Whine o’ the week:
A couple days ago, I called a 1-888 number to order a replacement bunch of cheques on one of my bank accounts. It was about 10 pm. After some ten minutes of following instructions and entering the appropriate responses (following each with the inevitable octothorpical “pound key”), I was directed to proceed to the point at which my final order would be confirmed. Only then did I receive a recording advising me that “Our hours are [whatever they had decided was 'regular office hours']. Please call back then.”
The next day, when I did call back, I let the hapless actual person with whom I connected know exactly what I thought of an organization that elects to go the automated ordering route, but then chooses to shut you out when you call outside “normal” hours (is there such a concept any more in this era of 24-7 everything?) and only telling you of this fact after you’ve spent ten minutes processing your order. He had the honesty to inform me I was not the first person to make this complaint, but was not possessed of the authority to make the change himself.
When we reached the point where he wanted to know how many cheques I wanted, I asked him what their pricing structure is. “You can get 50 free; a second 50 will cost you $30, plus shipping.”
You tell me, please. Can a hundred copies of an item possibly cost $30 more to print and ship? (Hint: The correct answer is ‘no’, until you begin talking about an object with a serious technical complexity or a significant weight, a combination cellphone and locomotive, say.)
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Never say never, as someone infinitely wiser than I once intoned. (And no, I don’t mean the Cubby Broccoli estate.)
If anyone has been reading this blog long enough to recall my rant a long time ago when I recounted a family sojourn to a movie at one of the great, garish, gaudy and noisy Cineplexes on the same night as Opening Night for the (then) latest Harry Potter movie, you will also recall that I swore up, down, left, right and nine ways from Sunday that being anywhere near a Cineplex on the night a new Harry Potter movie opened was something I would do in future only after I had persuaded myself it would be an improvement over my alternate proposed diversion – sitting down at a wooden table and systematically driving large and rusty carpenter’s nails through my hand with a croquet mallet.
(Hello… Guinness? Is a 125-word long sentence cause for any interest on your part? No, OK… but you say it is cause for apologizing to anyone forced to read it? Oh, I see. OK… sorry everybody. But I digress.)
On a recent, otherwise perfectly sane Friday evening, we were entertaining a friend of my daughter’s who was staying over because her parents were out of town for the weekend. In appreciation, her mother had thoughtfully swung by a local Cineplex and purchased, in advance, tickets to the very first night’s showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the most recent screen treatment of author JK Rowling’s bank account. It took some persuading, but my infinitely wiser spouse suggested an entirely novel approach to the scenario – “Why not just decide you’re going to enjoy yourself?”
All day Friday, I listened with growing fear to the day’s news reports of full-house attendance at the matinee showings, plus the news that the day’s advance ticket sales had broken all records for the advance ticket sales for the previous record holder – the final episode of the Star Wars sextaga. And all day long, visions of near-maniacal hordes of Potterphiles – most of them former 10-year old girls who became ardent Potter fans from the moment the first book appeared, and who now likely were all 20-year old co-eds dressed up in skimpy little Hogwarts schoolgirl uniforms fitting considerably more tightly for the passage of the intervening years since their wearers had attended the very first Harry Potter movie… (Hmmmm. Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe my wife’s advice was going to be not so hard to realize after all.)
Unfortunately, because I was going to be chauffeuring, I couldn’t fall back on my preferred anaesthetic of a couple glasses of a really fine Cabernet Sauvignon… or a couple glasses of 20-year old Taylor-Fladgate tawny port… or a couple glasses of the Isle of Skye’s Talisker single malt with a smokiness so powerful you would swear someone has perfected the art of grilling scotch… or a couple glasses of Maker’s Mark single-barrel bourbon… (or of course the aforementioned nails malleted through my hand)
But as it turned out (was it not ever thus?), the actual experience was all the more anti-climactic for its having borne no resemblance whatsoever to my panicky imaginings. Oh there were many, many Potter fans present, to be sure. But they were incredibly well-behaved and although the line of eager fans waiting to get into the theatre was indeed festooned with Hogwarts scarves and the occasional wizard hat, it was also festooned with a sea of mp3 players and even laptop computers on which, amazingly, at least one group of fans over whose shoulders I snatched a peek were engrossed in watching one of the previous Potter movies.
In fact, the worst thing that happened to me that whole evening came when I was hauling a flimsy cardboard sheet hilariously misnamed a “tray” onto which the helpful snack counter clerk had placed the two-and-a-half gallons of Coke back to our seats (the result of my ill-considered shoulder-shrugging acquiescence to the chirped, “For only 65 cents more, you can Super-Size it!”). Unfortunately, one of the lids had been affixed only loosely to the barrel-sized cup. Coupled with the complete non-stability offered by the so-called tray, I had a shirtfront covered in Coke by the time I got back to my seat.
And the movie? It was everything a complete onscreen entertainment experience should be. The comfort level of already knowing the principals meant that you could be catapulted into the plot almost immediately without having to sit through first-time “establishing scenes” that line up who is who and where each fits into the Hogwarts hierarchy. As a result, there was much more emphasis given to the more human elements of the characters this time round, with a not-so-subtle emphasis on relationships, the value of good friends and the ability of a really good friendship to overcome the occasional bump in the road.
Oh there was some moralizing – for example, we must believe that in a fair fight, good will pretty well always triumph over evil. (SPOILER ALERT / SKIP THIS PARENTHESIS IF YOU DON’T WANT A PARTIAL PLOT REVELATION: Actually, make that “real good”, because at least one of the characters on the “good” guys’ side gets killed in this outing.)
Other moralizing was connected to the aforementioned value of good friendships. But none of it was used like a club to bash you over the head. There is a lovely moment near the end of this movie where the films’ three best friends are standing together on a Hogwarts’ balcony at end of term. As they stand watching the bustle of departing friends, new friends and various and sundry students for their (I assume) summer break, with arms locked together, it is given to Hermione to speak what it probably on all their minds: “It’s not going to be the same ever again, is it?”
No, luv, alas. It isn’t. And even if what is to come is better in some ways, they – and we – are compelled to come to terms with the simple fact that we must always move on from countless times and places in our lives that we no doubt wish we could hold onto forever.
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“I can’t go back there any more; you know my key won’t fit the door.”
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Which leads me to board a similar train of nostalgic thought related to another couple of recent movie viewing experiences. Not so very long ago, a friend of mine leant me yet another superb Martin Scorcese rockumentary. “No Direction Home” is an in-depth three-hour-long look at the early career of Bob Dylan. Dylan fans will revel in it; those new to Dylan will be mesmerized at the discovery of just how much power, if not outright divinity, was imparted to him by his legions of protest-driven fans.
I count myself somewhere between the two categories. (Between “fan” and “new”, that is.) I’m nowhere near – yet – being among those who have deified the man but certainly one of my most heavily-played albums while I was in university was his “Highway 61 Revisited”. In my case, it was because I really liked the poetry in “Desolation Row”, a song I still find myself ear-worming from time to time. But the album also unleashed what is now pretty well acknowledged to be Dylan’s anthem, “Like a Rolling Stone”. (With the title song, Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” is generally acknowledged by music critics to be “not his best but certainly his most influential”. But I digress.)
What really surprised me was the discovery that before I got interested in seriously listening to music, there was a time when people – whole auditoria full of people – were absolutely passionate about the music they listened to, and its meaning.
The Dylan film, for example, makes much of July 25, 1965, the day at the Newport Folk Festival when he strode onto the stage with an electric guitar and a back-up band to shatter his legions of folk fans for whom he was never supposed to be more than a voice, a message and an acoustic guitar. Depending on whose version of events you believe, any number from “not that many” to “half the audience” became exceedingly angry. Pete Seeger claims in the film that he was prepared to take an axe to the cables linking the microphones to the sound system, thus achieving what might well have been folk music's first-ever case of going ballistic. Here’s a brief, but pretty graphic summary of the effect Dylan had on the crowd that evening.
In the Scorcese film, we are also taken to a follow-up concert in England, where fans are heard screaming things like “Judas!!” and “Where’s Woody Guthrie, Bob??” while Dylan takes a couple seconds to tell them, “C’mon, this is still protest music” before cutting loose with his newly-electronicized sound.
The movie also shows the power given to some musicians at the time. Dylan appears at the same Washington march where Martin Luther King delivered his “I have a dream” speech, and Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Woody Guthrie are shown giving concerts where, clearly, it was important that their message be heard, regardless of apparently minuscule audiences in some cases.
But Dylan is accorded the last laugh by Scorcese. Despite his apparent onstage determination to take his music in his own direction, it is also obvious that the angry audience response has clearly jarred him. In a later concert, once more in England when he steps to the stage one last time before entering an eight-year long concert absence, amid yet another round of audience boos at the appearance of his electric guitar and his band, Dylan turns to his back-up musicians and can be heard clearly saying, “OK, play it f-**-king LOUD!”
Here endeth Part 1 of the introduction
Part 2: In 1970, a group of (then) pretty darned well-known musicians boarded a CN train in Toronto after playing a concert at the Canadian National Exhibition. They included The Grateful Dead, The Band, Janis Joplin, blues legend Buddy Guy, Ian and Sylvia Tyson, among others. The trip, which stretched into a five-day rail journey west with a series of four or five mega rock concerts at each major stop, was the subject of a whole bunch of film that someone shot, but which promptly vanished into an archive somewhere until it was only recently discovered a couple years ago. Someone then had the wisdom to string it all together into a movie and “Festival Express” – the name given to the week-long rolling party – is the result.
To some, it will be fascinating just because it has some new footage of dead people, including just a barn-burner of a finale by Janis entitled “Tell Mama”. To others, will fascinate because it has captured, as did Woodstock, the spirit of a generation that really did get pissed off at “the PIGS!” who wouldn’t let them get into a concert free, and who called absolutely everyone “Man”.
And to others – like me, I discovered – it generated a strong but wistful sense of nostalgia for a time and state of mind I can’t (or more accurately shouldn’t) go to again – because I’m a responsible adult and getting so drunk that you can’t even see straight is just not something I could get away with (nor would I want to). There’s a scene, for example, where the event’s organizers actually bring the train to a stop somewhere in Saskatchewan because (a) its passengers have drunk its bar car utterly dry; and (b) the conductor knows that the station is right beside a liquor store. After passing the hat and collecting over $800, the musicians then proceed to deplete the store of a large chunk of its inventory, including a huge promotional bottle of Canadian Club.
The next scene is probably a couple hours later in the bar car and Rick Danko, one of the members of The Band, is regaling the car with a slurred blues tune, “Ain’t no more cane”. Sitting right beside him, equally blasted, is Janis Joplin and one can only imagine that the entire car by this time is well and truly converted into an equally drunken state and is either in the bleary-eyed audience or trying (badly) to be part of the chorus. The musicians on this cut are identified on the movie’s official website* only as “Rick Danko and Janis etc”.
I know I certainly wound up at many a university party as an “etc”. Once, back before a glass bottle was considered a possible terrorist weapon and barred from concerts, I had armed myself with a 26-ounce bottle of Alberta vodka. Not wanting to carry two bottles (one of mix), I had simply dumped an entire envelope of Tang crystals into the clear liquid, leaving myself with a single bottle of the world’s most potent screwdrivers. The concert in question was a Canadian band carnival, with the finale going to Crowbar. Crowbar was fronted by an enormous bear of a man named Kelly Jay, and he accented his stage image with a huge fur hat. This night, he was in party form. Feeding off the audience response, the vast majority of us no doubt oiled by lubrications as creative – if not more so – as my own un-watered screwdrivers, Jay eventually climbed atop a huge stageside speaker tower to lead a loudly drunken sing-along version of Crowbar’s single biggest hit, “Oh, What a Feeling”. I know I got back to the residence, hoarse to the point of laryngitis, after that show. But I’ll be darned if I can recall just how.
* Click “Enter site / USA and Canada” and make sure you’re speakers are on.
So partly because I am enveloped by this light fog of nostalgia, and partly as a message to the coming tidal bore (pun intended) of election coverage, I think I’ll leave the last word this time around to Mr Dylan:
The Times, They Are a-Changin’
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
I have some free advice for all three Opposition parties. (No, no, don’t thank me.) Ordinarily, I would not presume to think that any advice I have to offer them would be useful but, in the past few days they have shown themselves to be so completely stupid that what I’m about to say will seem like sheer genius compared to what they’ve been doing.
So – here’s the sheer genius.
First, for all of you – Conservatives, NDP, Bloc: The Liberals’ two messages from now until voting day will be: 1. (After the Opposition-fired non-confidence motion is held – whenever “after” should ever happen to be): “We are appalled that the [insert Opposition Party name here] voted against an agenda of progressive and innovative programs that would enhance the quality of life for all Canadians. Shocked and dismayed are we!” and 2. (In the wake of Gomery): “We have really, really, REALLY learned our lesson. Re-elect us.”
And here are your counter-messages. First, to 1. – 1.a “We didn’t vote against the few positive measures you introduced in your 'economic update' on November 14th. As we have made it completely clear, we believe you had lost the moral authority to govern. So we combined resources and voted you out of office the first chance [actually the hundredth, or thereabouts, chance but we can’t travel too far on that gas] we had to vote you out of office.” PERIOD. (Oh, and 1.b: “All of your ‘progressive and innovative programs’, especially tax cuts, you stole from us anyway. So Canadians will lose none of them by electing us.”)
And to 2. “With the exception of a few token rolled heads, you are almost entirely the same team that ran the country when the whole sponsorship scandal was happening. And not only that, the man who, at the time, was the number 2 politician in the country, the number 1 federal politician in Quebec, and the Minister of Finance, today as Prime Minister claims he knew absolutely nothing about the Quebec-based scandal and now expects to be returned to govern because, he says, ‘We have learned our lesson’. Well we don’t believe a bit of it! Vote for us.”
How hard was that? You’re welcome.
STOP THE DAMNED SKATING AROUND WHO’S “OFFICIALLY” GOING TO BE TAGGED WITH PULLING THE PLUG! IF YOU GENUINELY BELIEVE THE GOVERNMENT HAS LOST ITS MANDATE, ITS “MORAL AUTHORITY”, THEN VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE. THAT’S HOW PARLIAMENT WAS DESIGNED. YOU’RE THE OPPOSITION; SO OPPOSE ALREADY!
Unfortunately, none of that helps me decide where I’m going to mark my “X” when next I stand in a general election booth, because the only thing that the recent political shenanigans dominating the Ottawa news in the past few months has done for me is to make it very, very easy to decide who I’m NOT going to vote for.
The Liberals: no way. And oddly enough, it’s for the weakest of all the “Nope, not voting for you” reasons that are on my list. I am simply sick and tired of their collectively radiating an aura of arrogance that manifests itself as a belief that they rule by divine right of kings. Every once in a while, that boat need to be rocked and I think it’s damn well time to tip it right over.
The Conservatives: no way. At first, I waffled for a bit, thinking “Give ‘em a chance”, when they floundered about looking for (a) a platform; and (b) a leader. But here they are a good couple years along and so far they’ve found neither. Plus they still carry way too many chains connecting them to the really dangerous Reform / Alliance Party. For me, the clincher came in the wake of the recent announcement by Jack Layton that he and his party would not support a motion hinged to any expression of confidence in the Liberal government. In the very next breath, there was Conservative “leader” Stephen Harper announcing that he sure as hell wasn’t going to make that motion, because he didn’t trust the NDP after they failed to support the Conservative motion of non-confidence last time around.
(Uh… Stephen: 1. The NDP last time never pre-announced either support or non-support. So it’s not like they stabbed you in the back. 2. You’re the guy who has been jumping up and down on the soapbox for the past several months shrieking that you will defeat this government at the first available opportunity. Well HERE IT IS, YOU DAMNED STUPID FOOL!)
(Or more PC-ly, and as the Globe and Mail pointed out in an editorial the morning after the Layton announcement, Harper is, after all, the leader of the “Official Opposition”. If indeed he lacks confidence in this government, the role of seizing the opportunity to defeat it is more correctly his than anybody else’s.
To me, Harper has shown himself to be not so much a political party leader as he is the kid in the department store line-up who’s been absolutely a-quiver for the better part of an hour with the anticipation of actually getting to see Santa Claus. Then comes the moment: “HO! HO! HO!... Next!” at which point he pees his pants and runs screaming from the store.
(Stephen Harper: you ARE the weakest link. Goodbye.)
My secret advice for getting you elected: Get yourselves a new leader and throw the rednecks out of your party.
The NDP: no way. In the past few months, Jack Layton proved himself to be every bit the grubby little backroom dealmaker he so publicly condemns in the parties who actually do have the power. When he finally did topple lamely off the fence, it was to announce that it was the Liberals’ failure to “make a commitment to [i.e. adopt NDP policy for] health care in Canada” that lost them his party’s support. Well Jack, plainly you missed the memo, because health care in Canada is a bus with 13 or so steering wheels. For you to honestly believe that you could negotiate the Liberals into adopting major new health care policies without holding a dozen or so federal / provincial / territorial conferences on the subject makes it all too clear you really have no understanding about how politics works (or admittedly, more often doesn’t work) in this country. Back to Toronto with you, Jack. Obviously you’d still got your head there and the rest of country now knows that a party that sells its soul at every available opportunity really has no soul left, does it?
My secret advice for getting you elected: You’re never going to run the country. But you have – as apparently has been long forgotten by your current members – a track record of being a very effective conscience of not only the House, but also the country. (Hint: read everything Stephen Lewis ever wrote and said.) Return to that spotlight. That’s where we need you most and, coincidentally, it’s where you sing the best.
The Bloc: moot point. They don’t run candidates in my riding or anywhere else outside Quebec, for that matter. (But for the record: no way.)
My secret advice for getting you elected: Here’s a novel thought. You’ve won unbelievable federal concessions on federal programs as they are delivered in Quebec. Never has the time been riper for a party that is willing to make a national platform out of “Putting Provinces First”. Think of it: health care and education are this election’s two biggest priorities, and they’re both provincial responsibilities. Were you to run candidates everywhere in the country on the strength of a promise to apply your Quebec-rump energies to benefit every other province in Canada, I can guarantee you we’d be looking at Prime Minister Gilles Duceppe the morning after the vote. You don’t even have to change your name. You’re the BQ and you’re going to honour your roots. (Besides, the New Democratic Party is neither, so running a campaign that doesn’t necessarily reflect your name is not even unique in Canada.)
All of which still doesn’t leave me much, does it? At least I live in an urban riding large enough that there will inevitably be one or two independents plus most of the wingnut parties represented on our slate of candidates come voting day. Family Law? Green? Marxist-Leninist? Decisions, decisions.
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Wow! Does this take me back!
(From the Montreal Gazette, November 5):
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Quebec seizes yellow margarine
Raids turn up 72 tubs. Inspectors descend on four Wal-Marts in Quebec City area
Kevin Dougherty
Agriculture Department inspectors swooped down on four Wal-Mart stores in the Quebec City area yesterday and seized 72 plastic tubs of yellow Becel margarine with an estimated street value of $179.28. The margarine is butter yellow, which makes it illegal for sale in Quebec.
…
Andre Menard, spokesperson for acting agriculture minister Laurent Lessard, said 44 of the contraband margarine containers were seized at the Levis Wal-Mart, across the river from the capital.
…
"This is serious," Arseneau chided reporters who found the situation humorous.
…
The company denied yesterday it is using backdoor tactics to flood the Quebec market with illegal margarine.
…
Menard noted the PQ considered lifting the ban in 1997, when they were in power, then backed off. Quebec's powerful farmers' union - the Union des producteurs agricoles - is a strong defender of the ban. Yesterday, Menard said Quebec has no intention of lowering its guard and allowing yellow margarine to infiltrate Quebec grocery stores. "There is nothing (like lifting the ban) on the radar," he said. "Period."
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I recall my Mom, back about 1964, coming home from the Steinberg’s grocery store that was close to the St Hubert, Quebec RCAF base where we lived. Among her groceries were one-pound blocks of what looked like pure lard. But inside the foil wrapper, there was always a little card to which was adhered a quarter-sized button of an unnaturally orange food dye.
She would leave the brick outside the refrigerator for a couple hours or so to soften it and then initiate an operation that involved bursting open the button of colouring, and smushing it up with the lard-coloured substance to produce a more or less uniformly and faintly yellowish-orange coloured spread.
For us, it was a huge technological leap forward when pre-softened white margarine came in a reinforced plastic bag with the button of colouring on the inside. Then, as though engaging in some weirdly tactile ritual of therapy aimed at relieving sexual tension, we would begin by squeezing the bag with thumbs on the colour button to burst it, after which a solid few minutes of kneading the bag would be required to spread the colour evenly throughout the bag of margarine.
That has been – since time immemorial – the idiotic business of purchasing margarine in the province of Quebec.
As the Gazette article above makes it clear, the Quebec government believes – and had believed ever since that first prototypical batch of artificial toast grease was produced – that every last one of its citizens is so abominably stupid, he or she will see a label that spells out the word “m-a-r-g-a-r-i-n-e” and, merely because it is yellow, mistake it for butter. The province’s dairy industry, they reasoned, was therefore in imminent danger of collapse because a tidal wave of grocery shoppers would mistakenly lob “M-A-R-G-A-R-I-N-E” labelled packages into their carts, having completely overlooked the butter blocks nearby. It was time, they concluded, for a protective government to take control.
And so desperately protective are they of this belief in the consumeristic illiteracy of its populace that they have never changed the white-margarine-only-in-this-province law.
Which leads to news stories (above, QED) filled with stupefyingly dumb phrases like “contraband margarine containers”, “margarine with an estimated street value of…”, and the ultimate terrorist threat implied in: “lowering its guard and allowing yellow margarine to infiltrate Quebec grocery stores”.
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Surveys “r” Us reports
Every ten years or so, Statistics Canada puts out a massive survey on the state of literacy in Canada. This year, the report shows that, essentially, not much has changed in the decade since the last survey was published in 1994.
But what really made me wonder was this sentence in a CanWest News Service article about the results: “Some groups fared worse than others in terms of reading comprehension. The survey found immigrants and aboriginal people – particularly those whose first language isn’t English or French – have some of the poorest literacy skills in the country.”
So… let me see if I understand this correctly. A survey form printed in one or both of Canada’s two official languages makes its way into the hands of people who speak neither, and Statistics Canada concludes they are illiterate because they can’t read it?
That approach to the Scientific Method reminds me of the old Cold War joke about a Soviet scientist performing a rather cruel experiment with a grasshopper. He begins by positioning himself behind the hapless bug and yelling at it suddenly to make it jump. The scientist dutifully notes the length of the jump. Next, he removes a leg from the grasshopper and repeats the exercise. Not surprisingly, the startled bug’s jump is not nearly as far. The scientist repeats the experiment with the leg count reduced by one each time. And even with only one leg, the grasshopper still manages an admittedly pathetic change in position when the scientist yells. Finally, the last leg is removed. Despite repeated shouts, the grasshopper doesn’t budge. The next morning, the scientist’s report is dispatched to Moscow for publication in the Soviet science journals. His conclusion? “Grasshopper with no legs is deaf”.
StatsCan’s result: “Person who can’t speak English or French is illiterate.”
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And finally… Headscratching Days Have Arrived at Red Lobster
I just saw a commercial for Red Lobster restaurants on TV. They are in the throes of an annual shellfish pigout called “Endless Shrimp”. The tag line was, “But you’d better hurry, because Endless Shrimp ends soon.”
Memo to Red Lobster: if it does, then it isn’t. See what I’m saying?
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So – here’s the sheer genius.
First, for all of you – Conservatives, NDP, Bloc: The Liberals’ two messages from now until voting day will be: 1. (After the Opposition-fired non-confidence motion is held – whenever “after” should ever happen to be): “We are appalled that the [insert Opposition Party name here] voted against an agenda of progressive and innovative programs that would enhance the quality of life for all Canadians. Shocked and dismayed are we!” and 2. (In the wake of Gomery): “We have really, really, REALLY learned our lesson. Re-elect us.”
And here are your counter-messages. First, to 1. – 1.a “We didn’t vote against the few positive measures you introduced in your 'economic update' on November 14th. As we have made it completely clear, we believe you had lost the moral authority to govern. So we combined resources and voted you out of office the first chance [actually the hundredth, or thereabouts, chance but we can’t travel too far on that gas] we had to vote you out of office.” PERIOD. (Oh, and 1.b: “All of your ‘progressive and innovative programs’, especially tax cuts, you stole from us anyway. So Canadians will lose none of them by electing us.”)
And to 2. “With the exception of a few token rolled heads, you are almost entirely the same team that ran the country when the whole sponsorship scandal was happening. And not only that, the man who, at the time, was the number 2 politician in the country, the number 1 federal politician in Quebec, and the Minister of Finance, today as Prime Minister claims he knew absolutely nothing about the Quebec-based scandal and now expects to be returned to govern because, he says, ‘We have learned our lesson’. Well we don’t believe a bit of it! Vote for us.”
How hard was that? You’re welcome.
STOP THE DAMNED SKATING AROUND WHO’S “OFFICIALLY” GOING TO BE TAGGED WITH PULLING THE PLUG! IF YOU GENUINELY BELIEVE THE GOVERNMENT HAS LOST ITS MANDATE, ITS “MORAL AUTHORITY”, THEN VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE. THAT’S HOW PARLIAMENT WAS DESIGNED. YOU’RE THE OPPOSITION; SO OPPOSE ALREADY!
Unfortunately, none of that helps me decide where I’m going to mark my “X” when next I stand in a general election booth, because the only thing that the recent political shenanigans dominating the Ottawa news in the past few months has done for me is to make it very, very easy to decide who I’m NOT going to vote for.
The Liberals: no way. And oddly enough, it’s for the weakest of all the “Nope, not voting for you” reasons that are on my list. I am simply sick and tired of their collectively radiating an aura of arrogance that manifests itself as a belief that they rule by divine right of kings. Every once in a while, that boat need to be rocked and I think it’s damn well time to tip it right over.
The Conservatives: no way. At first, I waffled for a bit, thinking “Give ‘em a chance”, when they floundered about looking for (a) a platform; and (b) a leader. But here they are a good couple years along and so far they’ve found neither. Plus they still carry way too many chains connecting them to the really dangerous Reform / Alliance Party. For me, the clincher came in the wake of the recent announcement by Jack Layton that he and his party would not support a motion hinged to any expression of confidence in the Liberal government. In the very next breath, there was Conservative “leader” Stephen Harper announcing that he sure as hell wasn’t going to make that motion, because he didn’t trust the NDP after they failed to support the Conservative motion of non-confidence last time around.
(Uh… Stephen: 1. The NDP last time never pre-announced either support or non-support. So it’s not like they stabbed you in the back. 2. You’re the guy who has been jumping up and down on the soapbox for the past several months shrieking that you will defeat this government at the first available opportunity. Well HERE IT IS, YOU DAMNED STUPID FOOL!)
(Or more PC-ly, and as the Globe and Mail pointed out in an editorial the morning after the Layton announcement, Harper is, after all, the leader of the “Official Opposition”. If indeed he lacks confidence in this government, the role of seizing the opportunity to defeat it is more correctly his than anybody else’s.
To me, Harper has shown himself to be not so much a political party leader as he is the kid in the department store line-up who’s been absolutely a-quiver for the better part of an hour with the anticipation of actually getting to see Santa Claus. Then comes the moment: “HO! HO! HO!... Next!” at which point he pees his pants and runs screaming from the store.
(Stephen Harper: you ARE the weakest link. Goodbye.)
My secret advice for getting you elected: Get yourselves a new leader and throw the rednecks out of your party.
The NDP: no way. In the past few months, Jack Layton proved himself to be every bit the grubby little backroom dealmaker he so publicly condemns in the parties who actually do have the power. When he finally did topple lamely off the fence, it was to announce that it was the Liberals’ failure to “make a commitment to [i.e. adopt NDP policy for] health care in Canada” that lost them his party’s support. Well Jack, plainly you missed the memo, because health care in Canada is a bus with 13 or so steering wheels. For you to honestly believe that you could negotiate the Liberals into adopting major new health care policies without holding a dozen or so federal / provincial / territorial conferences on the subject makes it all too clear you really have no understanding about how politics works (or admittedly, more often doesn’t work) in this country. Back to Toronto with you, Jack. Obviously you’d still got your head there and the rest of country now knows that a party that sells its soul at every available opportunity really has no soul left, does it?
My secret advice for getting you elected: You’re never going to run the country. But you have – as apparently has been long forgotten by your current members – a track record of being a very effective conscience of not only the House, but also the country. (Hint: read everything Stephen Lewis ever wrote and said.) Return to that spotlight. That’s where we need you most and, coincidentally, it’s where you sing the best.
The Bloc: moot point. They don’t run candidates in my riding or anywhere else outside Quebec, for that matter. (But for the record: no way.)
My secret advice for getting you elected: Here’s a novel thought. You’ve won unbelievable federal concessions on federal programs as they are delivered in Quebec. Never has the time been riper for a party that is willing to make a national platform out of “Putting Provinces First”. Think of it: health care and education are this election’s two biggest priorities, and they’re both provincial responsibilities. Were you to run candidates everywhere in the country on the strength of a promise to apply your Quebec-rump energies to benefit every other province in Canada, I can guarantee you we’d be looking at Prime Minister Gilles Duceppe the morning after the vote. You don’t even have to change your name. You’re the BQ and you’re going to honour your roots. (Besides, the New Democratic Party is neither, so running a campaign that doesn’t necessarily reflect your name is not even unique in Canada.)
All of which still doesn’t leave me much, does it? At least I live in an urban riding large enough that there will inevitably be one or two independents plus most of the wingnut parties represented on our slate of candidates come voting day. Family Law? Green? Marxist-Leninist? Decisions, decisions.
= = = = = = = = = =
Wow! Does this take me back!
(From the Montreal Gazette, November 5):
- - -
Quebec seizes yellow margarine
Raids turn up 72 tubs. Inspectors descend on four Wal-Marts in Quebec City area
Kevin Dougherty
Agriculture Department inspectors swooped down on four Wal-Mart stores in the Quebec City area yesterday and seized 72 plastic tubs of yellow Becel margarine with an estimated street value of $179.28. The margarine is butter yellow, which makes it illegal for sale in Quebec.
…
Andre Menard, spokesperson for acting agriculture minister Laurent Lessard, said 44 of the contraband margarine containers were seized at the Levis Wal-Mart, across the river from the capital.
…
"This is serious," Arseneau chided reporters who found the situation humorous.
…
The company denied yesterday it is using backdoor tactics to flood the Quebec market with illegal margarine.
…
Menard noted the PQ considered lifting the ban in 1997, when they were in power, then backed off. Quebec's powerful farmers' union - the Union des producteurs agricoles - is a strong defender of the ban. Yesterday, Menard said Quebec has no intention of lowering its guard and allowing yellow margarine to infiltrate Quebec grocery stores. "There is nothing (like lifting the ban) on the radar," he said. "Period."
= = = = = = = = = =
I recall my Mom, back about 1964, coming home from the Steinberg’s grocery store that was close to the St Hubert, Quebec RCAF base where we lived. Among her groceries were one-pound blocks of what looked like pure lard. But inside the foil wrapper, there was always a little card to which was adhered a quarter-sized button of an unnaturally orange food dye.
She would leave the brick outside the refrigerator for a couple hours or so to soften it and then initiate an operation that involved bursting open the button of colouring, and smushing it up with the lard-coloured substance to produce a more or less uniformly and faintly yellowish-orange coloured spread.
For us, it was a huge technological leap forward when pre-softened white margarine came in a reinforced plastic bag with the button of colouring on the inside. Then, as though engaging in some weirdly tactile ritual of therapy aimed at relieving sexual tension, we would begin by squeezing the bag with thumbs on the colour button to burst it, after which a solid few minutes of kneading the bag would be required to spread the colour evenly throughout the bag of margarine.
That has been – since time immemorial – the idiotic business of purchasing margarine in the province of Quebec.
As the Gazette article above makes it clear, the Quebec government believes – and had believed ever since that first prototypical batch of artificial toast grease was produced – that every last one of its citizens is so abominably stupid, he or she will see a label that spells out the word “m-a-r-g-a-r-i-n-e” and, merely because it is yellow, mistake it for butter. The province’s dairy industry, they reasoned, was therefore in imminent danger of collapse because a tidal wave of grocery shoppers would mistakenly lob “M-A-R-G-A-R-I-N-E” labelled packages into their carts, having completely overlooked the butter blocks nearby. It was time, they concluded, for a protective government to take control.
And so desperately protective are they of this belief in the consumeristic illiteracy of its populace that they have never changed the white-margarine-only-in-this-province law.
Which leads to news stories (above, QED) filled with stupefyingly dumb phrases like “contraband margarine containers”, “margarine with an estimated street value of…”, and the ultimate terrorist threat implied in: “lowering its guard and allowing yellow margarine to infiltrate Quebec grocery stores”.
= = = = = = = = = =
Surveys “r” Us reports
Every ten years or so, Statistics Canada puts out a massive survey on the state of literacy in Canada. This year, the report shows that, essentially, not much has changed in the decade since the last survey was published in 1994.
But what really made me wonder was this sentence in a CanWest News Service article about the results: “Some groups fared worse than others in terms of reading comprehension. The survey found immigrants and aboriginal people – particularly those whose first language isn’t English or French – have some of the poorest literacy skills in the country.”
So… let me see if I understand this correctly. A survey form printed in one or both of Canada’s two official languages makes its way into the hands of people who speak neither, and Statistics Canada concludes they are illiterate because they can’t read it?
That approach to the Scientific Method reminds me of the old Cold War joke about a Soviet scientist performing a rather cruel experiment with a grasshopper. He begins by positioning himself behind the hapless bug and yelling at it suddenly to make it jump. The scientist dutifully notes the length of the jump. Next, he removes a leg from the grasshopper and repeats the exercise. Not surprisingly, the startled bug’s jump is not nearly as far. The scientist repeats the experiment with the leg count reduced by one each time. And even with only one leg, the grasshopper still manages an admittedly pathetic change in position when the scientist yells. Finally, the last leg is removed. Despite repeated shouts, the grasshopper doesn’t budge. The next morning, the scientist’s report is dispatched to Moscow for publication in the Soviet science journals. His conclusion? “Grasshopper with no legs is deaf”.
StatsCan’s result: “Person who can’t speak English or French is illiterate.”
= = = = = = = = =
And finally… Headscratching Days Have Arrived at Red Lobster
I just saw a commercial for Red Lobster restaurants on TV. They are in the throes of an annual shellfish pigout called “Endless Shrimp”. The tag line was, “But you’d better hurry, because Endless Shrimp ends soon.”
Memo to Red Lobster: if it does, then it isn’t. See what I’m saying?
= = = = = = = = =
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Sha-ZAM! It’s a Gomer-y Pile!
So I guess I should say a word* about yesterday’s (as at this writing) media earthquake from Ottawa (which registered a 7 on the retch-ter scale) – the release of Part 1 of the Gomery Report, a.k.a. “Adscam”, a.k.a. “$%@#!%#&$ MERDE!” if you’re Jean Chretien, and a.k.a. a doorway labelled “I know – I’ll run as an independent!”, if you’re Alphonso Gagliano, now barred for life from holding membership in the Liberal Party. (Cheer up consigliere, in a different world you’d actually have been handed an outcome that was negative! But I digress.)
* FYI, “disgusted” is that word. You don’t wanna ask me for adjectives.
Gomery Part 1 is, of course, the colossal finger-pointing synthesis of all the evidence collected over the past several months in what is known colloquially as the sponsorship scandal. Part 2, due in February 2006, is supposed to be: “In Part 1, we identified the problems; now here’s what you need to do to fix them.”
But there’s already a firestorm of response over Part 1. No surprise at all that it is erupting from those – including former Prime Minister Jean Chretien – on whom Justice Gomery stuck the label, “Responsible”. Chretien’s response is a tad peculiar. As nearly as I can parse his counter-argument, it seems to boil down to “Waaaal, you know… dat guy Gom’ry, he di’nt call enough of my frien’s to say nice t’ings about me. So I’m gonna sue!” Good luck, sir. Bring lots of balls to your hearing.
Golf ones I mean.
And for some unknown reason, Gomery used the words “Prime Minister Martin” and “exonerated” in the same sentence, so there will be no bonus points awarded for guessing what the Liberal media lines were from the moment the first media microphone was thrust into the first Grit face following the November 1 tabling of the Gomery report.
For the big zip that it’s worth, you can count me among those who just cannot accept that the man who was Finance Minister under Jean Chretien, and effectively the country’s number 2 politician – in fact the federal government’s number 1 man in Quebec while all this was happening – knew nothing about a program that scurrilously moved tens of millions of dollars around among Liberal-friendly advertising agencies, buffered by kickbacks all along its sordid, looping trail with apparently no bookkeeping whatsoever, under the laughably unrealized goal of “national unity”. I believe that Paul Martin just covered his tracks more effectively. Or, by virtue of his being Prime Minister at the moment, he has now come into the resources to cover his tracks retroactively and thoroughly enough to teflon his way out from amid the latest barrages of flung dung.
(Didn’t know “teflon” was a verb, did’ja? I teflon; you teflon… works for me.) But like Tony “The Great Leslie” Curtis in the classic pie fight sequence in “The Great Race”, Martin is only dodging the first wave of pies. Sooner or later, a pan just chock full of bumbleberry is going to come out of Stage Right and catch him right in the old platitude generator.
Quickies: 1. As I said recently in an e-mail message to a friend – To Jack Layton (who began railing loudly and angrily about Liberal corruption within minutes of the release of Gomery 1 but, when asked if he was prepared to back up his righteous indignation by supporting a vote of non-confidence in the government, demurred with a toe-digging, “Well, we haven’t really talked about that”): Jack, why bother even lacing up your blades if you have no intention of going for a skate? For the record, I don’t buy for a minute that oft-repeated NDP ass-saver, “Canadians don’t want a winter election.” Voting for most people is a five-minute detour on the way home from work one evening.
Actually, what Canadians don’t want is to be forced to sit through what is going to be quite possibly the ugliest campaign in our history. If it were up to me, I’d announce the dates, give each party a ten-day window to post its policies on a single universally-accessible Elections Canada website, with hard paper copies distributed across the land during that same ten-day window, then hold the vote. No polls; no televised debates. And for damned sure, no “Party pundits panel” on the CBC, which always and inevitably descend into mutual insult sessions that contribute nothing to the process except a ringing confirmation of the juvenile lack of respect they have for each other and Canadians in general.
2. To Stephen Harper, whose right-hand man Peter MacKay recently said, “We’ll let you know what we’re going to do when we’ve seen the first poll results of Canadian opinions.”: You do realize that, quaint as it might seem, Canadians still consider (admittedly, less and less with each passing month) that our Members of Parliament are our leaders. If you want to rule by plebiscite, find a country where that is the official form of government. But if you want to lead in Canada, give us a reason to follow you beyond building a campaign platform based on, “I’ll follow the advice of most of you. Just give me that chance. By the way, the Liberals are corrupt.”
3. To Gilles Duceppe: Gilles, it’s not always about giving Quebec a raw deal. Sometimes, it’s about realizing Brian Mulroney’s perfectly coined mission statement for cabinet ministers, “Ya dance with them that brung ya.” But look in the mirror. You’re a separatist, for God’s sake! If you really find being a “Canadian” so damned onerous, then stop sucking up what is provided at the public trough, because it’s been stocked by the very nation from which you so clearly have said you want to split! Separate already! See how far you can walk in thin paper shoes.
Oh – but you take with you precisely what “Quebec” was on June 30, 1867. After that, it was part of Canada. So you might want to start negotiating with the northern Cree right now because (a) they don’t wanna go (i.e., they’ve already served notice that they’ll want to “separate” from Quebec so as to remain in Canada), and (b) James Bay and Manicouagan – home to all those Hydro Quebec power generating stations – are on their land. And no, you don’t get the Vandoos. They might well be a unique, wholly French-speaking regiment, but they’re in the Canadian Army. And they left a lot of worthy, so terribly young men behind in the soil of Europe while fighting under the red ensign to defeat Naziism. The red ensign, Gilles – that’s the flag with the Union Jack in its corner. So you can’t have them. While you’re at it, leave your MP’s pension in the cloakroom and your passport with the border guard sitting in the car on the Portage Bridge (don’t worry, we’ll build a permanent crossing point real soon) before you go. There’s a good lad.
= = = = = = = = = =
As Hurricane Wilma tracked across Florida – somewhat weaker than the “HURRICANE OF THE CENTURY!!!!” it was originally billed to be, CBC viewers got to witness the network’s efforts to make it seem a much bigger disaster than it actually was. When the coverage cut to “our meteorological specialist on the scene”, she actually pointed to some palm fronds that were lying on the ground at her feet. “As you can see,” she over-seriously intoned, “whole palm leaves were blown from the trees, and awnings were buffeted on this nearby condominium” (points to nearby condo with an apparently intact awning, but which at least provided a visual definition of the “awning” concept for people who never heard the word before.)
“Oh the humanity!!”
= = = = = = = = = =
There are a couple of Diet Pepsi commercials in which a middle-aged businessman is asked if there’s anything from his youth he’d like to relive. In one, he considers recapturing his “Flock of Seagulls” hair style; in another, his too-tight jeans. At the end, he simply concludes, “On second thought, I’ll just stick to my Diet Pepsi.”
In the same spirit, once in a while something will tweak my “If I only knew then what I know now…” musing and, most recently, it has been an occasional regret that I wasn’t a fan of The Band when they were in their heyday. A few years ago, I bought a VHS cassette – and later a DVD – of “The Last Waltz”, the Martin Scorcese film of their official farewell concert. It makes a frequent appearance on my DVD player. Not that I’ve seen a lot of rockumentaries, but this is definitely my favourite, made so in large measure by the rich roster of performers, and Scorcese’s outstanding camera work around the stage.
And I also just bought their “A Musical History” package that includes five CDs and a DVD of some of their early stage appearances. And even when they’re just hacking around in a basement jam session, there’s a gritty folksiness to their music and such an apparently easygoing cohesion to their playing that a Band concert about 30-odd years ago would really have been a truly memorable musical experience. (One of their most often-cited links is the fact that they backed Bob Dylan on his 1966 tour, but that was an erratic collaboration at best and it is their enormous archive of sans-Dylan material that shines brightest.)
I suppose better a late-comer than a never-having-found-outter, but oh, to have been in the Winterland Theatre in San Francisco during the 1976 US Thanksgiving weekend! And sitting here, from the viewpoint of late 2005, the imagining is made more wistful by the fact that two of the group’s founding members have since died – bassist and singer Rick Danko in 1999, and pianist, drummer and lead singer Richard Manuel in 1986.
= = = = = = = = = =
On the euphemism watch, here’s a new one for “I really don’t have a clue (but I’m not going to let that stop me from talking!)”.
Recently, I was watching a panel of journalistic talking heads jabber away about something or other, when one of the reporters was asked by the interviewer to provide some particular background to the subject at hand.
The reporter started with a few words, and then paused and inserted, “But I wouldn’t quote me on this…”
As the old adage goes, “Better to keep your mouth closed and have everyone think you’re an idiot, than to open it and remove all doubt.”
= = = = = = = = = =
Cheers!
So I guess I should say a word* about yesterday’s (as at this writing) media earthquake from Ottawa (which registered a 7 on the retch-ter scale) – the release of Part 1 of the Gomery Report, a.k.a. “Adscam”, a.k.a. “$%@#!%#&$ MERDE!” if you’re Jean Chretien, and a.k.a. a doorway labelled “I know – I’ll run as an independent!”, if you’re Alphonso Gagliano, now barred for life from holding membership in the Liberal Party. (Cheer up consigliere, in a different world you’d actually have been handed an outcome that was negative! But I digress.)
* FYI, “disgusted” is that word. You don’t wanna ask me for adjectives.
Gomery Part 1 is, of course, the colossal finger-pointing synthesis of all the evidence collected over the past several months in what is known colloquially as the sponsorship scandal. Part 2, due in February 2006, is supposed to be: “In Part 1, we identified the problems; now here’s what you need to do to fix them.”
But there’s already a firestorm of response over Part 1. No surprise at all that it is erupting from those – including former Prime Minister Jean Chretien – on whom Justice Gomery stuck the label, “Responsible”. Chretien’s response is a tad peculiar. As nearly as I can parse his counter-argument, it seems to boil down to “Waaaal, you know… dat guy Gom’ry, he di’nt call enough of my frien’s to say nice t’ings about me. So I’m gonna sue!” Good luck, sir. Bring lots of balls to your hearing.
Golf ones I mean.
And for some unknown reason, Gomery used the words “Prime Minister Martin” and “exonerated” in the same sentence, so there will be no bonus points awarded for guessing what the Liberal media lines were from the moment the first media microphone was thrust into the first Grit face following the November 1 tabling of the Gomery report.
For the big zip that it’s worth, you can count me among those who just cannot accept that the man who was Finance Minister under Jean Chretien, and effectively the country’s number 2 politician – in fact the federal government’s number 1 man in Quebec while all this was happening – knew nothing about a program that scurrilously moved tens of millions of dollars around among Liberal-friendly advertising agencies, buffered by kickbacks all along its sordid, looping trail with apparently no bookkeeping whatsoever, under the laughably unrealized goal of “national unity”. I believe that Paul Martin just covered his tracks more effectively. Or, by virtue of his being Prime Minister at the moment, he has now come into the resources to cover his tracks retroactively and thoroughly enough to teflon his way out from amid the latest barrages of flung dung.
(Didn’t know “teflon” was a verb, did’ja? I teflon; you teflon… works for me.) But like Tony “The Great Leslie” Curtis in the classic pie fight sequence in “The Great Race”, Martin is only dodging the first wave of pies. Sooner or later, a pan just chock full of bumbleberry is going to come out of Stage Right and catch him right in the old platitude generator.
Quickies: 1. As I said recently in an e-mail message to a friend – To Jack Layton (who began railing loudly and angrily about Liberal corruption within minutes of the release of Gomery 1 but, when asked if he was prepared to back up his righteous indignation by supporting a vote of non-confidence in the government, demurred with a toe-digging, “Well, we haven’t really talked about that”): Jack, why bother even lacing up your blades if you have no intention of going for a skate? For the record, I don’t buy for a minute that oft-repeated NDP ass-saver, “Canadians don’t want a winter election.” Voting for most people is a five-minute detour on the way home from work one evening.
Actually, what Canadians don’t want is to be forced to sit through what is going to be quite possibly the ugliest campaign in our history. If it were up to me, I’d announce the dates, give each party a ten-day window to post its policies on a single universally-accessible Elections Canada website, with hard paper copies distributed across the land during that same ten-day window, then hold the vote. No polls; no televised debates. And for damned sure, no “Party pundits panel” on the CBC, which always and inevitably descend into mutual insult sessions that contribute nothing to the process except a ringing confirmation of the juvenile lack of respect they have for each other and Canadians in general.
2. To Stephen Harper, whose right-hand man Peter MacKay recently said, “We’ll let you know what we’re going to do when we’ve seen the first poll results of Canadian opinions.”: You do realize that, quaint as it might seem, Canadians still consider (admittedly, less and less with each passing month) that our Members of Parliament are our leaders. If you want to rule by plebiscite, find a country where that is the official form of government. But if you want to lead in Canada, give us a reason to follow you beyond building a campaign platform based on, “I’ll follow the advice of most of you. Just give me that chance. By the way, the Liberals are corrupt.”
3. To Gilles Duceppe: Gilles, it’s not always about giving Quebec a raw deal. Sometimes, it’s about realizing Brian Mulroney’s perfectly coined mission statement for cabinet ministers, “Ya dance with them that brung ya.” But look in the mirror. You’re a separatist, for God’s sake! If you really find being a “Canadian” so damned onerous, then stop sucking up what is provided at the public trough, because it’s been stocked by the very nation from which you so clearly have said you want to split! Separate already! See how far you can walk in thin paper shoes.
Oh – but you take with you precisely what “Quebec” was on June 30, 1867. After that, it was part of Canada. So you might want to start negotiating with the northern Cree right now because (a) they don’t wanna go (i.e., they’ve already served notice that they’ll want to “separate” from Quebec so as to remain in Canada), and (b) James Bay and Manicouagan – home to all those Hydro Quebec power generating stations – are on their land. And no, you don’t get the Vandoos. They might well be a unique, wholly French-speaking regiment, but they’re in the Canadian Army. And they left a lot of worthy, so terribly young men behind in the soil of Europe while fighting under the red ensign to defeat Naziism. The red ensign, Gilles – that’s the flag with the Union Jack in its corner. So you can’t have them. While you’re at it, leave your MP’s pension in the cloakroom and your passport with the border guard sitting in the car on the Portage Bridge (don’t worry, we’ll build a permanent crossing point real soon) before you go. There’s a good lad.
= = = = = = = = = =
As Hurricane Wilma tracked across Florida – somewhat weaker than the “HURRICANE OF THE CENTURY!!!!” it was originally billed to be, CBC viewers got to witness the network’s efforts to make it seem a much bigger disaster than it actually was. When the coverage cut to “our meteorological specialist on the scene”, she actually pointed to some palm fronds that were lying on the ground at her feet. “As you can see,” she over-seriously intoned, “whole palm leaves were blown from the trees, and awnings were buffeted on this nearby condominium” (points to nearby condo with an apparently intact awning, but which at least provided a visual definition of the “awning” concept for people who never heard the word before.)
“Oh the humanity!!”
= = = = = = = = = =
There are a couple of Diet Pepsi commercials in which a middle-aged businessman is asked if there’s anything from his youth he’d like to relive. In one, he considers recapturing his “Flock of Seagulls” hair style; in another, his too-tight jeans. At the end, he simply concludes, “On second thought, I’ll just stick to my Diet Pepsi.”
In the same spirit, once in a while something will tweak my “If I only knew then what I know now…” musing and, most recently, it has been an occasional regret that I wasn’t a fan of The Band when they were in their heyday. A few years ago, I bought a VHS cassette – and later a DVD – of “The Last Waltz”, the Martin Scorcese film of their official farewell concert. It makes a frequent appearance on my DVD player. Not that I’ve seen a lot of rockumentaries, but this is definitely my favourite, made so in large measure by the rich roster of performers, and Scorcese’s outstanding camera work around the stage.
And I also just bought their “A Musical History” package that includes five CDs and a DVD of some of their early stage appearances. And even when they’re just hacking around in a basement jam session, there’s a gritty folksiness to their music and such an apparently easygoing cohesion to their playing that a Band concert about 30-odd years ago would really have been a truly memorable musical experience. (One of their most often-cited links is the fact that they backed Bob Dylan on his 1966 tour, but that was an erratic collaboration at best and it is their enormous archive of sans-Dylan material that shines brightest.)
I suppose better a late-comer than a never-having-found-outter, but oh, to have been in the Winterland Theatre in San Francisco during the 1976 US Thanksgiving weekend! And sitting here, from the viewpoint of late 2005, the imagining is made more wistful by the fact that two of the group’s founding members have since died – bassist and singer Rick Danko in 1999, and pianist, drummer and lead singer Richard Manuel in 1986.
= = = = = = = = = =
On the euphemism watch, here’s a new one for “I really don’t have a clue (but I’m not going to let that stop me from talking!)”.
Recently, I was watching a panel of journalistic talking heads jabber away about something or other, when one of the reporters was asked by the interviewer to provide some particular background to the subject at hand.
The reporter started with a few words, and then paused and inserted, “But I wouldn’t quote me on this…”
As the old adage goes, “Better to keep your mouth closed and have everyone think you’re an idiot, than to open it and remove all doubt.”
= = = = = = = = = =
Cheers!
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