Flame-haired, mysteriously-banned Anna Smith in Vancouver
Just over a week ago, this blog’s Canadian correspondent Anna Smith was explaining she had been banned for life from massaging musicians at the Vancouver Folk Festival – and no-one would tell her why. Today, I got an update from her:
“The Folk Festival still hasn’t said why they won’t let me massage musicians, except to say that their committees and administration have been having meetings about me and they all agree that I broke their code of ethics…
“They sent me their code of ethics (which is a lot shorter than Hammurabi’s code) and the main rules seem to be about drunkenness with the interesting detail that, if a volunteer is drinking in the beer tents, they have to remove their volunteer identification badges while so doing…
“When I was there before, I was too busy massaging musicians to find out where the beer tents were even located… I will try to write them a third query letter tomorrow and then maybe their committees will hold another meeting about me.
“I am thinking that if I start a petition for Canadian musicians to sign – to say that I should be allowed to give them massages – then I probably could get quite a number of them to agree… like probably all of them!
The Breakfast Club (1985) with Molly Ringwald (bottom)
“Have people in Britain heard of the American actress Molly Ringwald?”
“Yes,” I told Anna. “The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and all that. But why?”
This is the reply I got from Anna:
I had never heard of her until one day in the early 1990s when I was sent to a hotel in Vancouver to do a massage and it was her, but I didn’t know who she was. I thought she was probably the daughter of some rich dentist in L.A. because she was wearing very expensive sunglasses and had perfect teeth.
That is not unusual. Most massueses meet celebrities.
Anyhow, she seemed to like that I had never heard of her and it was funny. She said: “Oh well… I’m in Vanity Fair this month.”
She was really nice. After the massage, we talked a bit and then she showed me her computer. She was the first person to show me the internet .
Then she invited me to her film set which was on location in Stanley Park. She had me stand with the director and watch her act. She was playing a villain and the script called for her to angrily light a cigarette. The wind was playing up and making it impossible for her to light it, so the crew started murmuring: “She needs a Zippo”.
Eventually the director was forced to ask through his megaphone: “Is there a Zippo on the set?”
Someone produced one and it was passed to her and filming continued. It was funny because it was like a Zippo commercial.
Molly Ringwald in Greece in 2010 (Photograph by Pgianopoulos)
She invited me to her own trailer and to her makeup trailer and a few days later she took me out for dinner at Le Crocodile, the best French restaurant in Vancouver. I told her she would have to pay, since I had a baby at home.
She said: “Order whatever you want.”
So I ordered a seafood dish and she ordered her dinner and a bottle of wine which we shared. We stayed there quite late talking and, when the cheque arrived, I was horrified because it was around $500.
She said: ”Don’t worry. It must have been the wine.”
She gave me her address in Paris and told me to come and visit her… but I never did.
Now Molly Ringwald has become a jazz singer (her dad is also a musician).
Mainly I remember how she was so nice to me. She didn’t have to be.
I am just remembering this because of being banned from massaging musicians.
I can’t decide if I should get photographed with my hands tied with gigantic red tape or start the musicians’ petition to allow me to massage them – or both.
I can’t completely rely on the musicians because some won’t want to jeopardize their jobs at the festival so I will have to ask the ones who don’t care…
A Zippo lighter cannot solve all problems
Really, they should WANT me to be there. I have been warning everybody about the new incurable gonorrhoea that The World Health Organization has described recently. The sex workers are calling it Super Clap and reminding everyone that condoms have no substitute.
I had some problems sending out the Super Clap warnings by email though. They were being diverted and marked as spam because they contained the word ‘warning’.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 