Proverbs 27, Verse 20
"Ambition and death are alike in this: neither is ever satisfied."
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CHIPPED WISDOM:
"The Pink Panther Strikes Again" is, arguably, his best Panther. Peter Sellers absolutely shines in what is a pretty poorly-constructed film. Its plot is outlandish and ridiculous, though criticism of the plot of "Pink Panther" films is, in itself, as ludicrous as critiquing the plots of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, or, frankly, soap operas, but the slapstick comedy is some of the best you'll sever see on film. This film boasts the quintessential Cato vs Clouseau fight-- it's as long as it is hilarious, and very creative-- and one of the best pratfalls performed by one of the best prat's (and the best prat's stuntman, too, no doubt). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you 33 delicious seconds of Sellers:
Beautiful, wasn't he?
One of the quieter moments of the film takes place on the pastoral grounds of a psychiatric hospital where Chief Inspector Clouseasu's former boss and rival Chief Inspector Dreyfuss has been involuntarily committed after Clouseau made him crack. I know, I know, no one can make you crack. Anyway, Clouseau and Dreyfuss are making a painful attempt at congenial small-talk, and Dreyfuss asks after some old colleagues.
"Sergeant Chevalier sends his regards," Clouseau says, trying for conversation.
"Sergeant Chevalier? Ha ha ha-- good old Sergeant Chevalier. How is he anyway?" asks Dreyfuss.
"Ah, well, you know, there are some who will be leaders, and some who will be followers. Sergeant Chevalier, I'm afraid," opines Clouseau, "will always be a follower."
Dreyfuss can't help laugh at this, with a maniacal twitch of his eye.
"And you, Clouseau, a leader? Eh? Always a leader? Onward and upward to the top?!"
"It is my destiny," says Clouseau, "my karma."
I believe more in Peter Sellers than I believe in destiny or karma-- at least I know he existed once. My mother is a big fan of "everything happens for a reason" which is kind of like the poor man's destiny. I can remember, a short time ago, interviewing for a job and telling the Executive Director, "Look, I don't have designs on your job. I just want to come in, and do a good job for an organization I care about. I don't mind being a cog in a wheel. I just want it to be a good wheel." And don't you know she offered me the job? I told her that "I basically have no ambition", and she offered me the fucking job. Gotta love America, right?
Ambition is a funny thing. Those of it who have too much scare the shit out of everybody, and those who have too little everyone writes off as an ass-scratch nail clipping. I'm somewhere in the middle, but definitely closer to the ass-scratch nail clipping than, say, Mussolini. In everything except theatre. If there was a part in a show I wanted, I prepared for that audition. I am an aggressive auditioner, and I will try everything I know how to do to charm my way into a director's heart. Pants. Whatever. And, unlike smarter actors, I won't take another part if it's offered to me. I am a child.
I want THAT one.
WAAAAA!
And, usually, I get what I want where the footlights are concerned.
Life is a different story. Since college, I haven't run or walked so much as crawled. My occupational path hasn't been linear or logical or luminous. It's been what it's been, and I'm tired of apologizing for it. There is a cadre of boys with whom I was very friendly back in elementary school, and they're all doctors. They all went to the same college, and the same medical school, I think they fucked some of the same chicks and now they're all doctors. And that's fine for them. That didn't happen to me, partially because I didn't want it to, and partially because I can't do math without counting on my fingers and the scientific extent of my life is occasionally contemplating watching an episode of "NOVA". But I went off that show when they re-did the theme music.
I suppose I'm a little bit like Sergeant Chevalier-- a follower, but I'm not always sure who I'm following, and I don't know if that makes me better or worse off than the fictitious Surete police sergeant spoken about by Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers on that insane asylum bench. I got a new position at work-- a promotion, we can call it, because I suppose that's what it is. And I am extraordinarily grateful for it but I'm also terrified of it. I know that I will disappoint a lot of people if I fail to perform my duties-- not that I'm even all that sure what exactly my duties are at the present moment-- and I know that the stakes, for me and for my family, are too high to crash and burn on the runway.
Things change as you get older, and I'm not just talking about the cartilage erosion in your knees. It used to be that my ambition was to not say something idiotic during a date, or to get through a shift on the ambulance without ripping off the light-bar at a drive-thru restaurant. Back then, that was a big fucking deal. Today, everything feels like that. Every second of every moment of every breath of every footstep is terribly, dreadfully important, and my ambition now is to make it to the next moment, the next foothold, the next sip of coffee and we're striving and it's furious and the wind burns the cheek and the desert goes on forever, at least, I hope it does. Because good old Sergeant Chevalier will always be a follower.
And I was known as the Pavlova of the parallels.
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