Random Wildlife Encounters

I’ve just had a bit of a fright. After making sure the kids were sleeping, I went out to the garage to retrieve the Easter goodies (we don’t hide things in the house, a lesson we learned one pre-Christmas day here when my daughter asked “Why are there a whole bunch of Littlest Pet Shops in your closet, and can I have them?”)

I noticed the door had blown open in the wind, which happens when I don’t lock it, but I thought nothing of it as I flicked the light switch. But as I was reaching up onto a high shelf to grab the bag of candy, I heard a sound from the darker depths of the garage. Looking, I saw nothing. But then, a moment later, a pair of eyes twinkled at me from the darkest corner, where I keep the snowblower.

“Whoah!” I cried, stumbling backwards. The candy bag hit the cement floor. Have I mentioned before how skittish I can be? Anyway, a moment later I saw a second set of eyes shining in the light from the ceiling bulb.

I whirled. “Get outta here!” I cried. Nothing happened. I grabbed the nearest object, which turned out to be a broken plastic street-hockey stick, and banged it against the wall. “Go on! Get!” Nothing.

After a moment, two small raccoons sauntered out of the shadows and ambled past me towards the door. One of them gave me a sidelong glance as they padded along, as if to say “You know we’ll just wait out there and come back, right, asshole?” Meanwhile, I was thinking about that accidental eunuch, Russian Alexander Kirilov.

They vanished into the night. I grabbed what I needed and came inside; this all happened just minutes ago.

These may be the same two raccoons I surprised our first night in this house, when they were digging through the trashbins. We moved the garbage and recyclables into the garage the next day. I have found evidence of other visits; on other nights when I’ve forgotten to lock up, I’ve noticed a trashcan knocked over, and wondered if it was the wind. Probably not.

Raccoons are cute and all, but they’re just so brazen — they know their role, their work as sneak thieves, and they know they’re unlikely to be shot over kitchen scraps. They’re like crows and seagulls; the smartest animals learned a long time ago to embrace urbanity, not hide from it.

Stupider animals, like the turkeys who showed up earlier today, run when they see humans. But then again, I’ve never served raccoon at Thanksgiving. So there’s that.

Lee Child Gives It Away

Want a free e-book?

One of my favourite writers is Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series of mystery thrillers. From the day I first opened Killing Floor in 1996, I’ve soaked up Reacher’s once-a-year adventures the way Reacher soaks up black coffee. This is highly intelligent writing disguised as mass-market fiction, which never ceases to amaze me.

Jack Reacher is an aging drifter, an ex-military policeman hovering around 50. He’s six-foot-five, 250 pounds of pure muscle and brawn, all of this wrapped around a genius intellect and Holmesian investigative skills. He has no job, no steady income — although money tends to just kind of land in his bank account — and owns nothing but a toothbrush, a bank card and a passport. Every couple of days, he lands in a new American town, buys a change of clothes, turfs the rest, and walks into some kind of major crime crisis. When he isn’t linking together obscure random clues, he’s beating the living shit out of the worst kind of thugs. And he almost always gets the girl.

Child, an Englishman, has written 13 Reacher novels. Each is an exploration of an element of America, something I find fascinating as a non-American. Reacher, see, is an American, an ex-soldier, but he never really lived on U.S. soil; he grew up on Marine bases and served all over the world. So as he explores baseball and the blues, he also discovers the underbelly of American life: militant survivalists, bloodthirsty arms dealers, organized mobsters, small-town killers and corporate warlords. And then he smashes them to the ground. I love this stuff.

As things stand now, last year’s Nothing To Lose (Reacher books hide their gutsy brains behind cliched titles, sadly) is the No. 1 paperback in Canada. And the next book, Gone Tomorrow, comes out next month. I avoid Reacher spoilers, so all I know about Gone Tomorrow is it’s supposedly Reacher vs. al-Qaeda. Well, all right!

But something new is happening right now: Bantam is giving away a Lee Child e-book. It’s The Persuader, a tight little one-set thriller about an isolated family in a seaside mansion, a big secret, and a stranger named Reacher. It’s incredible.

Download the e-book here. It’s available in various formats, from PDF to Kindle. There’s even one for iPhone. Get it while you can.

A couple of years ago, I realized I had bought a copy of One Shot, another Child book, when I already owned it. So I left it on a park bench in the hopes that someone else would pick it up and get hooked. I do that a lot now. This is sort of the same idea, but electronic and therefore better.

In unrelated news, I only recently learned that “Lee Child” is a pseudonym, and the author’s real name is the same as my father’s. That’s kind of cool.

Enjoy.

The Woody Harrelson Excuse Generator

In case you haven’t heard, Woody Harrelson out-moronified Billy Bob Thornton today after he was accused of assaulting a TMZ videographer. It happened at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and has been heavily documented, so I won’t dwell on it too much. The story is here.

It seems like a typical papparazi attack, until you read the statement Harrelson released yesterday: “I wrapped a movie called Zombieland, in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character. With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie.”

A few initial thoughts

1. Woody is still an actor?
2. Woody is an actor in a movie with such a unique plot?
3. Woody is a method actor?

I’ve decided to adopt his excuse for everyday life. I will begin using it immediately. Examples:

• “Do you know how fast you were going, sir?”
• “I wrapped a movie called Zombieland, in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then got in my minivan still very much in character. I was being followed by an ice-cream delivery truck driver, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie, causing me to speed up.”
• “Hey, where did all those frozen pizzas go?”
• “I wrapped a movie called Zombieland, in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then opened the freezer, still very much in character. I was scared by the boxes, which I quite understandably mistook for zombies, and threw them away.”
• “You were supposed to start your new job today.”
• “I wrapped a movie called Zombieland, in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then went to meet my new boss still very much in character. My boss wasn’t there yet, so I had to wait in the lobby with the receptionist, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie, so I went to the bar next door.”

Go ahead, try it on for size. You’d be amazed at the attention it gets you.

Today’s Moron: Billy Bob Thornton II

I’ll have the mashed potatoes, no gravy, please.

Billy Bob Thornton and his band, the Boxmasters, have fled Canada, skulking back across the border in the small hours and abandoning the final two dates of their tour opening for Willie Nelson. This comes after Thornton, who famously moped and non-sequitered through an interview with CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi this week, was soundly and roundly heckled when he tried to explain himself at a Toronto concert the next night.

Thornton, who called Canada “mashed potatoes without the gravy” during the bizarre interview — which you can see in its 13-minute entirety here — apparently is not running away, his publicist told reporters; rather, one member of the Boxmasters is sick, so the whole deal is off.

Sure. That’s what it is.

New of the weird interview spread like a rapidfire global virus, even here at the Weather Station, where the numbers spiked when  I mentioned it. By the way, here’s a funny random sampling of Google search terms people used to find this site:

• billy bob thornton, thornton cbc, thornton ghomeshi, billy bob gets hostile on studio Q, billy bob thornton moron, billy bob’s canadian diss, billy bob thorton on cbc, douchey bob thornton. I like that last one.

This has become a big deal, but really, it’s no surprise from Thornton. The reason he gave for his rude, stupid responses was that his people had told Ghomeshi the subject of his being a major actor was off-limits. And Ghomeshi, who later said, rightly, that nobody tells him what questions to ask, more or less did so. He mentioned acting only briefly in his introduction of Thornton. Later, he pointed out, again rightly so, that Thornton’s celebrity status is a factor in explaining why a band with less than two years’ experience is opening for Willie Nelson.

The question of how long the band had been together is what riled Thornton up, by the way.

Ghomeshi has taken some heat for not giving it right back to Thornton, but I agree with his response. He showed tact and respect in the face of an onslaught of dickery, and that’s admirable. It’s also stereotypically Canadian, right? Billy Bob would probably say so.

Had I been doing the interview, I suspect things would have gone differently.

• Me: “So, Billy Bob. When did the Boxmasters form?”
• BB: “I’m not sure what that means.”
• Me: “Uh … when did you start playing together?”
• BB: “I don’t know what you mean by that.”
• Me: “Okay, let’s try this one. Do you remember your own name?”
• BB: “I used to like to pet other people’s dogs, but now I don’t.”
• Me: “Thanks for stopping by, asshole. Ladies and gentlemen, Billy Bob is playing what he calls music on a Canadian tour, but I’m not going to waste my energy talking about it. If you really need to see more of him, check out his awesome acting on Knots Landing or in the upcoming film Manure.”
• BB: “I grew up a music historian.”
• Me: “And then your wife, arguably the hottest woman on the planet, traded you in for Brad Pitt. Nice going.”

At that point I would have unplugged his microphone. However, Ghomeshi has more class than me; he is, after all, a professional radio broadcaster, and I work out of the basement for no pay. And, for the record, if there’s no gravy for my mashed potatoes, I’ll have the fries instead.