"It's just about impossible but Randy and I are working on a patented shit rope with spikes," Mr. Lahey, John Dunsworth's character from the Canadian cult classic TV series
Trailer Park Boys says with a heavy slur after I ask him how difficult it is to climb a shitrope. "But if you take a shit rope and you use our patented spikes you can hang on for a little while, buts it's just impossible unless you have a strength of a shit monkey. You can hang on for a while but eventually you fall right into the shit."
Dunsworth and Patrick Roach (aka Randy, Lahey's trailer park assistant/lover) have just landed at San Francisco International Airport, and have been up for over 24 hours. The two are tired, meandering through the airport, but are happy to fall right into character.
"When you touch him it feels a little oily, but it doesn't smell," Lahey says of his cohort, before Randy chimes in, "Garlic hummus with some chili peppers — that's what I smell like."
The two have a variety show featuring song, dance, skits, stand up, audience participation, and just general foolishness tonight at Slim's, but the duo aren't waiting to start goofing off.
"To be the liquor means to allow yourself to be. . . to be subsumed," Lahey tells me as an assistant tries to point him in the right direction to his baggage claim. "When you fall in love with someone, you become one with that person, I’m not saying your psychically involved and you can read his or her thoughts but's almost like a single entity. And to be one with the liquor, or to
be the liquor, is to give up one's personality, and to become one with a higher ideal. That's why they call liquor 'spirits,' because it's a spiritual thing."
Lahey finds some keys on the ground
"Anybody lose their keys!?" he shouts to a crowd of airline customers. "Oh man, I bet their apartment key, car key, and everything is on this."
There's no response from the crowd of fellow passengers, who are quickly dispersing as they pick up their bags and head towards the exit. The bags have stopped dropping onto the carousel now, but there's still no sign of Lahey's. His character drops, and Dunsworth appears.
"I hope my bag made it, cause if we don't have our show bag we're
fucked."
You can see Lahey and Randy in action tonight at Slim's when the shitclock strikes 8 p.m.