GUNGA GULUNGA
by Daren Foster

ALSO ON SITE

GUNGA GULUNGA
By Daren Foster

Though the hyper-critic in me resists such a notion, there are movies that hold special places in our hearts for reasons that go beyond mere artistic merit. That first restricted film you snuck into when you were still underage. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is mine). The one you barely saw because you finally got a chance to make out at the drive-in or so I’m told as I’m kind of prudish that way. A time and place for everything, people. Your first German language film that didn’t have Nazis in it. (Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann, Die. Much more entertaining than it sounds).

Movies that, if you don’t already own them, are your fallback when you can’t find anything else to rent at the local DVD place. Or you stumble across them flipping through the TV channels and wind up watching them alone (again) because everyone else in the house has been forced to sit through them too many times already and don’t share your inexplicable enthusiasm. You’ll unwaveringly go to any rep house within driving distance that’s showing these movies just to see them on the big screen (again).

Dirty Dancing is one such film for me. I just can’t help revelling in its monumental cheesiness and Jerry Orbach’s hangdog performance broadcasting for all to see that he’s only doing it for the money. North by Northwest. Well, I don’t even have to justify or explain that one. P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights will stop me dead at least until the Alfred Molina in tight, tight jockeys and kimono scene with the firecrackers and Sister Christian/Jesse’s Girl playing in the background. Recently, I’ve taken a retro-shine to Saturday Night Fever due to my surprisingly newfound appreciation of disco. Burn, baby, burn.

At the top of this list, however, stands Caddyshack. I cannot count the number of times I have seen this movie in parts or in its entirety since it came out in the summer of 1980. Following on the heels of Animal House, Caddyshack took the ensemble and anarchic sketch approach up a notch, letting fly with an improvisational feel that constantly threatened to veer out of control but managed to reel it back in until the very last scene. Some of the actors were never that good again (Chevy Chase). Others were but didn’t ever displace their Caddyshack character from the popular imagination (Bill Murray).

So imagine my delight at finding it playing on the Golf Channel opposite this year’s baseball all-star game. It provided refuge during the interminable commercial breaks (don’t worry, I’m not going there this week) and insufferable aggrandizement of everyone who’d ever been involved in the game. The film’s constant poking of holes in pretension seemed apt this night.

Unfortunately, that warm fuzzy feeling I usually experience watching the movie turned sour during one particularly notable scene near the end of the movie. Chase’s Ty Webb and Murray’s Carl Spackler are talking golf and grass in the assistant groundkeeper’s dingy abode and wind up getting high on a fatty Carl’s rolled from a strain of pot he’s developed. (This is a hybrid. This is a cross bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent, and northern California sinsemilla. The amazing stuff about this is that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt at night on this stuff. I've got pounds of this stuff.) Except in the version I’m watching on this particular night, they don’t.

I’m sorry. The Golf Channel shows an edited version of Caddyshack with the pot smoking cut out?! A scene that propelled university partying through the 80s to even dizzier heights (Cannonball it, Cannonball! Cannonball comin' through, Cannonball!) is too sensitive for Golf Channel viewers!? Who exactly are they worried about offending at 10 o’clock at night? On the Golf Channel?!?

Nearly 30 years down the road with the world in the kind of shape it is due to unbridled greed, environmental degradation, violent intolerance to any kind of differences, and somebody’s worried that some paunchy duffer’s going to be offended at seeing people smoke pot on his favourite TV channel?

The following day, news comes out that Barenaked Lady, Steven Page, was busted for drug possession in the States. Ah, yes. It seems we’re still fighting that war despite very limited success on the frontlines. People are surprised, some outraged, that a rock star takes drugs. But these guys seemed different, we’re told. They seemed so upstanding, so normal. They sang a song on Sesame Street and made a CD for kids. What kind of role model are they?

**sigh**

Where are you when we need you most, Bill Hicks?

The spirit of rock music or popular culture is not driven by the need to mollify our children. In fact, if we didn’t place such a premium on knowing every lurid detail of the personal lives of every single celebrity (pseudo or not) that cause a bleep on our famous person radar, the kids wouldn’t know that their favourite entertainers may be high. I’m just riffing here but would it matter to the kids one iota if off-stage and in the privacy of their own, shared home, Sharon, Lois and Bram were involved in a polygamous relationship? How about that dude Rafi? The things he gets up to I can only imagine but the kids love him. Maybe the best lesson we can teach the children is that as long as you do no harm to anyone else, you are free to be who you want to be.I have an entirely unsubstantiated theory about what happened to Steven Page. Early in their recording career, there seemed to be a battling artistic dynamic within the Barenaked Ladies. On the first few albums, the darker tunes with a more cynical edge (I’m thinking Brian Wilson and Box Set from Gordon) were penned solely by Page. The bouncier, fan-friendlier fare was written by either Page and Ed Robertson or Robertson himself. As the band evolved and, not coincidentally, increased in popularity, the poppier side won out. On the last few albums, there are very few songs written by Page alone. The band then starts making Christmas and children’s albums and was about to perform at a Disney sponsored Play-skool concert.

Sensing the loss of any remaining musical credibility, Page pulls the much vaunted Pee Wee Herman stunt -- get caught doing something no kids’ performer could survive. You’re busted, admit it openly, take your lumps and then get on with the next phase in your life. It’s not you. It’s me. We’ve just grown apart.