Neil Crone - Enter Laughing

Bad Santa rides again...

The lovely and hilarious Maureen Holloway and I.

Made another appearance as 'Bad Santa' on Derringer in the Morning today.  What wonderful, completely politically-incorrect, insensitive fun.  It's very therapeutic playing a complete boor now and then.  My wife can't even listen to it.  But like I say, it's fun.  For those of you who might want to listen, I'll try and post the link to the recorded version on Q107's website as soon as it's up.  That is, if it goes up.   After this morning, I might be personally responsible for Q losing their broadcast license. Still...everybody should get to cut loose like this now and then. For me, a huge part of the fun is just making Derringer laugh until he cries. I consider John to be one of the funniest, smartest guys I know and if I can crack him up, especially after many many appearances as this character...I know I'm doing something right. I'll be back on the show in November for John's Christmas show finale.

Move over Ned Beatty...

Okay...sorry, but I just had to share this with you.  If it makes you laugh half as hard as it makes me laugh, then I've done a good thing.  My good pal and talented photographer Rob Johnson was over last night shooting some stuff of me for a new headshot.  This was one of the shots that Rob took while checking his lights and stuff. We  hadn't even really started. It just happened to catch me in the middle of changing facial expressions or talking or something...but it is hysterically funny.  I still can't look at it without cracking up.  And who knows, when the re-make of Deliverance starts casting, I could be in like Flint.  Yep, that is one good lookin' fella.

A face only a mother could love.

Some of you may recall me writing in here about my first Carp Fishing Tournament in Saskatchewan last year.  While we didn't actually land any of the creepy looking bottom-feeders last time around, my pal and fellow Little Mosque cast-mate, Manoj Sood, entered again this year...and as Manoj's character Baber might say...'Allah be praised', we won!

While I'd like to be able to say it was a tough day of slugging it out with other anglers, hauling leviathan after leviathan out of the murky depths...we ended up catching only two fish all day.  But, the fishing being what it was that day, that was enough to win.  A victory is still a victory and I'll take winning over losing every time.   There was some mandatory, good-natured ribbing about the two 'imports' winning the contest, but the rest of the guys in the tournament, some of whom have been doing it for years, were wonderfully supportive and lined up to shake our hands. It was a great way to spend a day. My fourteen-pounder ended up being the biggest fish of the day. He gave me quite a run for my money.  My forearms were burning by the time I got him into the net.  And they tell me there are forty and fifty pound Carp in that lake!  Tie into one of those and you'll think you've got a garbage truck on the end of your line. They may have a face only a mother could love, but they're loads of fun to fish for.

Unemployed again...

Last day on the set of Little Mosque today.  The official Season IV production will finish photography on Friday but I filmed my last scenes today.  It's a bittersweet sensation.  After almost a month away from my wife, kids, dog, bed and stuff I'm like a horse who smells the barn.  Can't wait to get home.  But I will miss these people a great deal.  Working on a television series or a film, for months on end, you tend to put in very long hours with the same people day in and day out.  In fact, tv and film crew people will tell you that while they are engaged on a project, they really don't have much of a life outside the set.  By the time you get home from work you basically have time to eat, learn your lines for the next day and then go to bed.  So, rightly or wrongly the set and all the cast and crew become your life and family for a while.  And, just like any family, of course, there's plenty of love, laughter, anger and dysfunction.  But unless you're a robot, or a complete dick, you form pretty solid bonds.  So, today, when the final 'cut' was called on my scenes I found it a little hard to walk away from it all.  I enjoy my work immensely on this show.  Seldom have I loved coming to work so much.  I am surrounded, in large part, by very fine, very talented, terrifically hard-working people.  All of them good souls.  Who wouldn't miss that?

Of course, the other side of the coin is that one constant in any actors life...I'm now unemployed again.  Sigh

Rocked out of bed.

Okay, remember a few posts back I was mentioning how tired I was?  I lied.  Well, not intentionally, but I lied.  I've realized, after last night and this morning, that I really didn't know what tired was back then.  I should've known the jig was up yesterday when I noticed the hotel filling up with hundreds of people wearing black t-shirts and sporting tattoos of every imaginable design in every imaginable place.  AC/DC was in town for a concert at the football stadium...a few blocks from the hotel.

The racket started about 8pm just as I was heading back from dinner with a pal.  The Snowbirds made a couple of ear splitting passes overhead, driving the stadium crowd into a frenzy.  The opening band was playing while I was enjoying a scotch in the hotel lounge.  I didn't really pay much attention to it.  But, as I lay my head down on the pillow at ten...I realized what I was up against.  The windows of my room were shaking to the roar of ''Hells Bells". I was starting work the next day at 5 am.  I needed to get some shut-eye.  But as long as Angus and the lads were rocking the house...believe me, no one in that hotel was coming anywhere close to sleep.  No one in Regina was.

Finally after what seemed like endless encores (I'll give it to them, these guys give the crowd their moneys worth) and a deafening cannonade, the noise stopped.  I rolled over onto my pillow and silently thanked God.  I was a little premature in my gratitude however.  The crowd was not done partying yet. They raucously flowed out of the stadium, stumbled into the hotel and flooded my hallway...or at least it seemed that way.  One gentleman took particularly great delight in hammering on all of our doors in an effort to get us to join the party.  That is until a very strident female voice called out 'Why don't you morons F**K off!'

That seemed to calm them down a bit.  Bless her heart. Still, my night was a right off.  I think I might have got an hour or two of sleep at the most.  I'm so tired I can hardly finish th

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Ridiculously tired right now.  Worked from 5:40 am this morning until 8 pm.  Not terribly unusual hours in the film/tv biz, but I was running on almost zero sleep. A combination of my not quite having adapted to the noises, mattress, dry air of the hotel and, more importantly, the entertaining but incredibly loud audio from the sexual antics in the room next door.  The weird thing was it was almost entirely the woman's voice that came through the wall.  I heard the man when they first came into the room, but then, once she got revved up he went strangely silent.  Maybe she had him gagged? Anyway, she drove me looney.  She was also a giggler.  When, after what seemed like hours, they finally finished, I lay in my bed and clapped my hands as loudly as I could.  Not sure if they got the message.  I'll have to see if tonight's show is any different. I hope they don't think I liked it.

Final curtain for Henry...

You may not have noticed, as this is Canada, but a huge light in the entertainment world quietly blinked out a couple of days ago with the death of Henry Ramer. You probably don't even know who Henry is...again, this is Canada. But he was an enormous presence in the world of Canadian film and tv and most especially voice. I remember as a new, young voice actor, trying to learn my chops when this guy with the melted chocolate voice would walk into the room. At the time I didn't know who Henry Ramer was, but I instantly recognized his voice from the hundreds of commercials and tv and film narrations I'd heard it on as a kid. Henry had a huge resume. From voicing the original Spiderman cartoon to The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz to narrating the Tom Berenger film 'In Praise of Older Women'. Henry should've been famous...but again, this is Canada. And that's kind of nice I suppose, it's our way. But it makes his contributions and accomplishments no less impressive. Maybe more so. He, like Gordon Pinsent and Wayne and Shuster and Pierre Berton was one of those people who come close to being legendary...if we ever encouraged legends in this country. I'd like to thank Henry for his body of work...a body of work that spans back to the early 50's and that helped create the industry in this country that now feeds my kids. He was doing it back when there really was no 'Canadian Entertainment' industry. He was creating it on the fly. Thanks Henry.

Running back to Regina?

I'll be heading out to Regina in a couple of weeks to finish up filming of Little Mosque. I'll probably be there until around Labour day. I used to joke about my visits to the prairie capital, saying things like "I spent a year in Regina one weekend".  But I have to tell you, I think my timing this year couldn't be better.  With a garbage strike and now a Via Engineers strike that is sure to make commuting as much fun as a wet toilet seat, I can't get out of Toronto fast enough.  Say what you will about Regina (the city that's fun to say) there's no garbage strike and rush hour amounts to a Combine and a hay wagon trying to make a left hand turn. Who knows, I haven't checked the weather reports but they may even be getting a real summer out that way.  Plus, you can meet some pretty hot women at the Farmers Market.  Okay, so I have a thing for bonnets and glasses.

The New Me...

I've been thinking about turbo-charging the old career a little bit.  It's easy to get complacent in this business, especially when you're working on a successful show like Little Mosque on the Prairie.  But I didn't just fall off of the falafel truck.  I've been around long enough to know that in show biz you're only as good as your last movie.  Or, in Christian Bale's case, you're only as good as your last fit.  The entertainment business has a very short memory.  Actors and entertainers need to be constantly re-inventing themselves.  Which is why, as of late, I've been toying with the idea of a new 'stage' name.  Oh, I'll still be lovable old Neil to my friends and family, but to the entertainment world at large I could be something new, flashy and exciting.  Here's a few on my short list. Feel free to email me with some suggestions of your own:

Vic Toupee
Chas Bannister
Skip Leatherman
Biff Windward
Mace Saltspray
Rip Boltman
Stark Nightly

Will Topol topple off the roof?

Man, I can't believe Topol is back again as Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof.  How old is this guy?  150?  He was no spring chicken when he first appeared in the movie version of the role back in the 70's.  Don't get me wrong.  I love the guy.  At least I loved him in the movie. That sonorous, warm chocolate voice of his and those eyes that seemed to hold the weight and sorrow of the world in them.  But wouldn't those same eyes be a little bit cloudy at this stage in the game?  And physically how is he doing?  I'm picturing Tevya laboring with his milk cart through the streets of Anatevka...with a walker.  Or maybe they've updated the piece a little.  Maybe he's merrily whizzing through the ranks of Cossacks in his electric scooter.  His blaze orange flag waving above the melee of the pogrom.  I don't know. I hope he's great. There's very little worse than seeing a legend when he/she is less than legendary.  I remember my Mom and Dad telling me about seeing Sinatra in his later years and being very dissappointed by 'Old Milky Blue eyes'.  Of course, most of that was just the Chairman of the Board being a crusty old fart who didn't feel like doing a full show for his fans.  You can't do that in a musical...you've got to follow the script.  And this script is a great one.  I'm with you Topol.  Hang in there old timer. If you're still up to fiddling...I'm still up to watching you fiddle.  Oh man, that sounded wrong.