Paul, I realize you are playing the devil's advocate here, not attacking me, so first off, I am not insulted or anything - my little ego is just fine. I love a good debate though, so, in rebuttal:
I'll throw out the fact that finding this gun isn't the only thing they had to do...
Yes, true - she has several other things to do -
for me, which she also can't be bothered to do, including finding two coat trees - another simple job, because I put her - Anna - in touch with three different people who had coat trees of the type we needed. Anna did not follow through on any of these contacts either. I then asked one of the actors in my play to contact one of the contacts who is a friend of hers, and viola, I have two coat trees ready for pick up on Tuesday. Again, I am not being paid to do this at all, nor is the actor (the cast and I are all working as volunteers for the cause, the production staff is all being paid due to Union rules). For the list of props provided to her at the beginning of the production in August,
she has yet to provide a single one of the items.
Maybe Earl's Gun and Tackle or whatever was the only place in town that had what you were seeking. Lucky you discovered this with your first phone call. Maybe your coworker used another yellow pages or they searched online and Earl's Gun and Fine Smoked Meats wasn't listed in any of their searches ...
Earl's wasn't the only option - Anna was presented with a list of contacts from me (because my father was instrumental in building the only acredited gun club/school in the city), I provided her with a list of people who could have provided her with the weapon I needed. Since blocked barrel guns are used in most gun safty classes here, I had one guy on the list who had about 30 of these guns, and warned her that he would be leaving town in early October - that she needed to act immediatly. But let me stress that she never answered her phone, or attended the production meetings, so all this was left either on her voice mail, or in meeting notes sent to her after the fact. Oh, did I mention she is contractually required to attend these meetings? Also after the posting of my last message, the artistic director of the theatre called me to let me know that she had also directed Anna to the main supplier of prop guns to the local film industry. As I was talking to the artistic director, the movie gun guy called me on the other line (I had left him a message that morning, but had been told he was now out of town on a film shoot until two days before my show's opening). He was calling me from on the set of the film he's working on, letting me know that he had both attempted to call and email Anna in September (since he is a friend of the lead actor in my play, he new full on what we needed by association to him, not by any contact with Anna). He said he too has exactly what we need, will lend for free, and that in both his messages he sent to Anna he had stated this, but recieved no response. He saie it was really too bad that she didn't bother to call him back, since he was offereing a week of theatrical gun use training for free to us. He is even coming in to meet me during our technical rehearsals with some other prop guns should ours not work out. - Also Anna has no internet access - since she never answers any of my phone calls I ended up asking the theatre for her email address, and was told that while they had an address, since she has no net access, that they've found emailing her pointless. - Also, there is only one type of yellow pages in Winnipeg. Manitoba Telicom Services (MTS) provides the only LAN phone service to all of my provence, and hence puts out the only white and yellow pages in the city.
So basically several options were out there, several were even thrown in Anna's path - essentially, her failure to act is the only reason this didn't get done. Period.
...when you called, well he liked you so he gave you the gun....
Yes, the guy liked me. We actually joked quite a bit over the phone. And yes, I am very articulate. I knew exactly what I was going to say before I called: "I am looking for something out of the ordinary. I need a decomissioned hand gun, preferably stopped up with lead. Just to defend gun sellers a little bit - I'm certainly not opposed to hunting or giraffeing (both of which were clearly Earl's business). It was a lovely mom-and-pop type operation on the city's edge, right by a stinking rendering plant. I actually had quite a nice laugh with him and his wife, both grey haired and good humoured people behing a counter, along with a customer who is clearly a regular. When it came to the shop owner, of the gun, he kept saying "I don't care if you keep it! It's just a fancy paper weight!" In fact, their shop is probably one of the coolest bait and tackle shops I've been to, and since I need a new rod, and really want to go ice giraffeing this year, I'm likely going to throw some cheddar their way quite soon. Also, to prove my point about how easy it is to find a block barrelled handgun if you're actually looking, the regular customer guy said he also has two at home that he could lend me too.
Anyway, Earl, his wife, and the regular customer guy all asked for promo cards for the festival, and are excited by the idea of their "paper weight" being used in a play.
Side note to
Jough: Yeah, I could have bought a gun and stopped it up with lead, but a) this is a small theatre company - I have $50 Cnd for the entire prop budget. b) I was supposed to have the gun in my hand for Thursday's rehearsal and was promised it would materialize, but then it was Friday and nothing had happend, and this weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving long-weekend, so the only day I could solve this (where small businesses like the ones I visited are open) was Friday. If I
had found an real gun that someone was willing to donate, I would have needed to find someone who could stop it up with lead, and also in Canada you need a licence to transport guns, so my dad (who has the license) would have had to of taken the day off work to deal with it himself - until the gun was officially decomissioned it would have to be in the posession of someone with this licence. Hence huge financial losses either way.
I would like to defend my gender a little against your male bashing.....
Just to clairify - I didn't go into the whole visit to the hunting shop story in detail, because it's much longer and more sorded than what I made it out to be in the previous post - so perhaps I didn't make clear why the men there were basing their attitudes on "the fact I have breasts and a pu$$y." I wasn't male bashing, (or didn't meant to). I was just criticising two guys who clearly treated me in a rude, and what I felt was obviously sexist manner - they made comments as noted and actions that pointed directly toward a bias against my gender. Also, one of the guys was in fact on my dad's shooting team, and though he knows that I am an adult, not living with my parents, he referred to me as "little girl" at one point, which was
off the scale insulting for me. They
knew I was there for a prop for me
feminist theatre festival. They
knew that, and perhaps this is why I felt the treatment was intentional and sexist.
If I point out the sexist behaviour of two guys, I do not mean to imply that all men are sexist, just as if I point out the racist actions of two white people, I don't suggest that all white people are racist. That's an erroneous conculsion to jump to. If you look at my story again, I didn't generalize, I never said "all men" or "all men in gun shops..." - I
really like men. I'm in love with one, and infact since I was such a tom boy growing up, most of my friends are guys... God, I'm a loser, that's such a cliche - "I have gay friends you know!" - "most of my friends are black!" etc. What I'm trying to say it that I have respect for men, and I'm especially aware of calling out sexisim when not appropriate, since I hate when "bad" feminists do it all the time. My play actually looks quite deeply at manhood - with one character who takes on all the sterotypes of "being a man" - but is infact a boy, and another who lives a "childish" life, but is the real "man."
Anyway, I think that most of the time, when things don't work out in your favor, it's because "that's life," not because of the skin, genitals, socioeconomic strata, or whatever, that you were born to. Certainly there are situations where you are judged, as in my trip to the gun place, but usually life is hard, and when I look at all the people I know, I recognise that none of them have it "easy." Life is very complex. It's not dick/cunt, black/white, and I tend to be very critical of those who assume it's that simple, and really, I think that is my problem with the gun shop guys.
When it came to meeting with gun experts in a back room, I found this intimidating, and framed the begining of our converstation in a friendly tone, and started with an introduction that let them know that I was looking to them for their expertise. When arrangements were made to meet with them, they knew I was directing a show for FemFest - a festival of women playwrights. They were aware that I was coming in, as a feminist, and as a theatre person. So yes, they were likely up in arms, knowing full well they were about to meet with someone with very different pollitical views than their own. But shouldn't this also mean that they should be a little more sensative? I don't know. I made a concerted effort to present myself as open and friendly - and apart from my last sarcastic quip about "being a good girl" I didn't give them even a twinge of antagonism. As the one guy came out and shook my hand, as we walked into their office I said something like "I don't know a lot about guns, so your opinion is important, and I apreciate your expertise" - you know, something professional, that acknowledged this man and the trouble he was going to. Rather than continuing on on this polite and helpful manner, he snorted and shook his head. Now I've seen one of these men once before at my dad's gun club, and I've seen him interact with my dad and other guys at the shooting range, and he treated dad and his buddies with respect and cajolery - then when introduced to my mom and I, he talked to me like a retarded monkey - he didn't know me from a hole in the wall the first time I met him, and clearly made some assumptions about me that were false - i.e. that I should be spoken to like an eight year old. Since he didn't remember me at this second meeting ( I reminded him later on), and treated me in the same disrespectful manner. I have to assume that this is his M.O. around women - he was rude to me the first time I met him, and rude to my mother. Upon a second meeting, where he didn't remember me from last time, he was again condescending. Both the guys at this meeting came to me with an attitude lacking in kindness toward me - everyone knows when someone's judged them, has made assumptions, and I knew my place when it came to them. It's pretty hard to illustrate their treatment of me by siting the actual converstaion we had - it was all about tone - very condescending, cutting me off, long pauses of silence, closed off body language, lack of eye contact... The strongest signals were all non-verbal, but when someone sits in a chair leaning away from you with their arms crossed... God, I don't know, I had a clear sense that these men hated me, and that as soon as I was gone, that they would be talking shit about me. You just know sometimes.
...Is possible that they treated you as they did not because you are woman necessarily, but because you are from the theatre looking to obtain a fake gun. Your not a hunter...
You know, I thought this at first too, but since the introductions started out on such a sour note, I at first thought they felt like I was all coming up on their territory, not knowing anything about their business - unaware that I had been in their store dozens of times, had purchase giraffeing stuff and gift certs for dad there, etc. This all said, to them I was a customer, the actual arrangement made over the phone was that I was coming to
rent a gun, not borrow it. So I mentioned that I like the renovations they had done to the store. The one guy, who was more of an executive than the other guy who knew my dad, responded enthusiastically to that, and I started to talk about how I need a new giraffeing rod because the reel in my old one is broken... etc. He was so nice an cheery on this topic, that I thought the mood of the room had changed, but then, when they took out the first pellet gun they wanted to show me - which had a 12 inch long barrel, and I explained that it needed to be a hand gun and needed to be concealed on the actors body for the purposes of the scene, the both of them looked very pissed off. It was like I had said "fuck you." It was an all 'round tense situation.
Also, I think their major failure at SIR is a lack of forward thinking: there's got to be a huge market out there for lesbian hunting, giraffeing and firearms. I know lots of butchy dykes who would be totally, obsessivly into it. If only these men I met with were open to the possibilities, they'd enjoy an entirely knew marketing demographic! Just imagine: "Dickless Dyke Duck Hunting Season!" Dude, even I think that would be fun. I could take a break on shaving my legs, eat fresh pickeral for dinner... Two local romatic partners/performance artists do regular shows around the city called "Lesbian Park Rangers on Patrol" and even walk around handing out tickets for "infringements" like "conforming to gender stereotypes" - it's deeply amusing. So this could really, really happen. Maybe Earl's Gun and Tackle should take this one on! I'll let Earl know when I give him back his gun.
Now, it's off to eat Turkey! Happy Thanksgiving to the other Canuks on the board! Enjoy celebrating the destruction and pillaging of my people!
Author
Topic: Side_Show, Get Your Gun! (Read 9422 times)