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by Gordon Pinsent

  Chris Plummer and I had chatted before I left for Austria. “Make sure you wear a mitre!” he insisted. “Only a mitre!” Which I never would’ve known if I hadn’t spoken with him.

  Given the nature of the project, and my specific role in it, I couldn’t keep the wardrobe. I had to leave my mitre there. And my velvet robes, which were pretty muddy by then. But I did walk away with one pair of shoes, and I kept the Archbishop’s ring.

  Pillars of the Earth fits a certain category – the epics, the sagas – in which there’s so much melodrama that everybody gets his sooner or later. So you watch it thinking, I don’t want to miss this, because I think so-and-so’s number might very well be up tonight! And I’m sure they were cheering in homes all over the world when I got killed in Part 7. With stories as monumental as Pillars you never know quite what to expect.

  Returning from Vienna I found myself welcomed back home in St. John’s, doing a guest spot as a small-time crime boss in a new hit CBC series called Republic of Doyle. I’ve done three Doyle episodes now, and I have the highest admiration for the way it comes together on the first day of shooting, the way everybody on this team is at the top of their game. The series is fun to watch, but it’s also fun to do. I have been part of a good many shows over the years that just started to get off the ground, just a little bit, only to find there wasn’t enough money or support to really enlarge the idea – so that you were stepping into the middle of it but you were surrounded with the finished possibility. That’s what made me feel so good about this one. It was finished. It has a finished look to it. It shows. Everything has that finish, from craft services to the guy who maintains the trailers. And I have nothing but admiration for Allan Hawco. Hawco was sure that he was going to stay in this business, do this business, do it well, and enjoy the hell out of his life while he was doing it. And after all he had done, it had to happen sometime for him. He’s a young leading man, a strong actor, a strong writer, a strong producer – he’s the whole package, which is very important, because in our industry it’s very important for him to be seen as that.

  A fair amount of growth had to happen in Newfoundland for a show like Doyle to succeed. It didn’t happen very quickly. But it happened. And for it to happen now underlines all the possibilities. It’s all good. And very, very good for Newfoundland and Labrador tourism, as well as for the Newfoundland film industry. And for me, and for so many other ex-islanders like Robert Joy, because we get to go to work on the Rock where we were born. Whenever I’m writing, Newfoundland has always been a rich source for me to draw on, because the place is so wonderful and yet so tragic – so full of loss. The cod moratorium put about thirty thousand people out of work – the single largest mass layoff in Canadian history. Hundreds of coastal communities virtually died overnight. Yes, many fishermen realized the cod stocks were in trouble, but most had worked in the fishery since high school, and some had invested their life savings in fishing vessels and fishing gear, and they had nowhere else to turn for employment.

  I sometimes wondered, when I was a kid, what life would be like if the sights and sounds of my hometown were no longer there. What would happen if it all went? Just shut down and closed up? And of course later on it became a certainty, not for my hometown so much, but for so many others. That’s the question, of course, at the heart of John and the Missus. Because, finally, it’s all about home.

  And yet, despite everything, the Rock’s still such a vibrant place. When you’re surrounded by water, you tend to serve yourself first. You take special pride in what you do. We had many terrific musical groups, in every town, even before Newfoundland became a province. They never left the place. They created beautiful music, but they were doing it for themselves, in a way. Whenever I’m back in Newfoundland I’m torn between the two worlds, between “knowing my place” – another Pinsent family hang-up – and crossing the street where I shouldn’t be. And suddenly it’s Hey Gordon! How are ya, buddy? And getting that recognition, so friendly and familiar, feels like a lovely kind of bath. You just sit there and it cushions you like velvet. And there’s always someone by my side to make sure it doesn’t go to my head, because adulation of any kind is considered bad manners by most Pinsent clan members. As far as they’re concerned I’m still Porky Pinsent from Fourth Avenue, and they would consider it a personal disservice to me if they ever let me forget it.

  My brother Harry called me one day to tell me that they were going to rename a street for me in Grand Falls.

  “Really!” I said. I was quite touched by the gesture. “Which street are they going to name after me?”

  Said Harry, without missing a beat: “The one they used to call Dump Road.”

  Honours do not sit comfortably on Pinsent shoulders. Sadly, neither do feelings of self-worth. Charm would get quite agitated when she heard me say that I had married “above my station,” but I can assure you that no one on Fourth Avenue disagreed. I married someone from Forest Hill, “out of” Bishop Strachan School. Which could hardly compare with my terrible little school days in Grand Falls. When I was her age, I wouldn’t have been allowed to cross the road at St. Clair and Forest Hill, looking the way I did. I was brought up to keep my head down. As a schoolboy, when I needed to go to the bathroom, I was the last one to put up my hand. I didn’t want to make any waves. God no, never wanted to do that!

  Leah thinks my anxiety attacks come from being the youngest of a family of six, always wanting to please, never wanting to be left out. She thinks I still have that little kid in me – that I want to be loved and accepted, and that I don’t want to disappoint. She may be right. Harry has it too. When friends or neighbours passed away in Grand Falls, some people would pay their respects by going to the funeral service, or bringing homemade cakes or casseroles to the home of the deceased. But Stephen and Flossie taught us to let the bereaved get on with their mourning in privacy. We were not to intrude.

  A couple of years ago I had to reapply for my green card, so I could work in the United States, and for some reason I managed to work myself into a frenzy of self-doubt and worry, to the point where I couldn’t sleep the night before I was scheduled to go to the consulate. The next morning I staggered in and was greeted with Oh, Mr. Pinsent, so nice to see you and Oh, Mr. Pinsent, I love your work and Oh, Mr. Pinsent, can we bring you a coffee or tea or water or anything? And of course I had had no legitimate reason to get so upset, but once that Pinsent anxiety takes over, no one can drive me around the bend faster than I can, with or without appropriate psychological transportation.

  Consequently, when you come from a family with a peculiarly Newfoundland mindset, you find it somewhat mind-boggling, and more than a bit hilarious, when people start referring to you as an icon.

  Part of this, you realize, is due to the longevity of your career and the length of your teeth. And part of it is now Newfoundland folklore.

  For example, there’s the time Tina Turner was performing in St. John’s and we were both staying at the Hotel Newfoundland, and there were a lot of young people waiting for her at the main entrance with cameras and autograph books. We just happened to be leaving the hotel at the same time, and when the young people saw OMG. GORDON. PINSENT. standing there – smaller than he is in the movies but much bigger than he is on TV – they swerved over to me instead, leaving poor Tina and her entourage all by their lonesome in the lobby. I was later told that she subsequently inquired, “Who the fuck is that??” – and who could blame her?

  Similarly, Newfoundland poet and writer Des Walsh, the man who wrote that stunning Random Passage mini-series, loves to tell the story about the time Kevin Spacey and I shared a cab on the way to our Shipping News set. The driver had picked us up without even making eye contact, and it wasn’t until we were well on our way that he actually looked in his rearview mirror and discovered who his passengers were.

  “Omigod!” he cried. “It’s really you! I can’t believe it! If I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes, I would not believe it!”


  The modest two-time Oscar winner smiled graciously. “Really?” he said shyly.

  “Really and truly, b’y,” our driver responded enthusiastically. “Geez, Gordon, wait ’til my missus hears you were in my cab today!”

  Part of it comes from remarks that have been made by people who other people listen to. For example, the time John Crosbie, the present lieutenant governor of Newfoundland and Labrador, insisted that I was the real lieutenant governor. Or the time when Paul Gross told a captive audience at the National Arts Centre, “As loved as Gordon may be in the rest of the country, he is a living god in Newfoundland.” That’s the sort of thing that could turn a boy’s head, providing the boy wasn’t Porky Pinsent.

  My nephew Ron Smith, Lil’s son, once praised me publicly for coming home to visit “not as an actor, not as someone famous, but simply as our Uncle Gord.” False modesty aside, I never knew there was any other choice. Still, you can only receive so many Lifetime Achievement awards without wanting to take your own pulse, and even though you’re secretly hoping that internet surfers fail to see the Huffington Post reference describing you as “the elder statesman of Canadian theater,” you instinctively know better. So when your fellow Rock natives Mark Critch and Cathy Jones invite you to come on their long-running comedy series This Hour Has 22 Minutes to send yourself up – way, way up – you do what you’ve always done. You say Yes.

  Like most good ideas, this one was exceptionally simple. Stratford, Ontario wunderkind Justin Bieber had just published his first autobiography – well, I assume it’s his first, since he was only sixteen at the time – and 22 Minutes asked me to do a dramatic reading of some of the more pertinent passages, giving them a faux gravitas which we hoped viewers would find affectionately amusing.

  Best of all, I got to introduce the piece on camera by saying, “Hello. I am Canadian icon Gordon Pinsent,” delivered quite solemnly, as if I actually believed it. I was all decked out in a rather formal pearl-grey suit with a smart black bowtie, and sitting in front of a roaring fire. The roaring fire was courtesy of The Keg, who let us use one of their waiting areas as our set. “And,” I continued, “I would like to share with you some selections from the memoirs of another famous Canadian, sixteen-year-old Justin Bieber.” I then read some sweetly inane statements from the Bieber book – “Singers aren’t supposed to have dairy before a show. But we all know I’m a rule breaker … pizza is just so good.” As I finished my literary homage to Bieber – “I”m just a regular 16-year-old kid. I make good grilled cheese sandwiches and I like girls” – I stared longingly at the cover of his overnight bestseller. “Ah, the girls … the grilled cheese,” I murmured with a wistful sigh. “I wish I was you.”

  The piece was very well shot and produced and was wonderfully well-received when it was played back to the audience at that week’s 22 Minutes taping in Halifax. The producers of the show then posted it on YouTube, where it suddenly became a viral phenomenon. People were calling me on the phone, full of compliments, still laughing. And I’m told that young master Bieber took it very well.

  Charm, honey,

  I’m losin’ control here! Our things refuse to obey me! How about that? They did as you would have them do, but not for me. Nothing works! Since you, the sofa bulges, the toilets gag, the kitchen knives rebel, spooning the forks, and whispering all together in their drawers; the door handles snag; a bottle of ink that hasn’t been seen since moving in found time to tip itself onto the unpaid bills; and an English muffin smeared itself with some un-branded fucking jam, which has started wearing its lid Capone style. After you – I haven’t had the brains of Lillian the lounge chair.

  Yes, I’ve given names to our household items, they’re family members now; or at the very least, company. Trouble is, they’ve become so superior, thinking they’re Rhodes Scholars in charge of my befalling. The Lowboy has turned into a Lowgirl, ordering me around. All kinds of things are screwed or stuck to other things, not to move for evermore. Having smoked a touch, I sat on the lamest of your Chippendaley chairs, who’s been humming innocently while waiting for my weight to fracture it.

  All in all, everything we owned together has been firmly intent on doing me damage. But I fouled up their planning by getting to myself first. And believe me, the interest has piled up. On the third night, following you, I put the brush to my unsuspecting maverick teeth, who now had also turned on me, voting for an ache-fest, and were not mine anymore, in their old-boy’s club, thinking they were too goddamn good to bleed! Well, said I, “Fuck that! Gums still bleed by God! Is it blood you’re after? Then, here it is. That enough? I got more! See it swirling down the basin!” Then, I left the teeth to their smirks and smiling, mid-sentence, and since, have had no more in common with any of them than pigs in frigging panty hose.

  Still, I’m not afraid of much now. Almost not afraid of anything that’s not able to move. Things. Even the crystal we used to have. Even crystal. Crystal is what it wanted to be, and it became that. Surely to God it should be somewhat responsible for what it is, like us. Like me. What would it do if I knocked one over? Slap the snot out of me? I don’t think so. It’d have to be pretty damn school-smart crystal for that. And tough. Which it ain’t. Last time I looked I had a fair amount of strength. Strength I started out with. Could’ve handled crystal. Any old time.

  In the kitchen now, and a quick wish that if I were to purposely neglect to keep the place clean and intact, I might hear you lovingly admonish my feeble efforts.

  I’m having a chicken leg this evening. Nothing fancy. God knows. Just a leg. Have not done the complete body yet. Scared the rest of it would jump the table and be on its own through the country. While I was at it, I thought I’d throw in the other one. Leg. They were small, and as long as I didn’t have to worry about the critics, I could carry that off. No spices, maybe, but still.

  I don’t even use the oven timer anymore. Touch of pride there. Is that an accomplishment? Feels like it.

  Your layout in the spice drawer is a thing of beauty. I used the Garlic Salt. Once only. Stopped when I reminded myself that I am now in charge of using salt or not. So I don’t. Kind of proud of that as well. Must remember to add this to my list of accomplishments. Mind you, I probably wouldn’t think of these things myself. That’s okay. Your voice is still mine. Our wiring, one. I’m more than pleased to assure myself that it’s you who taps into my fuse-box when caution is needed for my well-being.

  Being watched. Being watched. That’s okay. Heat was heat. Boiling. Bubbly. Get it out onto the plate. Done. Dinner. Brussels sprouts won’t hurt. Touch of home. Hunk of cabbage, of all things. One carrot only. For colour. Okay, Honey? Couple of colours on the plate. Sprig of parsley. Parsley was among the list of growing vegetables. Good for future humans to know.

  Beans are okay. They can be handsome unless on the prettiness of a placemat. Don’t know if you ever think about it, sweetheart, but the bean is still having a bad time, socially. He’s still cursed with the same socio-economic status of his grandfather in the dirty thirties. Still gets inhibited when there are better things on the plate. Beans are even snubbed by Brussels sprouts these days! But if you’ve got the decency not to put anything else on the plate with them, then – watch out! They puff up like royalty! They know that by themselves on the plate, beans are the very least of what they are. Now that’s not vital, I know, but that’s the way it is, for the bean.

  In our kitchen – and yes, into the streets – I’ll work around you, satisfied with your shadow, in astonishing tune with me, even as I would practice changing step, not knowing what new story in my life I would struggle to know, regardless of its fictional hold on me.

  When I circle the condo, I half expect to hear your steps in unison with my own.

  Alone is not the kindest word.

  Missing you.

  G.

  away with words

  OF COURSE IT’S A CLICHÉ NOW. FOR ONE THING, NO one seems to remember exactly who said it for the very first time. Maybe
it was one of those now near-mythical “angels” who used to invest in Broadway shows just for the fun of it. My guess is it was an actor, struggling to make a script work against seriously impossible odds. I’m sure you know the next-to-ancient theatre axiom I’m referring to, because it’s just as true now, maybe even truer, then it ever was: If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage. And as any actor will tell you, you can have way too much of nothing.

  I did most of my writing after we came back from L.A. I think those things just come to you when they are supposed to come to you, the same way they come to a songwriter or anyone else. The bank is there, that saintly deposit is there. It just depends on when and how you decide to draw on it, so that when you go to it, you will find it. It’s just that you don’t go to it, for years, because you’re out there simply loaning yourself out to the world, instead of sitting there and looking inside yourself for the answers. You just don’t report to yourself that much, because you’re so busy reporting to everyone else.

  If I’d had to retreat into my own resources, I wouldn’t have had enough faith in them. And I say I wouldn’t have had enough faith in them because I was not scholarly. I was not an academic in any sense. There were so many others who were, and who made their impressions that way, and I never made my impressions that way. So it didn’t make sense that I would come out that way. I really would have a difficult time deciphering the life that might have happened if I had never left the Rock. I knew that I wanted a certain kind of life, but I did not know how to acquire it, so I certainly did not expect it. And I certainly could not put a scholastic wrap around it. So I went for the fanciful, the imaginary.

  I never took a writing course, but I should have. Maybe I will someday. A three-week writing course would’ve told me the plot was important. I wrote for ten years without a plot. So that might have been helpful.