Head and shoulders above the rest

April 16th, 2008

Charlton Heston, who passed away on April 5 at the age of 84, was a giant among men. My earliest memory of the great American actor was his signature role as Moses in The Ten Commandments. He looked to me to be ten feet tall in that movie, and it wasn’t the only time he played it up big. It didn’t matter if he was portraying a biblical character, an astronaut or a mountain man, Heston always seemed so much larger than anything else that was around him.

Hollywood has always been filled with little people in fancy little clothes. Tom Cruise. Brad Pitt. Bruce Willis. Johnny Depp. You could pile all of them into a burlap sack, and still have enough room for 50 pounds of potatoes. But not Charlton Heston. He was square-shouldered, stood around 6’3”, and stood out from the start. The performances that stick with me most are his work as Moses, as Taylor in Planet of the Apes, and as Ben Hur. For the bulk of those films, his bulk was shirtless, sweaty, dirty and wrestling with someone or something. You don’t see too many major movie stars willing to do that anymore. And there was nothing little about the way Charlton Heston acted either.

Appearing in some 100 films, he was big enough to race chariots, fight apes, and be the last person on earth. He played heroes, kings, saints and sinners; got down to business, and commanded respect. In 1959, Heston won the best actor Oscar for his work as Judah Ben-Hur. Stephen Boyd, the actor who played his boyhood friend Messala, was reputedly told to act as though the two were more lovers than brothers. Hollywood legend has it that Heston never figured it out, or perhaps he did. Whatever happened, it worked, and Ben-Hur went on to win an unprecedented eleven Academy Awards. In 1971, he starred in the science fiction film, Soylent Green. A complete bomb in its day, the film is now considered a classic of apocalyptic horror, proving once again that having Charlton Heston on your stage somehow made it bigger. Just ask Mike Myers. In 1993, Heston appeared in a cameo role in Wayne's World 2, in a scene where Myers requests that a small role be filled by a better actor. Heston went on to host Saturday Night Live later that year.

He campaigned for civil rights and fought racism, opposed the Vietnam War, fought for the rights of gun owners, and once said: “Political correctness is tyranny with manners.” As his years progressed, Heston had a hip replacement, battled prostate cancer, and was diagnosed with symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease. For all his remarkable accomplishments, Charlton Heston was married to one woman for 64 years.

Even in wedlock, he went big. Lydia Heston said of her husband: “Charlton Heston was seen by the world as larger than life. He was known for his chiselled jaw, broad shoulders and resonating voice, and, of course, the roles he played. No one could ask for a fuller life than his. No man could have given more to his family, or his profession.” And, when I remember him, it’ll be as head and shoulders above the rest. So let it be written. So let it be done.

The return of the bottle pickers

April 9th, 2008

Water in the basement, sand and slime on the lawn, and dog droppings on the sole of your shoe. The return of spring means the return of many wonderful things. It also means the return of the bottle pickers.

I was out for a drive on the weekend and, in three different ditches in three different counties, spotted people searching for returnable bottles. For my money, the bottle picker is as welcome a sign of spring as green grass and a robin’s red breast. Bottle picking is recycling at its best, and it is comforting to see the process in action. As long as a bottle is worth something, there will be someone willing to step up and claim the reward.

These fine, ambitious folks are called scavengers, and they deserve our thanks for making the ditch a cleaner place. The person who throws a bottle into a ditch, ignoring the few cents it is worth, thinks they are making the world a better place by providing income for someone else. These fine, frivolous folks are called litterbugs, and deserve more than thanks. They deserve a job walking in a landfill separating dirty diapers from rotten potatoes. I wouldn’t mind seeing even more bottle pickers. Scavengers get a bad rap from time to time, but what keeps this planet healthy is that, sooner or later, something always shows up to clean up someone else’s mess. Imagine the state we would be in if it stopped happening.

My brothers and I did a lot of bottle picking when we were young. You might say it was our first job. We would bike into town, collecting bottles along the way, and spend whatever we collected on junk food like Bottle Caps, Fun Dip and Sweet Tarts. On a good day in the spring, we could make enough to buy chocolate bars and a can of pop. The best day was the one where I found a dirty magazine in the ditch. Melting snow caused the colour to run on a few pages, but you could still see some of the things the other kids were only dreaming about. I hid that magazine under a rock, and went back to check on it every day for a month, to make sure it hadn’t corrupted any other impressionable young minds. I never got any credit for that.

People throw away perfectly good stuff all the time, and any bottle picker worth his ditch will tell you that. While we are at it, we should bring back the garbage pickers too. Perhaps the most effective recycling program there is, garbage picking is generally frowned upon, discouraged, or flat out illegal; which is nonsense. Anyone who can help reduce the amount of garbage in a landfill should be applauded, not apprehended. Years ago, the man who ran our township dump had only one leg. It wasn’t a job you would find on everyone’s top ten careers list, but I never heard him complain.

It seemed to suit him, until they told him he couldn’t bring the dump home anymore. I would hate to be the politician calling the shots if a perfectly good wooden leg came in, and the dump guy wasn’t allowed to take it for a run. Seeing bottle pickers this spring means that recycling is working. We owe it to ourselves to clean up our act a bit, and a step into the ditch is a step in the right direction.

Enough green to turn you green

April 2nd, 2008

Earth Hour. Earth Day. Earth Week. Earth Month. What on earth is going on? I feel like a big new bully has moved into the neighbourhood, and plans to keep smacking me in the head until my green teeth rattle loose. This bully loves green, and greets you with a smile while telling you over and over again what a terrible person you are. The bully’s name is Greenwashing, and I’ve had just about enough already. It’s time to hit back.

Green is everywhere now, and if you aren’t putting it on your product or in your home, you are made to feel like subhuman scum bent on killing the planet. The new push to see everything green has given rise to Greenwashing, a term that describes the act of misleading someone about the environmental benefits of a product or service.

Green is such a go-to word now, people are lying about their environmental efforts just to stay popular and appear as if they are doing the right thing. Whether you are putting a tree on a bottle of chemicals, claiming to be environmentally friendly without proof, or ignoring harmful effects in favour of clean ones, you are still Greenwashing.

The problem is, it isn’t easy to change the world. Just ask the activist who sat in a tree for two years to keep it from being cut down. The logging company cut down every other tree on the hill, but I’m pretty sure one big one is still standing, and there is one happy zealot up there looking for a little congratulations, and a bath. We should be directing our energies at the real abusers, not the individual.

Just as an example, every time the wind blows across China’s industrial area, it picks up toxins and debris, and knocks down a few Koreans living down the line. Leaving a light on above the sink suddenly doesn’t seem so bad, when you stop to look at that big picture. I’ve noticed the LCBO has gone back to paper bags, which is a step in the right direction. With a little care and a lot of time, trees are a renewable and valuable resource, so I guess I’ll continue to shop there.


Apparently, it is the right thing to do. Believe me, anyone who enjoys a drink on the sly prefers a brown paper bag to plastic any day. I’m trying to take a step in the right direction by walking more, any time of the day or night, any day of the year. Most people still prefer to drive everywhere, and they have that right, but walking can be a lot of fun at times. If you haven’t walked over the river lately, be sure to give it a try this spring. You won’t regret it, and it is better for the environment than sitting at home burning styrofoam.

The key is to set small, attainable goals, like Bill Murray did in “What About Bob?” when he was baby-stepping his way through one of his best performances. What we don’t need is someone badgering us every step of the way, telling us we’re not doing enough, and are not green enough.

I’ve already heard so much about Earth Month I’m ready to turn green, and not the good green either. It’s more like the green you turn when you are car sick. April has always been Earth Month, except when I was a kid they had a different name for it. It was called Spring. And I can’t wait for it to get here, paper bags and all.

You are what you eat... pigface!

March 26th, 2008

There was a time, not too many generations ago, that getting old was considered a privilege. Today, as more and more people are reaching a ripe old age, we value youth above everything, and try to hide the ravages of old age as if it were a life-sucking monster in the closet. Many of the scariest monsters can be found in Hollywood, where nips, tucks, peels and stretches are more common than a two-dollar cup of coffee.

The ghoul formerly known as Joan Rivers, for example, has had so much work done she looks like a Lizzie Borden victim. Cosmetic quick fixes, however, are not limited to the rich and famous. Spending on cosmetic surgery is soaring, with stores pushing more varieties of anti-aging creams than Baskin-Robbins has ice cream. Everybody wants to be rid of their wrinkles, sags and bags, but it isn’t easy.

Fear not.

The solution may be simpler than you think, because the latest anti-ageing food is good old pigs' trotters. In New York, the most talked-about opening of the past couple months has been a restaurant called Hakata Tonton, where 33 of the 39 dishes contain pigs' feet. According to owner Himi Okajima, the reason for all the hog hocks is that they are rich in collagen, the protein responsible for skin and muscle tone, and recognizable to beauty addicts in the form of face creams and fillers. Okajima, who already owns a chain of restaurants in Japan specializing in collagen cuisine, says collagen helps the body retain moisture. He claims your hair and skin will look better and, if you begin eating collagen in your thirties, you will look younger in your forties, and beyond.

Not all nutrition experts agree with Mr. Okajima, but there is one silver lining to his entire plan. Anyone who eats pigs’ feet as a way to bone up on collagen and retain their youth can, literally, be called pigface. It would be worth a trip to New York just to stand outside Hakata Tonton and ask everyone “Did you enjoy your supper... pigface?”

Of course, eating the right foods, in the right way, is still the simplest, long-term way to remain looking and feeling younger. You might say grandma was right all along, that you are what you eat. Although we can't turn back the clock when it comes to aging, we can slow things down. In order to keep your cells in good condition, eat fruit and vegetables that contain vital anti-oxidants like vitamins A, C, E and zinc.

Maple syrup contains everything the body needs to sustain itself, except vitamin C, and an apple a day still gives you plenty of vitamin C, and fibre. The key is to remember that we are omnivores. Too much pig foot can be bad, but none at all is worse. Women tend to age more rapidly than men, because they don't eat enough protein. The body can't store protein, but needs it for cellular production and function, so the days you don't eat protein are the days you age. Think about that, pigface.

Some experts suggest up to 40 per cent of wrinkles are caused by sugar, which causes collagen to become stiff, and brings on wrinkles. It seems, if you want to keep the face of your youth, don’t stuff it with so much sugar. And don’t forget to enjoy a few hog trotters... pigface!