The Aykroyd Chronicle

Be on the lookout for Daniel Edward Aykroyd, 29. He is 6'1", 200 pounds; brown hair, brown eyes, glasses. Looks American. Sounds American. Do not be fooled. This man is a card-carrying Canadian.

There are more than 3,000,000 Canadians in this country today. Each week, thousands more seep across the border. They join their fellow aliens who have already infiltrated American films and television. Daniel Edward Aykroyd is just one of them.

You, at this moment, may be working or sleeping beside one of them. You may have entertained a resident alien in your home and not known it. I know I have.

It was Thanksgiving 1980 when Danny Aykroyd first showed up at my home. He arrived in a 1977 Illinois State Police vehicle, white with yellow insignia. At that time, the brakes were in disrepair, so his presence was announced by the loud crunch of his car against those already poised at the curb. He unstrapped the safety belt, dusted off and gathered up his stash of B and B (three bottles), Moosehead Lager (three sixes), ten Jamaican cigars and four tins of Canadian maple butter.

I do not recall very much about the afternoon and ensuing evening, because his girlfriend, Annie, had baked stinkweed into her squash casserole. Well, wait. He did speak at length of his interest in American women of the night but professed to be trying to shake it.

So. I have actually seen his resident-alien green card, along with the rest of the bizarre contents of Aykroyd's wallet. I have even met his brother Peter and his Canadian mother and father. (I had on a backless sweater that day, to which Dad Aykroyd responded, "So nice to see your back!" with a grand, magnanimous laugh, and then he detailed how he is the mighty comedic oak from which his nutty sons have sprung.) I have been through Danny's medicine cabinet and can attest, without a doubt, that the man is, indeed, an alien. You may recollect him as Beldar, patriarch of Saturday Night Live's Coneheads. Tom Davis, who cowrote the Coneheads with Danny, suggests that as Beldar, Aykroyd was not acting.

One year after our first meeting, Aykroyd appeared at my house to begin this profile. This time he was bearing 40 pounds of sterling silver, 30 record albums and six video tapes. My cassette machine was blinking record. The initial sound effects on this tape are those of a slammed door, a dropped load, a run to the bathroom and a refrigerator check. He immediately seized the tape deck and began to dictate:

"Quote. I arrive at her apartment in Manhattan for what is to be a profile--a character profile. I had insisted on picking her up at her home to hit the streets immediately thereafter. She had asked if I needed a particular viand or victual or beverage for imbibement. I insisted on Moosehead Lager.

"OK. Let's hit the streets. Slip this little tape deck in your pocket. Check. We got two travelers here--two walkers. We'll be drinking a Moosehead apiece on this run."

Aykroyd uses the cassette machine like a walkie-talkie. He checks playback. OK. It's recording. We bust out the door. Bang down the hall (two pairs of black boots clacking). Slam down the front steps and inject ourselves into the New York night.

"Test. Test. One . . . two. [Pause] This is Daniel Aykroyd, a man who can only visit, never really stay anywhere." He grabs his traveler and a load of silver. He looks like a guy who comes from the Bowery: black bandanna around his head, hair like a bush hog, tinted sunglasses, two mornings' beard growth. He's wearing an old Army jacket taken from a fallen Puerto Rican soldier.

"All right. We'll be walking from Chelsea to the World Trade Center. That's 40 blocks. Two miles. The challenge: No one will accost us for drinking beer on the streets and no one will recognize me as a notorious and famous figure in TV and film. No one. I strive to be anonymous. Of the hundreds of people we pass tonight, none will stop."

Dan Aykroyd's friend and partner, John Belushi, died as this issue was going to press. We have left Aykroyd's comments about him untouched, because, if anything, they assume even more significance in retrospect. --The Editors

We stop our progress at 14th Street--Third World D.M.Z. A screaming ambulance cuts through the Spanish-speaking vendors who peddle giant stuffed dogs and plastic rosaries. Aykroyd takes a slug of the Moosehead and shifts his sterling burden. He speaks down into the machine in his chest pocket: "I'm lugging a load of silver beside this girl with a Confederate flag and a skull on her chest. I'm eying her miniskirt--but I feel my age tonight and, besides, I'm a moderate and a celibate, just the kind of man who reads Playboy. Dan Aykroyd's been singed by women before--but he's not going homo. Nothin' against 'em; it's just not his highway."

We have a long way to go down Fifth Avenue. I keep trying to picture Danny as Elwood Blues, but he outgrew Elwood and the Blues Brothers black suit. Now he decks out kind of Alaska-pipeline punk--but hold it. What's this at our feet on the street? "Oh, look!" Danny says. "A little baby doll's dismembered leg. This is an omen. It means I'm meant to tell you this: I'm not interested in splatter films, films where people get their arms and legs blown off. I try to create humor through tension but not the kind of tension where somebody gets blown away. I'm not headed toward De Palma."

Danny's got a rep for being gun happy when, in fact, what he likes are the props. He likes the holsters, the hats, the badges; he likes the uniforms. "As a writer and someone who has to satirize this culture, of course I'm interested in this stuff. This is the largest armed citizenry in the world. Can you imagine any kind of force trying to take the continental U. S.?

"Mine is a kind of toy-soldier romance with guns--which is, I guess, what all great psychos are made of. But I'm not a promoter of those things. I think it's pretty frightening how many people really love guns and stuff. The only gun I'm really interested in is the Big Bertha--77 millimeters and on up. Bertha was a gun on a rail car used in World War One. A commonplace sight on the French countryside. I'm interested in the motive power of railways and armaments. Kind of an intriguing image, you know?"

At that point, we enter Washington Square Park. It's so mild out for mid-November that the junkies are confused. There's a light rain and haze around the ultraviolet lights, steam rising around us, as if we've just entered the second rung of hell. A couple of jive guys approach with the offer of "tooies," Seconal, Qualudes, joints. Danny shifts the silver. If we have to, we'll get tough.

"I've got a lot of contacts out here in the city," he says, side-stepping a dead man or maybe just a dreamer. "I've got a network on levels and sublevels. I have to cultivate people in all walks of life. I have to get out there and meet the hawks, the doves, the rights, the lefts. The radicals, racists, bigots, humanitarians. The Feds, the criminals--I've got to know them all, because those are the stories. I'm driven for the story. I have to have it."

Dan Aykroyd on story patrol. Self-recruited foot soldier reporting back on the state of the streets. This is the guy who scripted Saturday Night Live's "Ex-Police," a sketch in which he and Chevy Chase shoot first, ask questions later--questions like, "What are you hungry for? Where should we eat?" Dan Aykroyd keeps his eye on the rabid right, the Might Makes Righters, authority run amuck. There was a simpler time for little Danny when Granddad Aykroyd would ride home clad in the red of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police--a man in uniform sworn to uphold the law of the commonwealth and a sight to swell a young guy's pride.

"Danny!" I cry. "Let's do your favorite uniform for the centerfold!"

"Oh, man. It's the Rhode Island state trooper. Oh, yeah. They got beautiful, kind of corduroy, thick-twill uniforms with, uh, a red ribbon and a number--they're all numbered! It's really great. And their holsters are a full Sam Browne. Fantastic uniforms! Full-cross shoulder strap. But they wear their gun backward! On the left side! I couldn't believe it--for sheer . . . theater . . . of the . . . road, you can't beat Rhode Island state troopers. I wonder if we can get a picture of one of those uniforms. They draw from the right--they must! Draw from the right, you know? The handle's facing forward"--now he's dropped the silver, now he's trying the stance, attempting the draw from the right across the left--"ha-ha! It's a beautiful uniform. I saw it the other night when they stopped me for speeding. It's the greatest uniform I ever saw in my life!"

Now we're into NoHo, that no man's land north of Houston Street. NoHo is bleak, with dormlike buildings that spill over from NYU. We're exactly halfway between his house and mine, and now's the time to change the tape. We toss off the used Mooseheads. "Hello. Hello." Danny's got the machine right up to his mouth. "One. Two. We're back. We're back. Look at the way those guys are gawking at your legs," he says. "God! These big cities are really dangerous. They are definite red zones. No doubt about it. I'm not gonna walk down the streets in some Christian Dior suit--he makes the only cut that would fit me, 36 in the waist and big in the hip. You have to be dressed for urban siege. I'm not gonna wear a suit and tie on the streets of Manhattan.

"I like to walk a lot. I love the anonymity of walking. How many people have we passed?"

I say, "Hundreds."

"That's right," he says. "Hundreds. And I've been looking people right in the eye. See? It's a beautiful gift. It's the gift of notoriety and anonymity. When I lose it. I'm gonna leave the business. My partner, Belushi, can't do it at all. He's lost. He's possessed by that thing completely; people follow him, yell at him."

Under the street lamp, somewhere in SoHo, two black dudes are denuding a white Bonneville. "Hey, look!" Danny says. "They got something. What a prize. Nice bucket seats----" Like any professionals who love their work, these guys are chipper and whistling as they strip off the tires, the steering wheel. But Aykroyd the invisible and his Confederate side-kick move on. "My brother, Peter, gave up a car to this city in a sacrifice like that," he says over our footsteps. "It was a '72 Malibu. four-door. All the floor was rusted out; some frontend damage. So he took the plates off and left it over on the West Side. A day later, the wheels were gone. A week later, the car was completely gone. Certain forces of the earth arise to consume the dead--like maggots. Any body can be consumed in days. And if you sit in stasis in the city, you'll be eaten alive. You gotta keep movin'. That's my whole premise of existence."

Danny moves. He gets skittish being in one town too long. L.A., after a while, proves too much for the man. New York gets nervy after a few weeks--like right now. Aykroyd and Belushi have been doing all-day publicity stints for their latest movie, Neighbors, so Danny'll have to go off to the Vineyard to cool out or hit the Alaska highway. He's a man who can only visit, you know, never really stay anywhere.

"The seconds are ticking away before I have to get out of performing," Danny says, stepping up the pace. "I go out there and do the job is what I do. I don't give out a part of my soul on the screen, the way I think John does. I'm gonna learn how to write screenplays. I'm gonna produce my own stuff. The movies are just not rewarding enough. The grosses go to the producers, not the performers.

"Here's the thing. While I'm still young, I have to write these two-guy movies for me and John--these puerile two-guy things--while they're still fresh in my head. It's little boys playing in a big world--but I think they're valid entertainment."

Danny's gotten a lot of shit about The Blues Brothers and 1941, car crashes and plane crashes, big guns and leaving the dames in the dust, but: "Listen," he says with another shift of the silver, "Blues Brothers is a hit in Japan, France, Austria, around the world. And 1941 was a pleasure. I loved working with Spielberg--I'm very proud of that product. It's the 15th-largest-selling video tape in the world. I'll argue in its favor all day.

"John and I--we're giving all we can to entertain. That's our only motive. It's like our Second City days--you just have to get out there and keep the audience buoyant. They'll get on us about Neighbors, because it's a strange, abstract piece of material. It's as different as Saturday Night was in its time. Neighbors is a different type of humor. I was supposed to play a character who was kind of partied out. A guy who had all the toys in life, you know--the beautiful girlfriend, the car, the plane--but ultimately, nothing was left, and he needed someone to exchange with in a real sense."

Now we're nigh on to Danny's apartment. Any minute, we'll be inside, up the elevator, down the hall to this high-and-wide one guy's loft, where the radiators are painted like desert scenes. Against one wall is a glass case housing displays of police patches and badges: Joliet police, Georgia Highway Patrol, N.Y.P.D., New Mexico State Police. There's not a lot of furniture in Dr. X.'s digs (remember Danny as the family counselor on S.N.L. who wore a chrome plate over his face and had hooks for hands?). The good doctor likes his crib stripped down for easy ins and outs.

The next sounds to be heard on the tape are those of the guy who can turn at will from President Nixon to President Carter to Alexander Haig. Those heads of state are doing their dishes.

"Tell those macho guys at Playboy that Danny Aykroyd does his own dishes," he says in the they-won't-have-Dick-Nixon-to-kick-around-anymore voice. Muzz! And here comes Annie in her man's felt hat. Danny grabs her for a full-press silver-screen lip smack. "She's my little rock 'n' roll." he says, drying those detergent hands. "I used to be Macho Man. No longer. She's taught me--I want to--I . . . want . . . to . . . learn . . . girl stuff."

Annie says, "He's totally changed. It's true." Annie, who's a looker, a free-lance model, says this from the vantage of two years with Danny. Still, every now and then, you have to trot out the former Mr. Macho. We decide to get on him while he finishes the dishes.

"We want to see you dressed up sometime, Danny."

"Yeah! Give the girls a look at you all dressed up. Come on."

"Let's dress him up for dinner tonight!"

"Nah. Well . . ." he says with a glimmer behind the glasses, "I could wear my New York state trooper uniform."

No! Boo! We want to see him in something zoot, tight around the behind, tight around those thighs. "I'm too beefy," Danny says with a girlish blush. "Me and my dad, we're beefy Canadians. A man just can't tantalize the way a woman does. I've tried to look romantic, but it doesn't work. A guy doesn't have the alternatives a woman has. A guy's gotta be out there on the line."

"That's the thing," Annie says. "If all our dreams fail, if it's the pits, if nothing comes true--why, we can always find some guy to take care of us. I mean, I hate to say it, but it's true."

"Here I am," Danny says, drying the last dish and pouring us a cup of sake from the bottle he's been heating. "Here I am, Macho Man. trying to understand Woman. I have a great respect for women of this age, because I think they have real knowledge--a blend of intuition and knowledge. I'm trying to understand my own feminine side--to write better--I have to come to grips with the female in me."

He pops Annie on the backside with his dish towel. "Not to say I'm going homo, honey. Just to say I'm looking for a nice medium where I can understand both sides of the fence."

We've got sake, and we settle in for the Nightly News. Danny is propped up in his dental chair, the better to pontificate on Reagan's limited nuclear war. As Reagan speaks. Danny mimes his facial takes and gets the speech pattern down. Oh. no! Bill Holden is dead, hit his head on the corner of the---- "We better seize life now, girls," Danny interrupts. "We better do what we can with what we got.

"Man," he says, shaking his head, biting off his words the way he does when he does Rod Serling, "we are all alone. You come on this earth, you get out there like a satellite dish to receive all the data. You boil it down, distill it and interpret it--all for yourself. Ultimately, one must turn to oneself for the answers. It's a solo journey. Not to say that one doesn't interact with other people. One can give love and take love--but, basically, it's a solo trip."

Beldar needs another belt of that sake. The Nightly News always makes Beldar suspicious of life on this planet--it's no picnic being a resident alien, always on the move, a humanoid driven for the story. He feels his almost 30 human years as he pulls on his urbansiege jacket. "Dan Aykroyd is ready to confront 30," he says, as he speaks for the final time into the tape deck. "He's ready for 30, 40, 50 and 60. You know why?" (In the background on the tape, Annie and I yell, "Why, Big D?") "Because at 60, Dan Aykroyd'll be riding a Harley-Davidson." ("Oh, wow. OK. Let's go cat," we say.) "Yes. At 60, if he's still alive. Dan Aykroyd will own and ride a Harley-Davidson--and he'll have a lady on the back who wants to ride."