REALITY GRAPPLES
Illustration by Ryan Thomas
When somebody recently told me about Giant Haystacks’ appearance in Paul McCartney’s 80s musical fondue, Give My Regards To Broad Street, I was sceptical. Surprisingly, these doubts weren’t directed at the quality of the wrestler’s performance. I didn’t get that far, my questions rested on a more fundamental point – whether he was even in the film. This level of incredulity may seem bewildering but be reassured, I only apply it selectively. Mainly I reserve it for Give My Regards To Broad Street trivia although occasionally I might whip it out for the latest rumours on the Watchmen adaptation.
This quirk has its roots in a story told to me by a friend called Max. He claimed to have seen GMRTBS and told me that it featured something he said he could only describe as a Vegetarian Subplot. No further details were forthcoming from Max. In this respect his approach owed something to Edgar Allan Poe’s in ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’. He preferred simply to fuel the imagination’s own capacity for horror. ‘O For A Voice To Speak’, he would say, and that would be it. Later, Max was condemned by a posse of intervening acquaintances as a compulsive fantasist. Seemingly, the real world was not good enough for him, which was sad really. Especially for me, as I had been a willing consumer of his extravagant nonsense. The good news was that I no longer had to suffer insomniac visions of stolen veggie-mince formulas or contaminated pastry.
My recent interest in Giant Haystacks’ film career was prompted by a viewing of Santo in the Wax Museum, one of a series of films that Mexican wrestling legend, El Santo, made in the 60s. He appears in these films as a detective/superhero character, bringing with him the cheering moral certainties of the ring. Where El Santo breaks the masked man mould is in his attitude towards work. Three times during his Wax Museum adventure he calls out, ‘Now I Must Wrestle’, jumps into his sports car and the plot sits back with an elastoplast while we get to the see some grappling. Once that’s over he’s back on the case, he doesn’t even need to change his outfit. It seems that off screen El Santo was the same, he was never seen out without his mask or cloak. Like Max, he preferred his reality with blurred boundaries.
Back to Haystacks, I can confirm that he does appear in Give My Regards To Broad Street. At least his body does. Hearing his voice, which sounds like the distress calls of a vole lost in his barn-like ribcage, was more than enough to set my sceptic instincts back on alert. That ominous, bean-feast flavoured question mark was swinging in the back of my mind again.
CJ Magnet