions and conferences all over
the world. At the height of his career, Watters
was making 15 to 20 appearances a month and
grossing $1 million U.S. annually.
Not any more, of course. Clinton is off the
world stage and so, by default, is any
entertainer unfortunate enough to have been
making his living acting like him.
That's the downside of being a double - you
can find yourself out of work in a heartbeat.
Or an assassination.
Or a car crash. More than two dozen
gainfully employed Princess Di lookalikes
were instantly unemployed when her
boyfriend's Mercedes ploughed into that
Parisian bridge abutment back in 1997.
A few — very few — doubles actually get to
outlive their models. Think Elvis. The King of
Rock n' Roll (if you don't count Little Richard
and James Brown) pitched off his toilet and
croaked nearly a quarter of century ago. But
the Elvis impersonation business has never
been...busier.
How many people do you figure still dress in
polyester leisure suits with zircon buttons,
slick back their pompadours with black shoe
polish and try to coax money out of crowds
with their rendition of Blue Suede Shoes?
Approximately 35,000 world-wide,
according to conservative estimate.
Paul Suszek is less conservative. As the man
in charge of the Elvis-A-Rama museum in Las
Vegas, Suszek gets to see a lot more Elvis
wannabes than he wants to.
"There's a million of them out there"
grumbles Suszek, "and most of them are
terrible."
claimed he was, indeed, proud to be a German.
He meant it to be controversial since
nationalism is still something of a sore point in
the country but he was campaigning and
wanted to get the right-wing vote.
To cool off the resulting outcry, the president
weighed in with this opinion. But Mr. Rau's
comments calmed nothing down.
The ruckus continued until it was the turn of
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to proclaim, "I
am proud of what people have, accomplished
and of our democratic institutions. In that sense
I am a German patriot who is proud of his
country."
This is not quite saying that you are proud to
be a German but it is as close as any of their
political leaders have come. And this is where
the matter rests at the present time.
It would not surprise me to learn that
someone will soon come up with a 42-plus
letter word in German to describe all this.
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Heightened awareness
W hat is it about a deck? Cedar,
cement, pre-treated lumber, these
backyard playpens have become
almost de rigueur for todffy's homeowners.
When summer hits, we hit the decks for
socializing, cooking, or solitude. We decorate
with pots and planters or surround them with
flora and fauna.
And while they might be thought of as
outdoor family rooms, many decks are nothing
short of architectural design wonders.
Possessing their own little rooms, alcoves and
levels, themed for dining, relaxing, or
entertaining chikken, they are often, when put
into perspective, more elaborate than the
homes they accent.
I'm .not certain when this lifeStyle change
began, but I do know that growing up when I
stepped out my back door I stepped first onto
a sidewalk, then onto grass. We walked
barefoot through it, lounged across it, played
on it. I never knew then that something was
missing.
I do now. When we purchased our home two
decades ago, the amount of work facing us
was, to understate, abundant. It wasn't until a
few years ago, that building a deck became a
goal for the future. One that began to increase
my impatience with each passing year. The
more the topic came up, the more I wanted it
done.
But there was always one other project that
needed attention, one other problem that
needed fixing. There was never enough time
and most definitely never enough money.
Admittedly, the task was not going to be
simple. (Nothing ever has been at this house.)
First we were going to have to demolish a tiny,
dilapidated old woodshed, then fix up the back
wall.
The tearing down was ea.iy; the rest not so
much. But with just days looming, and I do
mean looming, before our daughter's wedding,
I am finding myself standing finally on an
almost completed open-air rumpus room.
And I am pleased. There is something about
a deck. Speaking personally, I am, after a long,
long, long, winter delighted by the chance to
be outdoors. The deck gives me that sense of
welcome, while at the same time affording a
level of privacy, security.
But there is something else. Standing
looking over the railing I noticed, and this may
sound foolish but I don't care, that my yard
looks different from this elevated view.
Then I remembered a scene from the movie
Dead Poet's Society, in which Robin Williams
as an unorthodox teacher in a rigid private
New England boarding school, encourages his
class to climb upon his desk, then once there to
pause, to take the time to really look around
them. It was an exercise meant to. demonstrate
how diflerently things can look when given a
fresh perspective.
It's a lesson of which to be well reminded
and so easily uncovered. To the jaded, things
old and weary can appear fresh and new when
looked at through the eyes of a child. When
one considers the loyalty, trust and easy
acceptance of a family pooch, one can see the
values to be emulated. Putting a new slant on
things will often give a different solution,
while finding the right angle can solve a
problem.
So what is it about a deck'? I guess the
answer for me one might say has been a
heightened awareness of life around me.
German idiosyncrasies