Carolyn Bennett Writer/Comic

Ron James is Not Nearly Done

From The Fishwrapper october 24 https://www.thefishwrapper.ca/

Ron James: Not Nearly Done Yet

There’s a hilarious 2010 Air Farce New Year’s Eve sketch where comedian and cast regular Alan Park does a send up of Ron James. Park impersonates Ron’s famous linguistic style, a combination of verbal pyrotechnics and east coast lilt, complete with subtitles for those unable to follow. It’s an affectionate poke, maybe a little inside baseball, but Ron’s singular stage presence is one not easily parodied. Twelve years after that Air Farce sketch, my friend Alan Park succumbed to cancer and passed away at age 60. Ron James, now 65, doesn’t take his longevity for granted. “What motivates me? I like being alive,” he says over the phone from his home in Toronto. 

Ron hits stages across Ontario this fall with his Not Nearly Done Yet comedy tour. One of Canada’s most successful comedians, he consistently sells out venues to a loyal fan base. Before his upcoming date at the Brockville Arts Centre, he reflects on what keeps him going.

“In the years that I could run, I brought my sneakers and my running gear everywhere. I ran all the time on the road. Now I row and cycle.  It clears out the pistons. There’s a lot to be said for staying healthy. I get a lot of great ideas with the endorphin buzz. You can’t drink or smoke and dope your way to genius. I wish I could tell every young comedian that.”

Ron credits his time with Second City when he was younger for a fundamental education in the structure of comedy, and for giving him a vision for his future. “It was like having the Sword of  Damocles hung over everybody there, because you never knew if you were going to get fired. I loved the touring company. But everybody wanted to be on the main stage, and it was politically poisonous with everybody fighting to get their scenes in the show. It wasn’t for me.”

He made the well worn  trek to Los Angeles in the early 1990s to forge a stateside career, but after three tumultuous years, Ron knew something had to change, “I have to give credit to my ex-wife. She said ‘when we go back to Canada you have to do something different.’ I was reading Joseph Campbell at the time, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and the advice was to follow your bliss. That stayed with me.” Back on terra Timmie firma, Ron created a personal manifesto for himself. “I wanted to be a standup, I wanted to do it without an agent and I wanted my own TV series.”

Nine one-hour CBC comedy specials, two television series (Blackfly and The Ron James Show), many appearances at Just for Laughs, CBC’s Halifax and Winnipeg comedy festivals, several awards, and a national bestselling book All Over the Map: Rambles and Ruminations from the Canadian Road later, Ron looks back with gratitude. “I believe I’ve been put here for a reason – to make people laugh. That’s why I keep going, because I knew that when I began blazing trail across the frozen tip of Lake Superior booking myself back in the day, that there was something right about this road I chose.”

It’s not all kismet that turned Ron’s vision into reality. Dedication to his craft has everything to do with it. “You have to enjoy the work,” he emphasizes. “It’s everything, man. It’s a high wire act. Look at Seinfeld, the razor sharp precision of his work is truly remarkable. And oh, would that we could all be Billy Connolly and not write anything down, but Billy’s made the way he’s made, and we’re all made differently.”

Ron’s comedy can be described as “big tent”, meaning it’s inclusive and appealing to a wide range of people. That doesn’t mean he panders. “It’s a comedian’s job to speak truth to power. If I have opinions about fascism or if I have opinions about the convoy, Canada’s cheap January 6 cover band, look, I get my flak on Facebook, but if you’re not losing some of the room from time to time you’re not honouring the dictates of your craft If you’re a comedian living off corporate gigs making $20,000 an hour, at the end of the day you’re not a comedian – you’re Maurice Chevalier singing for the Vichy French. You’re selling out. Hey, [corporate people] aren’t mean people, they’re not bad people, but the first thing they tell you is what you can’t say. I’ve always been able to take the barometric pressure of the country on the road, and I still think people like to laugh at power.” 

We chat about the vicissitudes of network television and his frustrations taking notes from TV executives. What really eludes him is Tik Tok videos that can catapult unknown lip synchers and one minute pranksters to Internet fame. “I don't know the first thing about that …   I may be old school, but you still have to do your 90 minutes. People will say – oh, Ron’s audiences are older, Ron has to start his show at 7:30pm because his audience has to be in bed by 10pm. So what! As people get older, they say that they become more conservative. Not everybody does. They don’t take themselves so seriously anymore. You know why? Because they’re losing people. They know the fragility of life.”

What can audiences expect when Ron comes to a theatre near you? An eclectic buffet of bon mots on aging, food, mid-life crisis dating, and growing up to name a few. Unless a tsunami hits the St, Lawrence Seaway, nothing is going to stop this force of nature. “When the only direction a network wants to see a 65 year old dude with white eyebrows take is walking out the door, to see people walking in to my shows means the world to me. I’m very thankful for this life that I’ve had, and I’m grateful for every kilometre travelled and for every gig performed.”

Ron James: Not Nearly Done Yet

Kingston, Saturday, October 19, Grand Theatre 

Brockville, Friday, October 25, Brockville Arts Centre 

Cornwall, Sunday, October 27, Aultsville Theatre 




 


Expos Yourself!

Carolyn Bennett Writer/Comic with Terry Mosher a.k.a. Aislin

Terry Mosher a.k.a Aislin and Carolyn Bennett Writer/Comic outside Brockville's From Here to Infinity Gallery.

Cartoonist Aislin’s Sketchy Baseball Memoir 

From the September issue of The Fishwrapper

When the Washington Nationals won the World Series on October 30, 2019, some baseball fans knew that it was really the Montreal Expos that triumphed. After Daniel Hudson pitched the slider that struck out Houston Astros batter Michael Brantley, I leapt and whooped around my Toronto apartment like I was rioting on St. Catherine Street; I had to stop myself from flipping over my coffee table, the jubilation was so intense. It had been nearly 35 years since I’d last seen an Expos home game at the Big O, but growing up in MTL during the heady days of Nos Amours hardwired me to love anything remotely  ‘Spos. So when the Montreal Expos franchise moved to Washington in 2005, an inevitable yet still demoralizing goodbye, many MTL fans shifted their allegiance to the Nationals. The love for Canada’s first major league baseball team runs deep.

Terry Mosher a.k.a. Aislin knows all about that love. The legendary political satirist and cartoonist for the Montreal Gazette will be signing copies of his latest book Montreal Expos: A Cartoonist Love Affair on Sunday, September 15 beginning at 1pm at the From Here to Infinity Gallery and Bookstore in Brockville. Many former Montrealers have made Brockville their home, including notables such as the late great Don McGowan and longtime Recorder and Times journalist and author Ron Zajac, so Bville was a natural stop on Aislin’s book tour. 

This past June, Mosher was awarded the prestigious Michener-Baxter Award for exceptional service to Canadian public service journalism. An OC (not obsessive compulsive, but Officer of the Order of Canada), Mosher has had his cartoons published in Punch, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, National Lampoon and the New York Times. 

Not bad for a kid who grew up in downtown Montreal, where he developed his caricature talents under the encouraging eye of renowned painter and family friend John Little. Mosher would watch Little work in his studio and listen to his stories about sports and baseball, of seeing players like the Montreal Royals’ Jackie Robinson, who would go on to make history by being the first African American to play in major league baseball. That early influence helped shape Mosher's career trajectory, and his book is dedicated to Little.

Mosher’s “memoir of a baseball team” is chock-a-block with photos, cartoons and stories about the rise and fall of the celebrated crew. Mosher’s story runs parallel to the Expos chronology and the book is sprinkled with anecdotes from his own life. He recounts the substance abuse in the 1980s that not only had to be reckoned with within the Expos organization and MLB, but that he had to face personally. He checked himself into rehab in 1985, and along with Expos notables Tim Raines and Ellis Valentine, continues to be open about his recovery and sobriety. As sports journalist Michael Farber wrote, “in the 1980s the Montreal Expos became Colombia’s favourite team”. 

From Jarry Park and Rusty “Le Grand Orange” Staub, through to the Big O and Warren Cromartie, Steve Rogers, Andre Dawson, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Vlad Guerroro, Gary Carter and all the other names that will make Expos fans salivate, the book is an easy read, a picture book for grownups. It highlights the baseball coaches, sportscasters, politicians and other cast of characters (Youppi), that electrified, enraged and entertained a great city. With a foreword from original Montreal Expos owner Charles Brofman and coming in at 336 ages, Aislin’s Montreal Expos: A Cartoonist’s Love Affair is a must-read for baseball fans, anyone nostalgic for Montreal’s bygone days, and for those who appreciate the art of cartooning. Mosher has given us a gift by sharing his reminiscences of this giddy time.

Don’t miss this chance to meet Terry “Aslin” Mosher on Sunday September 15 from 1pm at From Here to Infinity Gallery, 213 King Street West, Brockville. Proceeds of book sales are going to the Montreal Children's Hospital through the Expos Fest organization. IT HAPPENED AND IT WAS GREAT!!

Valderi Valdera!

Listening to:

Annakin Slayd - Remember (Expos 50th Anniversary Version) - YouTube

From the Archives: A Stress-Free Way To Pay Bills And Get Instant Cash!

In my meandering (I call it meandering, some call it procrastination) through the overlord Google, I came across my old blog on the supreme entity Google’s blogspot. While I continue plodding away on a short story that is causing me to question everything I thought I was, please enjoy this timeless entry. Note the 2012 date. Yours, cb

Friday, November 23, 2012

A Stress-Free Way To Pay Bills And Get Instant Cash!

I still anticipate the arrival of daily mail. Not the electronic kind, but the kind where a guy in uniform walks up to your house and drops letters off in a thing called a mailbox. Some mailboxes are attached to the exterior of a house, some houses have slots in their doors for letters to be inserted, and in apartment buildings, residents have little individual mail slots or boxes where they collect mail. Mail. Coming home to mail. Maybe a postcard from a friend vacationing in the Swiss Alps, or a card acknowledging a milestone or a holiday.  Mail. From Canada Post!

Ah, the romance.

Today I received this gem from my credit union.

Dear Carolyn,

Imagine you have $511.28 in your chequing account.

Now imagine writing a cheque for $1000 … $1500 … or even $5000 without any concern that it will “bounce”. This is the straightforward, honest benefit of having an Advantage Line Of Credit.

By using your Advantage Line Of Credit, you increase the balance in your chequing account so you can pay unexpected bills …cover vacation expenses …or other occasional blips in your cash flow … (I stopped reading after this).

Now, I could be wrong, and please correct me if I am, but isn't this sort of marketing and/or economic policy what created the U.S. government calls the “fiscal cliff”. But – how could it be? The benefit of having an Advantage Line Of Credit is straightforward and honest!

I mean, like, hey, I gotta go to Aruba. That’s an occasional blip in my lifestyle.  Fer sure. But my cash flow is trickling. It might be an infection, I dunno. Hey - I’ll write a cheque for $5000 – that should take care of the yuck, like, ya.

Fiscal Cliff: Hey, cheque! I wanna see you bounce! Toss yourself off me!

Cheque: But I can’t bounce. It says so in the direct mail campaign.

Fiscal Cliff: I don’t believe it. Show me! First rule of storytelling – show, don’t tell!

Cheque: Okay, Cliff. Watch me soar muthafecker!

SFX: Weeping and gnashing of teeth.

THIS AD BROUGHT TO YOU BY 

FRIENDLY GUYS BANKRUPTCY TRUSTEES

FRIENDLY GUYS: MAKING IT ALL GO AWAY

And people ask me why I get headaches.

Whoever conceived, wrote and approved the copy for the Advantage Line Of Credit should be forced to take out an Advantage Line Of Credit, rack it up without any enjoyment, and suffer the torment of financial insecurity. And when they cried for mercy, all they’d hear is a ‘blip’ sound.

It’s stuff like this that’s causing the middle class to collapse.

Me, I’m still waiting for a postcard from the Swiss Alps.

Bright Lit Big City returns Saturday, September 30, 4pm

Make sure that you attend Bright Lit Big City on Saturday September 30, 4pm at Hirut Cafe 2050 Danforth Ave Toronto. There will be injera. And authors reading their work. Probably in that order.

Surviving and Thriving in Bville

There was a fire in Brockville this week —-a fire of talent!

As the great Gloria Gaynor crooned, I Will Survive.

Please enjoy my latest essay. Shout out to urbanites in small town Ontario.

Big City Love Song (sung to the Cheers theme)

A little anthem for all my ex-pat Toronto friends living further afield:

Making your way in a small town today

Takes the least amount you've got

Getting the f&*k out of there for awhile

Sure would help a lot

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where no one knows your name

And no one’s glad you came

You want to be where you can ignore 

Your paltry troubles that are so lame

You want to be where nobody knows your name

Climbing the walls when folks calls

You've lost your solitude again

And the more you're out and about

The more you want to hide from friends

When you long to hear no hello

Roll out of bed, hope no one cares 

The morning's looking bright

And you long for anonymity  

But damn – you volunteered to write

And your husband wants to go to Home Depot

Be glad there's a place in the world

Where no one knows your name

And they don’t care you came

You want to go where people know

People are immune to fame

You want to go where no one knows your name

Where no one knows your name

And they don’t care you came

Where no one knows your name

And they don’t care you came

etc..