Buddy Babylon: The Autobiography of Buddy Cole - Softcover

Thompson, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440508282 ISBN 13: 9780440508281

Publisher: Dell, 1998

Synopsis

His outrageous monologues made him a legend on tv's The Kids in the Hall.  Now he's back--with the life story only he could tell.

"My goal is not to shock and horrify, but to tell the truth.  And if that truth shocks and horrifies, well .  .  .  maybe you should get out more."

Spinning martini-fueled tales from his stool in his favorite gay bar, acid-tongued raconteur Buddy Cole became one of The Kids in the Hall's most beloved and enduring characters.  Now, brought to you by Kids star Scott Thompson with series writer Paul Bellini, Buddy Babylon takes you on a jaw-dropping tour of Buddy's flashy, trashy life, filled with tales of poignant, heart-wrenching romance, lurid sexual debauchery, the birth of synchronized swimming, and the ugly, never-before-revealed truth behind the Prettiest Feet in Quebec contest.

Join Marco (Buddy's cosmetically challenged sidekick), Cornygirl (the loyal corncob doll who rarely leaves his side), and a cast of unforgettably offbeat characters as Buddy blazes a trail across the deep Canadian forest, through the darkest corners of the big city, and back to his signature barstool.  From his humble beginnings as the twenty-third child of poor pig farmers, to his moment in the spotlight in the tabloids, Buddy Babylon lays bare a lifetime of madness, chaos, and things your mother warned you about--the essential Buddy Cole.
After Kids' six-year run on CBS, HBO, Comedy Central, and the CBC in Canada, Scott Thompson joined the cast of the critically acclaimed HBO series The Larry Sanders Show.  He is also a frequent guest on Politically Incorrect and The Late Show, and continues to do stand-up comedy, which includes performances in the character of Buddy Cole.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

By way of an introduction . . .

They say that the exact circumstances of a person's birth determine the course of the rest of his or her life. In my case, this was profoundly so. Let me explain. I was born on February 29, 1960, a leap year, thereby celebrating my birthday every four years. It was inevitable I would be a homosexual. Imagine. Even when I'm eighty, in some places I'll still be too young to drink.

To look at me, you'd think that I was hatched from a FabergÚ egg, the scion of a lost branch of one of the Royal Houses of Europe. For years, this is what I actually told people. But now that I've been given money to tell my life story, I feel the truth threatening to break through. No, dear reader, I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. More like a rusty fork. Now, before I launch you on the thrill ride that is my life, I must give you some background information. Think of it as foreplay. So lay back and spread your legs because some of this stuff is pretty hard to swallow. You'll need every hole you've got.

I was born on a pig farm in northern Quebec, Canada, in a little hamlet of two thousand people called St. Hubert sur la Lac, or St. Hubert on the Lake. As far as I know, there was never actually a Saint Hubert, but there was a St. Hubert's Chicken restaurant nearby, so that must have been where the name came from. I was the last of twenty-three children. I was christened Charles Butterick Cole, the Charles was after Charles Boyer, Maman's favourite actor, the Butterick after my paternal grandfather. Everyone called me Butterick though until one day my father shortened it to Buddy by mistake and it stuck. My parents, Angus Sean Cole, a lusty Scotsman who arrived in Quebec in 1920 at the age of fifteen, and my mother, Giselle Christianne Lavigne, the only child of Quebecois pig farmers, met at a cockfight in 1930 and married soon after. My family operated in both official languages. We spoke French to our mother, and Scottish to our father. From what I saw, they loved each other very much. That's probably why I turned out so stable. Maman doted on Papa's brusque Scottish virility, and Papa adored Maman, who was no looker. But she had a jolie  spirit, a good heart, and most importantly, came with a farm. People today are almost offended that my parents had such a big family, that they were somehow enviro-terrorists, but I figure if it took that many children to produce me, then it was worth the extra burden on the planet.

Our farm was at the end of a long gravel road about a mile from town, on the edge of a beautiful body of water called Lac d'Eau, or Water Lake. Directly opposite the shore was a tiny island about five hundred yards away. It was called L'Isle des Memoires, or Island of Memories. According to Indian legend, some Indian princess, Canada's Pocahontas, hit her head on a branch on the island and lost her memory, and we're supposed to remember her or something. I was always vague on the details, but it was a powerful ceremony held each year when the Indians drove up in their Jeeps with cases of beer for the occasion. Most of the population worked in the nearby copper mine. Many of my brothers ended up working there, but luckily I escaped that fate or this would have been a very different book. Although we were not impoverished, there were so many mouths to feed that for all intents and purposes I grew up poor. Luckily, I was not brought up religious. I think that was because my mother was Catholic and my father was Presbyterian, so rather than fight about it, it was just easier for us to be nothing. Let's face it, dear reader, my parents were too pooped for the Pope.

As I look back over the finished manuscript, I remember so many other stories that I should have told, and so many lovers who will hate me for not being mentioned (you know who you are, Henry), but this is what came out--a series of true events arranged in such a way as to entertain, inform, illuminate, and above all, make me look good. Who knows, if this thing is big, and I don't see how it can't be, maybe there will be a sequel. I know one thing, though: it had better be a much bigger advance. I practically starved on the miserable stipend my editor gave me this time. I know it's petty, but I can't help but gloat that Whoopi Goldberg's book, Book, bombed. She should have called it Whoopi Babylon. But this is not the time for bitterness. That's for the story.

Some of my tales are not for the fainthearted. They may contain adult situations and language that may not be appropriate for younger readers. In other words, it's rated NC-17, so if you are under the age of seventeen and are reading this book, you're busted. All I ask is that you don't just race ahead to the dirty parts, like I did with The Godfather.

You will notice throughout the text that I seemingly reproduce conversations perfectly that no normal human being could possibly remember. Well, I am not a normal human being. I have what is called "selective humourous photographic memory," which means I only remember the funny conversations. But rest assured, I remember them exactly. So, here goes. The truth and nothing but the truth. I hope it's not too boring.
Je Me Souviens (I Remember)

My big entrance

On the day that I was born, it was crisp and cold. A bitchy blizzard had just deposited a foot of snow on the ground and another foot was on the way. They say it was so cold that day the rooster refused to come out to announce sunup. Later, they found him frozen in his coop.

My sisters were all gathered in the big, warm farm kitchen preparing the noon meal. As the wind howled outside, whipping the snowdrifts into piles of constantly shifting meringue, the women of my family bustled about inside, the cold a nasty rumour they'd heard of but wouldn't acknowledge. The fire burning in the stone hearth cackled like the Hag of Newfoundland. My mother had just taken a huge pork tortiere out of the woodstove and set it on the table, a massive wooden monstrosity that stretched for more than ten feet, with built-in benches like a picnic table. It was capable of seating the entire brood, except for my sister Manon, who as they said in those days "wasn't quite right." She was about nine at the time and barely spoke, just sat on a stool in the corner of the kitchen playing an accordion all day long, which really must have been irritating. Luckily, by the time I was old enough to remember such things she had succumbed to rubella, at the tender age of thirteen.

Manon's accordion sang with longing and passion that day, and I imagine Maman humming to herself as she worked, the swell of her six-and-a-half-month pregnant belly barely noticeable under her considerable farmwife bulk. Maman was happy, they tell me, for she knew that I was to be her last child. The doctor said that at her age, forty-four, another child was inadvisable. They say that when she discovered she was pregnant once again, she declared "I don't care what it is. It can be a boy and a girl, for all I care." Little did she know.

It was a special day, because one of my brothers, Pierre, was about to turn ten. There was a family tradition in the Cole household where, at that age, the male children had to slaughter a pig with a sledgehammer while my father and the other boys watched. My father said he had brought this custom over from Scotland, but I think he just made it up.

The sight in the barn that day was a strange one. If you had been a shivering barn swallow hiding out in the rafters, you would have seen nine boys from the ages of eight to twenty-nine, wearing nothing but winter boots, kilts, and tams, all standing in a circle and drumming on their bare chests with their hands. In the middle of that circle, you would have seen a large sow snorting with fear in front of two little boys, one with a large sledgehammer. You would have seen my father, fifty-five at the time but still as strong as an ox, standing on a bale of hay in the corner of the barn playing a Scottish war tune on the bagpipes. He was shirtless, too, barrel-chested, with a sprawling red-gray beard and biblically fierce dark eyes. His nostrils shot steam into the air. Then you would have seen one little boy walk slowly over to another and take the sledgehammer from his hands. The boy with the hammer was my brother Gaston, who had become a man two years earlier, and the one taking the implement was my brother Pierre. Pierre brought the sledgehammer up over his head and I'm sure my father smiled, because nothing makes a Scot happier than horrible weather and the spilling of blood. The Cole boys began to drum harder and Angus's piping built in intensity. Death and manhood were imminent.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Maman was clutching her distended belly. But it was not time!  She called out to my sisters Fleur and Caresse to come to her. The pains came again, this time harder. I was impatient. Maman climbed atop the kitchen table with the help of the girls. She spread her legs, and straining to give me to the world, let out an awesome scream.

Back in the barn, my brother Pierre was still struggling to lift the massive sledgehammer. The pig had stopped squealing and looked up at him quietly. Suddenly the men heard the wailing coming from the kitchen. My father immediately put down his pipes and raced out of the barn, the boys following, struggling to keep up with the strides of my Braveheart father. The pig breathed a sigh of relief and trotted off to a corner of the barn to lie down in the straw. Pierre just stood there alone, holding the sledgehammer, confusion written all over his face. How do I know this, even though I wasn't there?  A little bird told me. Pierre knew that this was to be his only chance; that, according to tradition, once the ritual had been interrupted, it could never be restaged. He knew he would never be a man now, which reminds me, this is my story.

Back with the womenfolk, a tiny newborn with more ego than life lay blue and shivering on the kitchen table. Fleur, who was twelve at the time, ran to the sink, grabbed a large knife, and severed the cord. Then she tied it in a bow, picked me up, and turned to my mother, who according to family lore waved her hand toward the pie. I think she was trying to say she was hungry and wanted a piece, but lucky for me, Fleur misunderstood, and slicing open a hole in the crust slid me into the warm, meaty interior. Colour immediately came to my cheeks and my eyes fluttered open. I would live.

At that moment, Papa and my brothers stormed in and raced over to the steaming pie. I had sufficiently recovered enough that I was now eating my bed. Breathing on my own, and already able to focus on a pretty face, it was decided that I would be all right. Everybody settled down to eat, carefully cutting around me. Everyone except Pierre, that is. He was so upset he refused to come in for lunch and spent the rest of the day inside the barn, crying. At least that's what the little bird told me. Then, as if my birth wasn't excitement enough, my cousin Tony, an altar boy at the village church, burst in to announce that the statue of the Virgin Mary was bleeding!  Yes, gentle readers, on the day that I made my entrance, our Blessed Mother began to menstruate. I had no choice. I was born to rock.
Cornygirl

My earliest recollection is a very vague memory of my brother Pierre leaving home. I remember hearing a clunkity-clunk  sound while lying in bed. Then I recall crawling over to the door and peeking into the hallway. Pierre was dragging a huge suitcase down the stairs. Our eyes met, and he put his finger to his mouth. "Shhhh." He continued on his way until I heard the door close behind him. Then I fell asleep on the floor, and when I awoke the next morning I was back in bed. No one ever mentioned Pierre again.

My second recollection is of a doll. It was a dried-out corncob with two buttons for eyes, a painted-on mouth, and Popsicle-stick arms and legs. I called her Cornygirl, and carried her everywhere I went. Cornygirl had been given to me by my oldest sister, Sister Monique Cole, of Our Lady of the Suffering Bleeding Heart of Jesus Convent. She was about thirty, had a mustache, short gray hair, and gams to die for, which she always kept hidden under that bloody habit. I was always telling her to hike it up a little. "Show some leg, Sister!" I'd say.

All my brothers and sisters hated Cornygirl. But Maman said that if anyone ever hurt little Cornygirl she would break their collarbone. My mother was always very specific about her threats. One day, I decided to make some clothes for Cornygirl. The first thing I needed was material. I had my eye on my brother Yves's black leather jacket, which he had recently inherited from our older brother Felix. Felix had inherited it from Gaston, who had inherited it from Gilbert, and so on and so on. The massive jacket dwarfed Yves,  who was eight years old at the time but was already starting to turn girls' heads. He thought he was pretty cool as he strutted around the house, but it looked ridiculous on him so I figured I was doing him a favour by stealing it. Even at that tender age, I was already putting other people's needs before my own.

The problem was, Yves never took off the jacket. Luckily, we both slept in the same bed, so one night, while Yves was sleeping, I gently slid the coat off him. Then, taking my sewing kit from under the bed, I stole up to the attic where I spent the rest of the night feverishly fashioning a smart nun's habit with the hem a few inches above the knee. Cornygirl looked fit to serve God with some flair. I finished just as the sun was coming up, and returned to the bedroom. Stashing the remains of the jacket under the bed, I tied myself up with some rope and began to scream.

Yves woke with a start, and soon the room filled with panicked members of my family. I told them that some man had broken into our bedroom, tied me up, and stole Yves's leather jacket. Incredibly enough, they believed me, and raced off to their own rooms to see if anything else was missing. When everyone had left except for Yves and our still-sleeping brother Davide, who could have slept through a succubus, he turned to me suspiciously.

"Where is my leather jacket?" seethed Yves.

"Your breath smells," I answered.

"Tell me where it is or I'll break your arm," he said.

"Just don't break my wrists. I have a feeling they're going to be my bread and butter in the future."

"I love what you've done with Cornygirl," came an annoying little voice from the corner of the room. It was Davide. He was holding Cornygirl and admiring her new leather ensemble. Yves grabbed the doll from his hands and glared at it.

"What's this?"

"Cornygirl's joined the church," I said. His response was a punch, and I went down like a sack of essence, leaving nothing but a wispy vapour trail. Somehow, Yves grabbed that vapour and squeezed it into an arm, which he twisted behind my back.

"I'm gonna make you my bitch," he snarled.

"Don't be possessive. I'm everybody's bitch." He hit me again, so I hit Davide. Davide began to cry, so I hit him again, then h

From Kirkus Reviews:

The purported autobiography of a favorite character of the influential (and now defunct) Canadian comedy troupe the Kids in the Hall, by the actor who portrayed him and the troupes head writer. Charles Butterick ``Buddy'' Cole is a half-Scottish, half-Quebecois gay man raised in northern Quebec, who discovers his sexual identity and how to use it to his advantage at a very young age. His ability to seduce men at will, plus his innate theatrical talents, take him first to Toronto, where he immerses himself in the hardcore gay lifestyle, and then to Los Angeles, where he marries a lesbian named Tandy Cole (he takes her name, thus becoming Buddy Cole-Porter) and helps launch a television show. While there is much in Buddy Babylon to make gay readers and fans of the Kids in the Hall show laugh out loud, there is just as much that will go flying over the heads of those not familiar with the character of Buddy Cole. And members of the politically correct contingent of the gay community are likely to find much of what Thompson writes to be stereotype-affirming. They will have missed the pointBuddy Cole is meant to be a stereotype of the ``extreme'' gay lifestyle and, most probably, a character that typifies a certain aspect of the personality of the author, who is openly gay. Thompson does cross the line between funny and just plain silly at times, but this, again, is in keeping with the somewhat eccentric, audacious comedy style of the Kids troupe. (Dave Foley, a member of the group, has gone on to national success with the hit TV series News Radio.) Because of his openly gay stance, Thompson may have to wait to achieve Foley's success, but Buddy Babylon should keep Kids fans smiling, and impatiently awaiting his next move. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dell
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0440508282
• ISBN 13: 9780440508281
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288