PLAGUE DIARY 27: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

Violence (1947)
What if — all of a sudden — your whole life changed? What if you didn’t know what was happening to you? What if you didn’t know who you were, or what you were doing? What if you felt lost, alone, and had nowhere to turn? No, it’s not Canada in April, 2020, it’s Nancy Coleman’s dilemma in Violence. She’s a journalist who infiltrates a labour organization run by a fascist demagogue. Sheldon Leonard (who played thugs on TV for 20 years until he became a TV producer) is the henchman, just out of Sing Sing. Nancy Coleman is about to spill the dirt, when she’s in a car accident and gets amnesia. Suddenly she starts to believe the demagogue’s rhetoric, and becomes a fascist herself. Fortunately, she’s beaten up by Sheldon Leonard, and her memory comes back, and she cracks open all the corruption with Michael O’Shea. THE END. Coleman is a graceful, subtle actress; she and Michael O’Shea look a little like Tracy and Hepburn, if you close your eyes and squint. If only they had the dialogue: but the film is written by the same guy who wrote Macao. Not sure why this movie is so forgotten, because Coleman’s terror at her inscrutable memory loss is quite horrifying, even though the director told her to put hand to her head too much, and the music is pumped up beyond endurement at every melodramatic moment. Well, it almost seemed for a minute this was going to be just a regular good old-fashioned movie review. But Doug Ford just told us that our imprisonment is going to last another month — until May 12. I didn’t take it well, I was depressed all day, and it was snowing, and the streets were empty -- except for all those crazy people hurrying, turning away from you, and some of them, it appears, running for their lives. Then I began to think about control. What is it, and what happens when you lose it? I think all of us are control freaks in a way. But did you know that 50% of the population in Canada says they are quite happy to be locked up? (All for a good cause, of course!) But whether or not you agree that a disease which is likely to kill 1% of the population (because that’s what it’s looking like now) is worth halting your life for — who the hell says you have to be happy about it? Well I’m part of the 50% that minds very much being controlled. Writing is my control -- because our work is control for each of us -- and right now we we have no work — to work out our feelings of losing control. Just think about Nancy Coleman for a minute; think about not knowing who you are. Think about having Sheldon Leonard with that growly, grimy Bronx accent coming at you with a broken wine glass poised to mess up your face. So why isn’t anyone being violent right now, in Canada? (This is not a call for violence, this is merely a question.) When is the violence that is the result of all this social distancing, isolation, poverty, loneliness, drug addiction, wife-beating and complete and utter lack of control of your life as well as a general lack of an outlet for anything that makes us human —  when is it going to happen? I know it will, sometime. Because you can’t just take away everyone’s control away for an indefinite period of time and expect NOBODY to snap. We were talking about suicide today, me and my friends, and the consensus seemed to be that insulin was the best. The thing about suicide, you see, is it gives you a feeling of control. (Again, I’m not defending it, I’m just stating a fact.) I’ve never been a violent person. Except I used to be known for my fits. I had them mostly at women. I threw a knife at my girlfriend once (oh, I already told you that). What usually sends me into a fury is women who guilt me out. (Yes they all become my mother.) It’s very boring. I remember once when a writer who shall remain nameless, (Nadia Ross) had her play rejected by the theatre that I was the artistic director of -- but I won’t mention the name again -- (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre). I was not the person who rejected her play — someone else did — but she was afraid of him, because he was a straight male and scary, so she decided to yell at me “YOU’RE A FUCKING MISOGYNIST! YOU’RE ALL A BUNCH OF FUCKING MISOGYNISTS!!!!! (Her words, not mine). Do you know what I used to do when women tried to guilt me out? I would throw a bigger tantrum than they could ever imagine. And so I cried. I scared the shit out of her, I think, because I can cry at the drop of a hat, I warn you. I cried recently to get my toenails clipped. It’s really gross but I’m old, and my feet are screwed up, and I have to get my toenails clipped professionally, and I was so friggin’ worried that I would have to live with nails that were out of control because podiatrists or chiropodists (what’s the friggin’ difference?) suddenly were not an essential service (not in Ontario, but they are an essential service in Nova Scotia. Why?). So I phoned this one lousy chiropodist. (I can’t tell you the name.) (University Foot and Orthotic Clinic.) I don’t like them because they charge 80$ if you can believe it. And the person who does my nails is the owner's daughter, and she’s very pretty and cheery, but she always does a lousy job. (In this way, she reminds me of Justin Trudeau.) But I had to get those nails cut, or I literally would not be able to walk. (Please don’t ask me why I need to have my toenails clipped professionally, just friggin’ accept it will you? My toenails are TOO GROSS TO DISCUSS.) So I phone their office and I made the very polite meek request that my nail cutting was an essential service, and I really needed it -- and then I started to cry. Yeah. I cried. I told you, I’m so good at crying. It worked on Nadia Ross, and on my lousy cheery Chiropodist -- and it would probably work on you. That’s my specialty, making people believe what’s not true. Like this could not be true. And yet you’re believing it right? These blogs could be filled with lies, and maybe they are. But you don’t know for sure one way or the other do you? And it gives me a feeling of control — to control you in that way. But actually no, it’s more about controlling reality — not you — I have no control over the reality which is my life — especially now — so these blogs offer me the possibility of creating another world, a fictional world, rearranging things into something that, for the space of this blog anyway, are real. In fact I’m going to make a pact with you right now. Let’s make a deal. That you believe everything I tell you about my personal life in this blog. What I say here is always the truth. No, I’ll tell you what: it's truer than truth. You must believe me. You have to believe me. It’s all I’ve got. It's either that or the insulin.