Ah! With a little help from my friends. So good of the Beatles to drop by our studio to make a commercial! We also had visits from John Cleese, Popeye The Sailor, Sir John Gielgud, the Beach Boys, and many more! Plus! “Life slows to a mad rush” in the conclusion of our sci-fi story “The New Norm L” on WILLIAMSON’S WAY. Brought to you by Tree-Menders Arborists, Kitty Slippers, Srorrim Mirrors, Aloha Velma Tanning Lotion, Cloud 19 Blow-Up Beds, and Trembles Noble Whiskey.
Show Excerpts: The New Norm L
I remember the time I met Queen Elizabeth I took off my hat and bowed my head and said solemnly, “Short back and sides please.” Of course the Queen is always prepared for moments like this and so she whipped out a Gillette electric shaver and some pruning shears that had been carefully placed in her garter belt, and as she lathered my head over her upturned crown*** which doubled as a basin (Handy too if you’d had some bad pie or cake earlier that day) the Queen told me how this shaver was vintage, first belonging to the actor William Gillette, the first actor to play Sherlock Holmes onstage. She went on to tell me how Gillette’s family dated back to William Shakespeare’s day, indeed Shakespeare wrote one of the first gay plays, Romeo & Gillette, which would have been one of the more truthful plays produced, as the companies were all male in those days and frequently played women’s parts, especially enjoying playing old ladies. In fact Shakespeare came up with the idea of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but figured it was ahead of its time. I always enjoyed the way the Queen would satirize Monty Python and as she blew the remaining stray hairs from my neck and swept up my hair from the floor of Buckingham Palace with her diamond-encrusted Zwiffer stick, I gave her a tip of five bucks for the sparkling conversation as well as the nifty haircut. The Queen then gave me a wink, as if to say, “One has one of your blasted hairs stuck in one’s eye,” and it was only in sticking the Queen’s head back under the basin, that is, her crown, and with a combination of the Royal Fire Hose and seven Corgi’s tongues, were we able to dislodge this unfortunate souvenir of the summit of HRH Queen Elizabeth the II at her pop-up tonsorial parlour, and Norm L, the sole proof of it literally running down the royal drain, down, down, down somewhere to Rupert Murdoch.
***“One also had an upturned nose at one time,” her Majesty told me, “meaning one had a nose that sat literally upside-down on one’s face, but in all good faith one tires of having a ‘schnarf’**** and thus dousing oneself in one’s mucus.”
****Coined by Janice Williamson of Winnipeg (1938-2006); a “schnarf” refers to an especially liquid-y sneeze, reminiscent of vomit, or “barf”, and is therefore used with total authenticity by the Queen, who also taught Janice how to properly use a knife and fork while eating dinner, on a succession of Royal Visits to St. Vital in Winnipeg thru the courtesy of the British North America Act and Duffy’s Taxi.
***
May said my empathy was lacking. What a dumb ignorant thing to say. Well, perhaps she had a point - in her head - and I just hadn't noticed. How to correct this lack? Pretend there is plenty, she said. Take the initiative with people, be more social, ask them out for coffee or tea. Coffee and tea get people going and comfort them. For me, it's two cups of coffee and a bowel movement to clear my head. May said it’s a good thing I never became a surgeon. And anyway that's plural. Why would I be two surgeons, I asked. Suppose I disagreed with myself about where to cut? She said no, bowels. I said no bowels? You're full of it. Also dead, with no bowels. You're not helping yourself, Norm, she said. I said of course not, after all I'm not two doctors, even if I took the exam twice. She said I'm talking about bowels, more than one. So what she was saying was my routine should be coffee, coffee, moving bowels. But in different places. Not moving bowels in the lobby of the Empress Hotel. Not again. Not after the court order. Which was a typo anyway, it was corrected and then sent to me as a curt order, then corrected again and sent to me as Curt Broda, then corrected again and sent to me as Turk Broda, then corrected again and sent to me as Bea Broda, from Star Wars, an earlier draft of the movie screenplay in which Luke Skywalker learns from the master: a female broadcast journalist, producer, writer, and host specializing in travel.
May was silent after that. Just staring at me.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Not one word.”
“That's three!”
May finally spoke again. “It's not enough to be mooney over anyone who'll smile at you, Norm. It always comes back to your smiling first. Your contributing to a relationship.”
How did she know about Rajveer? The ‘Indian Wedding Party Destroyed’ headline I guess, and me on the front of Time magazine, its Man of the Year, amended to Mean of the Year.
May advised me to take a back seat. I stole her sciatica throw cushion, stuffing it under my shirt. I then made my way to the Fort Garry Hotel, hearing that was the place for stuffed shirts…
***
Featuring: “Tree-Menders Arborists Spot”, “Kitty Slippers Spot”, “Gielgud’s Grease Movie Spot”, “Srorrim Mirrors Spot”, “The Shadop Spot”, “Aloha Velma Tanning Lotion Spot”, “Poll Vault News Spot”, “Cloud 19 Blow-Up Bed Spot”, “Trembles Noble Whiskey Spot”, “Storytelling – The New Norm L, Finale”.
