The Animation Pimp

Last year a Hungarian chum convinced me to go to the Montreal Grand Prix. Figured what the hell. We bought $60 standing area tickets. Kids are free so we brought our boys. Race didn’t start till 1 or 2pm but he figured we should leave at 6am to find a good spot. Fine. He was driving. We got to the grounds around 10am. In no time, we found a spot on some dirt by a fence. That was that. So…now we had 3 hours to kill and it was REAL hot. At least 40 with the humidity. Standing in dirt in front of a chain link fence with two 7 year olds who are hungry, bored and REAL hot. Real fun. While the buys play with in the dirt, I ask my eager Hungarian friend about the racing scene. He tells me about the different drivers and teams. I ask what has happened to Montrealer Jacques Villeneuve—the only guy I’ve heard of- who since winning the grand prix season back in 1997 has done little (seems to me) but fail to finish races. Montreal loves their homeboy. Not sure why. The guy lives in Switzerland and can’t finish a race. Anyway…he tells me about the teams Toyota, Ferrari, Renault, McLaren etc… about the drivers like Montoya, Alonzo, Schumacher (who I’m told is more famous internationally than Gretzky).  Like most sports, I’ve gotta know a bit about the people to get a feeling for it….to give it a context. So I listen with interest as my friend goes on about the different Grand Prix races..what makes their tracks so special etc… Meanwhile…the place is getting packed. It amazes me. There must be a 100,000 people here. And it’s all kinds of people. Kids, guys, gals. All shapes and colours. Finally the race starts…or at least the whole fuggin parade leading up to the damn thing. Drivers come out seated on cars waving helmetless to the crowd. Then they do a little warm up lap to check their cars and the track. Oh yeah… forget to tell you…you need earplugs. It’s pretty fucking loud..even when they’re goin slower. Kinda like one of those annoying leaf blowers being held up to your ear for five seconds. Okay…apparently the race is about to start. Course I can’t be sure because there’s no tv screen or announcer to tell us anything. In fact, my friend is, get this, calling his Hungarian friends in Budapest (who are watching it on television) to get updates. He confirms that the race has started..and sure enough we can hear the engines approaching from afar. I’m getting excited…and – earplugs in place-peer through the fence with anticipation…then it starts…the engines get louder… I can sound it out but can’t really describe it… maybe imagine the buzz of a bee beside your ear times 1000 or maybe 10,000. Just a ear piercing high pitched BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ or WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Either way…it’s real loud and I can’t tell which car is what, which team is who let alone whose driving the damn things. I can’t even tell if they’re cars. Just a blur. And then it ends. Silence. It’s all just whizzed by in a matter of seconds. It’s about another minute before it happens again. And so it goes. Fuck me. As Ms. Peggy Lee asked, Is that all there is? Apparently so. let’s see…we see maybe 5-10 seconds per lap. There’s something like 70 laps. Hmm..so what we see maybe 7 minutes of the damn thing. Anger fades into laughter when I see my ex-Hungarian friend calling Budapest again so that he can find out WHO IS WINNING THE RACE.

And so it goes… until the noises finally end for good.

I’ve no idea who won or how many cars finished. Neither did my friend… until he called Budapest.

So… frankly…I just don’t get the fascination. Okay…I can see watching it on television cause at least you can see the whole race—course I can’t understand who wants to watch guys race around in circles for hours. But seeing it live is like…well… imagine going to a hockey game and only being able to see one corner of the rink.

After a long, hot and exhausting day, we returned home in the early evening. My mother in law greets us and says, pouring salt on the wound, “it seemed like an exciting race. Did you see the big crash?”

“No… no we didn’t,” I mumble. “Didnt see much of anything.”

I actually took a day off from the festival to go golfing last summer. Never imagined i’d be doin that. Played mini-putt a few times, but never the real thing. No interest really. Seemed like bland white guy sport. Don’t like the aura around golf…the silence..the clothes…the attitude. Did like Caddyshack. Only went cause it was an opportunity to see two old friends. I was kind of excited because normally I’m a pretty competitive guy and I do okay in most sports. But now I was heading out to do something I really didn’t give a rat’s rump about. Figured I’d just go out have a few laughs and smack the ball around like Happy Gilmour. Paid $15 bucks for a set of clubs. Had no idea what any of them did. 9 iron, 3, 5, 7… didn’t mean squat to me. Headed out to hole/round/station 1. Friends let me go first. Gee, thanks. No I’ll go last. The three of them went through their shot. Each one rifled the ball through the air. I stepped up to the ball like a batter doing warm up swings. Before I unleashed my fury one of my chums stopped me to suggest a few adjustments. Elbow bent, eyes up…something like that. It’s all in the hips. Okay. Sure. No problem. That’s what my boxing coach. Seems like most of life is all in the hips. So…I wind up my fuck stick for my debut swing and WHAM a small island of turf sails through the air. Can’t see the ball. Must have clobbered it. “Hey guys, did u see where my ball went?” They start laughing. “umm… chris look down.” I do and shit there’s the god damn ball. It’s moved about ½ a foot forward. “Ya gotta relax the swing. It’s not hockey. You can’t wind up and whack it. When you do the club is hitting the ground before it hits the ball. That’s why the grass flew. Think of a pendulum. Okay I said and took a deep breath and then whoosh… the ball limply sailed maybe 50-75 feet. Looks like a ground ball into the outfield. Well, at least I hit it. And on it went like this. Fortunately, my pals weren’t golf pros by any stretch so I wasn’t holding them up much. Turned out too that once I landed on the green I was a pretty decent putter. Typical. In hockey I like to hover around the crease and look for tip ins. And on it went. We spent about 20-25 minutes I’d guess on each hole. We were supposed to play 18 rounds, but fuck I’ll say this…I’m in pretty good shape but I was sore after 9 holes. My shoulders and arms were aching and we musta walked a dozen miles in the hot summer sun. Beyond that I’d had enough. You hit (or try to) a ball, walk after it, hit the ball, walk after it. Eventually said ball goes into a hole momentarily. You pick it up and walk to the next hole and start the tedious process over again. Still, I actually enjoyed the fact that I sucked and didn’t care. When I play hockey, I get nervous. Even for a friggin ball hockey game. I’d get butterflies. Always want to do well. Something about identity I guess…something deeper about wanting mommy and daddy’s love, about wanting to prove right here and right now that I EXIST, that I breath, that I AM. But it was different here cause I was just doing it to be with old friends. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about this stupid game. It was just about checking in with some old friends, catching up, finding out what happened to those we once knew. Soon though even that became tiresome. After we’d run out of high school stories, I think we realized that we had little in common. Hell, with one exception, I’d unknown these guys a hell of a lot longer than I’d known them. And when I knew them it was from grade 3-13. Pretty insubstantial years in some ways. Golf was bearable while we had something, while there was a connection between us, but the stories ran dry, the game followed. Golf, at that moment, like the relationships became slow, tedious and awkward. There was just silence now. It was nice to give it a whirl and catch up with some ghosts from the past, but in the end, yeah, it was enough. Time to move on.