Leap in the Dark

Moving Home

2006-03-03T16:31:00.000-05:00

I don't know about the rest of you but I've always hated moving. All that worry about things getting broken and the hassels of packing everything up and than finding it latter and unpacking it. Yech! Well thankfully moving a blog is not quite as difficult, but is still time consuming. That's why this message is here. As of now all my new posts will be appearing at http://blogs.epicindia.com/leapinthedark but I'll be maintainging the archive here. You can still leave comments for me on any of the articles you read in these pages, because the nice people at blogger will let me know it you have anything to say. I've enjoyed my stay here at blogger, and the only reason I'm making the move has to do with my needing a change of view and for my desire to increase my relationship with the folk over at epicindia. They have been very good in providing exposure for my work and I want to reciprocate in kind. By taking my blog over to their portal I hope to attract what few people I have to come with me. So come on by and check out the new view. I'm still the same old iconoclast, so that won't have changed. Hope to see you all there. gypsyman

The Face Of Afghanistan

2006-03-01T04:17:00.000-05:00

In this world of ours where it's so easy to forget things when they are no longer front-page news, it's useful to be able to stumble across pictures or other memory stimulants that remind us of events that have been ongoing for years. Everyday the headlines scream out news about events in Iraq, but before Iraq was Afghanistan, and it too is still the scene of ongoing attacks and death. I know this is an exaggeration, but at times, it feels like Afghanistan has been forgotten about. You very rarely hear or see about it on the news; press conferences are dominated by information sessions about Iraq; and all people care about is when do the troops come home from the Middle East, perhaps forgetting how many thousands of troops, including American and Canadian, are still stationed in Afghanistan. Perhaps we in Canada are more sensitive to that situation because we have troops there, and our role is increasing in responsibility. On Tuesday, a Canadian, Brigadier-General David Fraser took command of the International force in Southern Afghanistan that is replacing an American security force that had been patrolling the area. During the acrimony over Canada's refusal to participate in the Iraq coalition it was conveniently forgotten by many critics, that Canada had been one of the first to agree to participate in Afghanistan. Canada does not have a standing army of any real size, so at the time of the Iraq invasion, we couldn't have contributed in any significant manner anyway, without having to drastically reduce our commitments in other arenas. Although recent polls are showing that more Canadians are against our involvement than in favour, there was initial support for our involvement. As Americans can understand, as casualties have mounted more people have started to question why we are still there. The answer to that is unfortunately painfully obvious. Afghanistan is no more stable now than it was four years ago when the invasion took place. Unfortunately, the Taliban and their allies are highly experienced guerrilla fighters and know how to use the mountainous terrain of their homeland to full advantage. They were never defeated, as far as they were concerned, the war has just moved into a phase that is familiar to them from when they fought the Russians back in the 1980's. Like the Viet Cong in the Viet Nam, they just fade back into the villages and towns of the hill countries when they are not fighting and are next to impossible to monitor. Even after the liberation of Kabul, the capital city, the fighting has never really stopped. There have been lulls in the conflict, where attempts at rebuilding and solidifying the government are made, but this a country that has very little history of central governance. Power has always rested in the hands of local warlords and tribal groups. Foreign powers from the British Empire, to the Soviet Union, and, now, the current international force, have found it to be a task of immense proportions to attempt the implementation of any long-term central authority. Unlike Iraq where there are the oil fields that fuel an economy, Afghanistan is still primarily an agrarian society once one leaves the cities. Conditions have always been difficult for people who try and survive through farming in the formidable terrain of the countries rural districts and outlying provinces. Since the Soviet invasion of 1979, Afghanistan has known little peace. Far too many times the press will use the expression war torn, and it's meaning has become diluted. But if there were a country that qualifies for that assessment, it would be this one. Everything from families to the means to eke out an existence has been torn apart. People's lives have been destroyed beyond repair, their futures shattered and their hope destroyed. The human spirit may be hard to destroy, but it certainly can be damaged almost beyond repair. The picture on the left above has to be one of the most famous to come out of the Afghan War. Steve McCurry took this photo of Sharbat Gula in 1985 for National Geographic Magazine when she was perhaps twelve, or thirteen. Seventeen years later, he was able to find her again to take the picture on the right. For so many of us her picture in 1985 became a symbol representing all the misplaced children in the world. Hauntingly beautiful, her wide eyes stare at us in a silent challenge that we can't ignore. Looking at her we ask ourselves how can we let this have happened. It wasn't until Steve tracked Sharbut down seventeen years latter that he learned her story, of how she ended up in that refugee camp in Pakistan. In 2002, when he met up with her again, she might have been thirty. She's not sure because both of her parents were killed in a bombing raid when she was around six during the Soviet invasion and the knowledge of her birth date died with them. The child on the left has grown into the woman on the right. The face has changed, but the eyes are still haunting and tell us all we need to know about life in Afghanistan for the people who have been caught up in the wars that have been continuous for the past twenty-one years. I'd like to think that the Canadian army is in Afghanistan so that her children will be able to get the education Sharbat dreams of them getting. In the nineties, she was able to return to her home village where she was married at age sixteen. (The only day in her life she can recall being happy was her wedding day) They have no running water, no school, roads, or medical clinics. They grow basic crops on some terraced fields and there is a stream that runs down the mountainside for fresh water. The debt that is owed the people of her generation cannot be repaid except by providing a future for her children and ensuring that at least she can stay in her village for the rest of her life. This is the task that faces General Fraser and the troops under his command. If there is a reason for our armies to be in Afghanistan, don't let it be for something as nebulous as the war on terror, or making the world safe for democracy. Let it be to give that face something to smile about again. Than, I think, they will have truly accomplished something magnificent.

CD Review: Bombay Dub Orchestra

2006-02-28T03:32:00.000-05:00

Over the past twenty or so years that I've actually paid attention to pop music, and World Music in particular, I've noticed a depressing trend. A pattern has developed that serves, over time, to dilute an original music, until it has been distilled into something that bares only a passing resemblance to the distinct sound that made it unique in the first place. There have always been things that have bothered me about North American and European attitudes to World Music. The conceit of claiming to "discover" music that has existed in some cases longer than our civilization makes me scratch my head for starters. It's like it didn't exist until somebody showed up with a tape recorder so they could make a project out of it. I know there are a few contemporary musicians who are genuine in their interest, and original in their incorporation, of music from other cultures into their own sound and writing. Peter Gabriel, Bob Bronzmen, Harry Manx, and Ry Cooder have all done amazing work with musicians and music from different parts of the globe. Even Paul Simon, for all that people like to criticize him, was respectful of the people and the music that he utilized in Graceland. He incorporated them and their music into his work without compromising them, or their sound's integrity. But unfortunately, once the music gets past the initial introductory phase that these few individuals offer, and the novelty of the indigenous performers has worn off, things start to become compromised. A prime example of this is what happened to Native American music, specifically flutes. In less time then it takes to say, New Age, people sporting names like Cindy Spotted Wolf and Ralph Running Rabbit swamped the market with recordings of pseudo spiritual, relaxation, and meditation recordings. Swirling keyboards were mixed down with the occasion flute sound, eagle cries and wolf howls to make it sound authentic, and enough sound of running water to make you have to pee every five minutes. Now of course whole new frontiers have opened up so you can get variations on this theme based around music from Africa to Brazil and all points in between. The latest casualty appears to be the music of India. In recent years, second generation immigrants from India to places like England and Canada have been experimenting with elements of Western pop music and incorporating them into traditional music from their homelands. Out of this amalgamation has emerged some pretty amazing music. Groups like Asian Dub Foundation have created a brand of Indian House music that combines all the best elements of Dub and the rhythms of traditional ragas. Of course, there has been a long sporadic relationship with Indian music and the west dating back to the sixties when people like George Harrison began incorporating sitars into their songs on occasion. But it had never really caught the general public's imagination until recent years when Indian performers began the incorporation in reverse. When I heard about the album Bombay Dub Orchestra I must admit that the word Dub led me to have preconceived notions of what I was going to hear when I put the disc in my player. My first indication that this was not going to be what I expected was upon hearing swirling synthesisers in the opening bars of the first track. Bombay Dub Orchestra is the project of two composers and writers, Gary Hughes and Andrew T. Mackay. Recording in both London and Mumbai, they had access to some of the finest Indian musicians around, from sitar and tabla players to vocalists. It is divided into two discs; original compositions on disc one, and then "Dub" versions on disc two. On opening the package I remember feeling quite excited by the photos of the array of musicians, it made me hopeful as to the content. Unfortunately, I was to be sorely let down by the results. After listening to the first piece, I thought that perhaps they had developed a composition similar to orchestral music where themes are developed in an overture and then explored in subsequent movements. That would explain why the sounds of the sitar and tabla are buried under the wash of keyboards. But that was not the case. The further I went into the disc the more obvious it became that this was the pattern followed by all the tracks. The elements of Indian music that were being incorporated into the songs were continually buried underneath washes of synthesiser, depriving the music of almost any legitimate claim to the inclusion of Bombay in the collection's title. Yes, they've used Indian musicians and recorded elements of the discs in the city formally called Bombay, but aside from that, there is little reason to think of this as an example of the meeting of two cultures to form something new. Rather, it sounds like two separate pieces of music pasted one on top of the other, with one, the Indian, being subservient to the other, the electronic music. The Dub versions of the songs really don't make any difference to the compositions, and only serve to point out how dissimilar it is to the genuine article as produced by groups like the Asian Dub Foundation. Adding some vocal tracks by Jamaicans singers do not make a Dub song. There has to be an inherent rhythm to a song that predominates for Dub to work, and when the predominant sound is that of keyboards, there is nothing really to build from. Bombay Dub Orchestra is an example of the trend towards homogenising a music and a culture to make it fit into a market niche. With its swirling keyboards and swirling strings, I expect it to become the latest "inspirational" hit among the new age crowd. But if you want to hear some Indian House or Dub music, pick up some Asian Dub Foundation and you'll see what's it like to dance in two worlds at once.

Eggheads and Artsies: Scarey Monsters, Supper Creeps

2006-02-27T05:55:00.000-05:00

I've spent a lot of my life on the outside looking in. This has been especially true in my career choices, which of course has effected my economic standing as well. There have been other mitigating factors that have precluded my participating in the mainstream, including health etc. but as they are not relevant to this discussion, I'll leave them aside. Being on the outside does two things, one it gives you the opportunity to be an observer of trends and behaviours that wouldn't be noticed by an active participant. If I'm to be completely honest, I have to admit that the other thing that happens is that you develop an attitude that affects your objectivity when it comes to passing judgement on those trends and behaviours. In order to justify your "outsider" status, there is a tendency to elevate yourself into a position of superiority to those you deem as active participants in what you're observing. This of course will play havoc with your objectivity as you're constantly seeking to find fault in order to boost your own ego and to cover up any desire that you have for general acceptance. In spite of the above corollary, there are certain observations that are true, and raise certain questions about the nature of mainstream society. If you never had any desire to be on the outside looking in, but your inclinations were such that you ended up in that position what does that say about society? I'm not talking about abhorrent behaviours like rape or murder, or even anything criminal that would immediately separate you from the norm. I'm not even talking about sexual orientation or matters pertaining to race, creed, culture, or religion that could cause a distinction to be made. What I'm addressing here is the way in which intelligence and artistic aspirations are looked upon. From our earliest days in the schoolyard at primary levels, intelligence was looked down upon by our contemporaries, and used as an excuse for being ostracized. Who didn't dread being singled out for praise by their teacher in front of the rest of the class, knowing what sort of teasing would be the result? The overt teasing vanished once you hit the higher grades of secondary school, but by then your "difference" was established and you were shunted aside from the mainstream of school life. Never to the extremes as depicted by Hollywood in their teen movies, but still very real. There was nothing wrong with getting decent, or even good grades, which was considered a status thing. The problem was in having individuality of thought, or formulating your own ideas. It usually came down to a choice of learning to keep your thoughts to yourself and fitting in, or developing a caustic attitude towards the mainstream, and finding your own way in the world. The only thing that could guarantee isolation even quicker than intelligence was having any interest, or inclination towards, the arts. Even the simple act of picking up a book for no other reason than enjoyment could be looked on with suspicion. Going to a movie or watching television was okay, but the theatre, or ballet was considered a sign of real deviance. "Artsy Fag" was one of the more common epithets heard around high school during my sentence. Perhaps by the end of high school open hostilities would have stopped as everyone headed off into their divergent futures, but it was only to be replaced by what seemed the universal scorn reserved for those both intellectual and artistic. (A point of clarification here. Please do not confuse the idolatry reserved for "Stars" as being acceptance of the arts. That's a whole different scenario and circumstance that has nothing whatsoever to do with artistic inclination or intelligence.) If you had proposed a career in the arts, like theatre or writing, it would be invariable that people would ask you what you were going to do for a fall back when that didn't work out. Has anyone ever asked that of the people who have stated their intentions of going to law school, business school, or medicine? Aren't you going to get a teacher's degree so you can teach high school in case your degree in law doesn't get you steady work is not a question you often hear thrown in the face of graduating law students? But those who have gone to art school, or theatre school are faced with a barrage of those and similar type questions. Certainly there is more risk involved in embarking on a career in the arts than in law, but that is primarily because of the attitude people hold towards them in general. Culture is considered a frill in society. In the minds of most people, it doesn't "do" anything so it can't have any substantial value. The same holds true for intellectual pursuits like philosophy, history, and other liberal arts fields of study. The fact that they don't produce concrete results like winning court cases or saving lives or making a million dollars in a business deal reduces them to trivialities in most eyes. Both the desire for knowledge for the sake of knowledge and the desire to create art lack an immediate pay off in the eyes of the majority. Of course this opinion didn't just spring up on it's own overnight. It has to have been fostered somewhere, and than nurtured by someone, to stay alive. If you look at both the United States and Canada and examine their founding cultures, an explanation is not hard to come by. Both countries have as their ruling establishment, monetarily and politically, people who are descendants of 17th century Protestantism. Americans in particular take great pride in proving their lineage back to the Mayflower, the ship that carried over Puritan settlers to the New World. You could not ask for more narrow-minded people when it comes to acceptance of deviation from societal dictates. Artistic and intellectual pursuits would have been considered sinful as they could lead to digression from the word of God, or their interpretation of it. The Protestant work ethic, taken to its extreme, precludes doing anything that doesn't yield tangible results. "Idle hands are the Devil's playground" was not just a saying to describe children getting into mischief. If you are not working hard physically than the devil will control you and dictate your thoughts and actions. Now, obviously that's no longer the prevalent attitude, although it still does exist in certain places, but the hangover of distrust remains. It's not expressed in the same terms, now it comes as an expression of monetary worth. Provincial governments in Canada look at funding Universities based on perceptions of what a degree program will contribute to the economy. Not only does this preclude there being value in accumulating knowledge for the sake of leaning new thoughts and ways of thinking, but it also ignores the impact that culture can have on an economy. Where would New York City be without it's Museums, Opera, Dance, and especially Theatre? Can you imagine what would happen to that city if you took all of that away? Well, you say, look at how well it does without any help. Yes but think of how much more of an impact the arts could have on communities all around North America if there was proper funding. Right now, it succeeds in spite of the obstacles put in front of it, and contrary to what you may have heard, art does not thrive in adversary any more than it does in comfort. In fact, I'd bet someone with a full stomach could produce far better work than someone slowly starving to death. Anyone who has done any writing knows how hard it is to write at the best of times. Imagine, if you've not eaten properly how much harder it would be to be coherent. It takes years of study for a doctor or an athlete to be become competent enough to work at their vocation professionally. The same goes for an actor, a dancer, an opera singer, a visual artist, or any of the other artistic careers. Yet we do nothing to assist them in the manner we assist athletes. How many full artistic scholarships are given out by Notre Dame University every year? If one were to compare the economic spin off from the arts to sports in New York City I bet you'd find that New York could survive the loss of its professional sports teams a lot easier than the loss of its professional arts institutes. It has been said that in times of oppression that the first thing closed are the theatres, and after that the intellectuals are rounded up. The governments who are oppressive are afraid of venues and people who are capable of expressing thoughts that challenge the status quo. In the nineteenth century, riots used to break out at Operas because they were the first theatre that included common people as more than just comic relief or secondary characters. The Barber of Seville was considered incendiary because it showed the mistreatment of a regular person by the aristocracy. It was feared it would give people ideas above their station. Now a day's government does not move overtly against the arts or intellect, instead they plant the seeds of disquiet against them through their attitudes and snide remarks. How many times have you heard a pro government voice make snide remarks about eggheads? They play on people's school ground prejudice against the smart kid, and do their best to make them seem different and therefore dismissible. In their ideal form, the arts should hold a mirror up to society to allow us to take a good look at ourselves. They encourage you to think and form your own opinion. In this day and age, can you think of anything that would frighten governments that are so concerned with spin doctoring more than people who are prepared to form their own opinions? Artistic expression and creativity have been a natural means for humans to express their awe and wonder at the world around them since we first climbed up onto two legs. Look at the cave paintings and pictographs that have been found throughout the world for proof of that. Without creativity and intellect, our development would have stagnated countless generations ago, yet in North America we are conditioned from an early age to look upon both those traits with suspicion. I don't think there's some government plot that created those feelings, they have been ingrained for far too long for the current crop of politicians on either side of the border to take the blame for this attitude. However, that does not mean they won't perpetuate those feelings, and take full advantage of them to fulfill their agendas. Many years ago when I was sill acting, the company I was with spent a summer doing free shows for neighbourhood children. It was one of the poorest working class areas in the city of Toronto. None of these kids had ever seen live theatre before. The first evening they bustled in and kept yelling, out when does the movie start; they had no idea what theatre meant. When the first actors came out on stage the audience was confused, and there was muttering amongst them. But in a very short time, they were enthralled. We played the same two or three shows for a month, but each night they were on the same group of kids were back, and each time they'd bring more of their friends. We would laugh backstage hearing them explain to the newcomers about how it was sort of like a movie, except the people were actually there, not on a screen. It was probably the only time in my life as an actor when I was recognised on the street. I think of those kids and I wonder how many others wouldn't get the same pleasure out of that type of experience across North America, if we only gave them the opportunity. It's a shame that we have a society where so many people have been taught to fear and mistrust something that can so easily bring pleasure to all sorts of people. The arts are never going to go away; there are always going to be people for whom the hardships of a career in them are outweighed by the rewards. But it would be a lot better if it didn't have to be that way.

Looking For Enlightenment

2006-02-26T07:13:00.000-05:00

At first, it had only been colours, veering in and out of unformed shapes behind his closed eyelids. More like the formless blobs left behind when your eyes have been momentarily blinded by a camera's flash attachment than anything else, he thought. But those were just the opening salvos to main event. He had climbed up to this cave in the hills two days ago, and started the fast yesterday morning. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to happen, all he knew was that he was hoping to find some sort of enlightenment; a revelation that could help him make a new beginning. Over twenty-four hours without food and water had left him dry mouthed and light headed. Perhaps he shouldn't have had MacDonald's as his last meal before going on a spiritual quest, but this had been a spur of the moment decision which had found him pointing his car our of the city towards the wilderness on the day his world fell apart. He had gone to work as usual in the morning, only to find padlocks on the front doors of his employer's building. It turned out all their assets had been seized during the night pending an investigation into their bookkeeping practices. After a few phone calls on his cell phone assured him that the situation was completely unredeemable, he decided to head for home. He probably would have found out soon enough, one way or another, but walking in on her with someone else between her legs wasn't the best way to find out she wasn't happy with their situation anymore. Not wanting to disturb them, he left the apartment without doing more than ensuring the windows were sealed, the gas stove was on, and a candle was burning in the kitchen. He was rewarded by hearing a very satisfyingly loud boom from two blocks away as he drove off in her Hummer. She couldn't complain about him not making the earth move for her anymore, now could she? All in all, though, things hadn't boded well for the future at that moment. He was out of work, single, and homeless all in less then half a day's time. If things didn't change soon, this downward spiral could continue and who knows where he'd end up. He needed to make some changes in his life, that much was obvious. The first thing to do was to change his perspective of his situation. That's what the self – help guru they had gone to see a few months back had said: "Look on every loss as a new beginning, and it becomes a positive instead of a negative" In fact he'd used a scenario similar to Steven's own that very night. Steven allowed himself a slight smirk at the thought of wondering what Mr. Self-Help would make of starting over from a couple of pounds of ground round. It had only taken a moment to recognise whose jacket had been tossed carelessly on the floor of what had been their bedroom. Look on that as a new beginning asshole. But the fresh start thing was good thinking. The thing was how to go about it. You could always go out and get a new job and a new woman; they were all a dime a dozen these days. But that didn't sound like it would be enough this time. This was the not the first time his embezzling had caused problems for his employers, or that he'd lost a woman to another man. However, the situations were getting out of hand in the ways in which they were resolved this time. He needed more of a solution than just moving on to a variation of the same old thing. There had been this book she had been trying to get him to read, just after they had been to see the self-himself to my woman guy. It was all about shaman and dusty old guys like that who had gone into different states of consciousness to help them gain insight into themselves and understanding. He had picked up the book, if only to keep her happy, and skimmed it quickly. It was all about how most of humanity's religions and belief systems were born out of people entering trance like states either through drugs or fasting. Some shit about obtaining a higher state of awareness allowing them to travel to different spiritual planes of existence and making discoveries. Well, he knew some guys who had obtained higher states of "awareness" some years back, and they weren't about to see the outside of the psych ward for the rest of their lives. Anyways, he had said, there are enough religions in the world now screwing things up, as it is, why would we want anymore of them. She had given him a look, like he was being an especially large asshole or something, and said that wasn't the point. The point was that people weren't willing to look in side themselves anymore and discover their own personal truths. The ones that could free them from the ruts they were in and allow them to discover what they were meant to be doing. Well there was no denying he was in a rut right now. Seeing as the only copy of the book he knew of was probably in no condition to be read again, and he wasn't quite sure what was recommended to help induce a trance like state except fasting and drugs, (Stupid book hadn't even mentioned anything some tea you could only get in Brazil of all places) he figured he shouldn't take any chances. He stopped by a local spot he had been able to score at before, and picked up a bag of weed, a gram of coke, some M.D.A., and a couple of grams of magic mushrooms. After smoking a fat one with the dealer and getting incurable munchies, hence, the stop at Macdonald's on the way out of town. He figured he'd hold off on the coke until he needed the extra spurt of energy to get back into town after the fasting, keep the M.D.A. in reserve (he had no idea how clean it was after all) and just focus on chewing up some mushrooms after a day of fasting. He had remembered the cave from a previous trip to the mountains when he had been younger and he and a couple of buddies had sheltered there from a nasty rainstorm that had surprised them. It had actually been kind of cool sitting there in the cave mouth, watching the lighting, and listening to the muffled sound of thunder from inside the mountain. It had been pitch black in the cave, and the dim light of the storm hadn't offered much illumination. He could still see how odd their faces had looked when light by the occasional flashes of lightning. Disembodied pale balloons floating in darkness was how he had thought of them at the time. So now here he was, sitting in pretty much the same space, and bored out of his mind. He had taken the mushrooms over an hour ago and all he was getting still were the colours. Damn if things didn't pick up soon he'd snort half the coke, which should be enough to get him back to a hotel where he could order room service and sleep this off. "What were you expecting, visions or something", said a voice in his head. "You've only been out here a day that doesn't count for anything in these matters. You've usually got to give it three, maybe four days before anything happens, and then its usually so obscure that it won't make any sense for years anyway" Steven snapped his eyes wide open and looked around the cave. His pupils were dilated enough that even in the dim light he was able to make out shapes that he hadn't on his last trip here, but that didn't help him locate the source of the voice. He shook his head and was about to close his eyes again when the voice said: "Oh I'm for real alright shithead, but I don’t feel like letting you see me just yet. I've been watching you for the last day, and wondering what you've been doing in my cave. Most people only stop in for a few hours at most, a quick shag, or for shelter from rain, and that's about it." "But you've been here more than a day already and so naturally my curiosity is sparked. What you doing in my cave asshole? If you're meeting someone you can probably assume they've stood you up by now" There was a slight pause in which Steven had the distinct impression the voice was taking a closer look at him. "Holly crap, what are you on? Look at the size of your eyeballs; they're like black boulders. You look like someone who's never seen the light of day." There was another pause. "Oh crap, you really are here on some sort of quest for eternal meaning, or some such shit aren't you?" The voice sounded really pissed off now, as if that compounded some crime that Steven was unaware of even committing in the first place. For some reason Steven felt a little embarrassed, it could have been the scepticism that underlay the anger, but that didn't stop him form admitting that's what he was doing. "Well I hope you don't think you're going to come up with some new religion or something stupid like that. Everybody seems to think that wandering around in the dessert or climbing a mountain to sit in a cave gives them the right to be a spiritual leader of some sort or another." "I've got a cousin in the Middle East and he said a few years back, oh a couple a thousand or so, you couldn't go for a walk in the dessert without running into some fool idiot wandering around babbling to himself. Heat crazed and dehydrated. After a while he got so sick of them he began to mess with them." "There was this one guy, it makes me laugh every time I think about it, really emaciated, must have been out there for close to thirty days, judging by how skinny and flat out bug-eyed crazy he was. Anyway, this guy was muttering about some Satan dude under his breath. Was getting himself into quite a state over how he was the root of all evil and had to be resisted at all costs." "Now, my cousin had never heard of any Satan character before, but decided it would be a hoot to pretend he was him. So keeping himself invisible he sidles up to this guy and says howdy. Did he jump, must have been almost ten feet straight up in the air." "The next thing you know he's flailing all about him with this staff he's carrying, damned near brained my cousin with it, and frothing at the mouth. Than he's standing there, rocking back and forth, praying is what my cousin figured he was doing, with his eyes closed. Every so often he open his eyes a crack and peaks around to see if anybody's there, and he'll shout out things like "Get thee behind me Satan" or some such shit." "Now my cousin is genuinely worried about the guy, thinks he might be going off the deep end from no water and lack of food. So he figures the least he can do is offer him something cold to drink, and maybe a bite to eat; make up for the fright he gave him and all. But he figures the guy must have been really toasted by the sun, because he kept screaming out about temptation and evil, flailing about with that damned staff of his all over the place. Invisibility doesn't prevent you from getting your skull split open by a deranged loony if he manages to connect." Than there was also another guy who thought, he was talking to his god because of a brush fire that my niece caused one day on a mountaintop. She always was a little careless with fire, bit of a pyromaniac if you ask me, but she's my sisters daughter, so what are you going to do? She ended up covering by telling the guy to chill, made up some nice things for him to believe in, and he went away happy." "So I've got to wonder about anybody who parks themselves out in the middle of nowhere, are they in it for fame, fortune and fanaticism, or are they just plain nuts. That of course brings us back to you again, and the question of why you are here. If I remember correctly, the answer was "enlightenment". Is that right? Steven could only nod his head yes in agreement. He wasn't sure if an invisible voice could see nods, but he was also pretty sure he couldn't talk right now even if he wanted to. He hadn't really known what to expect, but he was sure this sort of experience wasn't what everybody had in mind when they when they talked about finding a new level of personal awareness. All he had wanted was a few hints about how to get his life back on track and to figure out a way of things not always ending up always starting over. "Well you could start by not being such a self-centred, selfish prick. Ditch the paranoia as well; if you didn't think everybody is out to get you than maybe you wouldn't be out to get them first. I'd also not get addicted to bumping off people you have personal issues with, it ends up getting messy, and you might get caught. You'll probably get away with it this time, but next time you might not be so lucky." "Oh what are you acting so surprised about? If I'm a hallucination of some sort or another than I'm coming from your brain and sub conscience, and deep down you know what a piece of shit you are, even if you're not willing to admit it out loud. If I'm really the voice of some otherworldly presence than I'm going to be able to read your thoughts anyway. So, actually, it's immaterial whether I'm real or not, because either way it's all true." "Quite frankly if I were you I'd just take a running jump out of this cave and hope to splatter myself all over the mountain side, but since I'm not, that decision is up to you. In fact, here's my big piece of advice for you asshole; you might want to write this down it's important. No, all right than." " Everything is your decision and you always have a choice no matter what the circumstances. Take responsibility for your choices and you will live a good and happy life. Blame everybody else for your problems and you become the messed up dipstick that you are today." Steven had been staring open mouthed into space the whole time the voice was speaking. When it got to the point of jumping off the cliff he started to get himself ready to leave. He'd snort some lines off the dashboard of the Hummer, and find that hotel room. Than he'd hunt down the jerk that sold him the mushrooms, and give him shit for this bum trip they had caused. He was so busy thinking about that, he barely noticed the voice was done. He had completely missed the last few words said to him, but he figured they made as little sense as everything else that had happened since he got here. Saying goodbye loudly to the voice, he bolted for the cave entrance where he tripped over a bump in the floor he hadn't noticed before. His balance was off from not eating and drugs and that probably explained why he couldn't regain his footing before he tumbled over the side of the cliff that the cave faced out onto. The lump in the floor stood up on its four legs and padded to the cave entrance and to the edge. A familiar voice, at least to Steven's ears if he was still listening, came out of the very canine shaped muzzle. "Stupid humans never listen, haven't in thousands of year, and aren't about to start now I guess. Oh well not my problem" (Anthropologists now believe that most major human belief systems came about when people have been in a trance like state, most likely induced by the hallucinogenic psilocybin.)

A Letter To George Bush

2006-02-25T03:02:00.000-05:00

So, two thirds of the American public approve of you, Mr. Bush giving yourself the authority to order wiretaps of anyone you feel like for national security reasons. What does that say about America today that they would trust someone whose administration has repeatedly lied to them about motivations for their most recent incursion in empire building? That they are gullible idiots, blind fools, or brainwashed? During Hitler's reign in Nazi Germany I'm sure you would have found wide spread support for his programs of expansion and invasion, and loss of personal liberty in the name of the state security too. Did that make what he did right? (Hey, what's that, did he just compare the United States; its people, its leader, and its government to Nazi Germany's? I don't know did I? I'll leave that for you to decide yourself) Mr. Bush you have programmed your people to believe they are under constant threat of attack. How many attacks have taken place in the main land United States since Sept 11th 2001? What proof do is there except the words of your government spokespeople that there have even been any attempts? Periodically you issue announcements saying you are currently under code yellow alert. Do you ever say why after the fact, Mr. Bush? Well no, of course not, it's all a matter of National Security so you can't tell us anything, except to take you at face value. Would you lie to your people? Actually, come to think of it, yes you would. To start there were the non-existent weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to invade Iraq, and it's been down hill from there. Saddam Hussein was a horrible excuse for a human being, there's no doubt about that, but couldn't you have just said that right from the beginning and enlisted the aid of the rest of the world to depose him, instead of making up some bullshit story about terrorists and weaponry? Why did you have to lie about stuff? Why were you in such a damned hurry to invade Iraq anyway? Did you need those oil fields that badly? Look at the mess you've created by invading so quickly and not having any plan for infrastructure after the fact. More of your soldiers have died trying to occupy that country then did in the initial invasion. Every time you or one of your sycophants say that things have turned a corner for the better, the situation deteriorates. The elections in Iraq were a coup for you, no doubt about that Mr. Bush, they went off wonderfully, and the people of Iraq were excited. I admit I felt a twinge of hope that in spite of everything, maybe it would turn out all right for those poor people. But you didn't plan for the divisions in that society being so deep. The country is steps away from a civil war that will make Lebanon seem like a walk in the park. Your armed forces are stuck in a situation where they are screwed no matter what. They are not trained as peacekeepers, and neither side trusts them anymore. One side sees you as the oppressor; the other side sees you as the incompetents who can't offer them any protection. Mr. Bush, you've just asked Congress to approve a budget in the trillions of dollar range, with most of it being eaten up by your Homeland Security and your non-war in Iraq. It's not a war anymore because you said the war is over, so what you'd call it now I don't know. An occupation, a police action, I've heard those words before even if you don't remember them being spoken. While you were drinking with your National Guard buddies during Viet Nam that's what they were calling America's last military defeat. Of course, this won't be a military defeat because you won the war, but oh Mr. Bush, you're losing the peace over there badly. Why have you made the U.N. the enemy? You've convinced half the people in your country that the U.N. is against America because they wouldn't support your unilateral plan to invade Iraq. Why didn't they support your plan? Because they were afraid of what would happen if proper preparations weren’t taken. They didn't want the horror that's happening now to occur. What force in the post World War Two period has had the most experience in actually sending people into situations and keeping peace? Well since they're the only ones who even try it, the U.N. They've won two Nobel Peace prizes for their efforts. The first being back during the very first implementation of peacekeepers, the Suez crises back in the fifties. In the eighties, the peacekeeping forces started to come under fire for their ineffectualness. Since most of this was being directed at them by the Regan administration, which seriously undermined the U.N.'s effectiveness by defaulting on their dues and demanding that the U.N. support American action unquestioningly, it shouldn't have been taken seriously. But that was the first administration that had learned the real lesson of Viet Nam and Watergate, how to manipulate the glamour of the office to influence the press and the public. Speak in simple, emotionally charged sound bites, which the press dutifully report verbatim, and it leaves no room for debate. Rebuttals to the president never make the same splash as the original comment, and can't compete with lines like: " The Sandanistas could drive up the road into Texas tomorrow and invade our country" The fact that that argument was used to justify funding and arming the "contras" terrorists without being questioned by a majority of the American public says something right there about the power of the Oval Office as a propaganda tool. It has always surprised me Mr. Bush, how a country that claims to be the birthplace of Free Speech and individuality can be so easily seduced by the power of a title. The reverence that your office is treated with rivals that of the divine right of Kings, which stated that they ruled through the will of God. Perhaps that's what you and your adherents believe about you and your office. I don't know. For no other reason than you are the president Mr. Bush, if tomorrow you got up and said, black is white and white is black, your word would be taken as gospel by the majority of your country. No matter how many times it has been proven that you've lied in the past, or even just been wrong, it doesn't seem to matter. Mr. Bush, you, and by extension your constituents, seem to take it as a personal affront whenever anyone seems to think that just because it's in America's best interests, doesn't mean it's in the best interests of the rest of the world. You refuse to participate in anything that might end up ruling against you, like the world court; by claiming it's controlled by anti-American sympathisers. You've convinced the people of your country that everyone is out to get them. They really can't trust anyone except themselves to do the right thing for America, and what's right for America is the only thing that matters. Don't you understand how much that frightens and angers people in other parts of the world? Mr. Bush, by saying things like that, and acting from that position, you make it come true. Why do you want that sort of world to exist? Why have you geared your whole propaganda machine to convincing your people that they are under continual attack by forces they can't see, and that only you can protect them from? Please don't take this the wrong way Mr. Bush; I don't hate America or its people. Your country represents some of the finest ideals that have ever resonated through out human history. The only problem is that none of them seem to be on display anymore. In the name of freedom, democracy, and human rights, you have gradually eroded those very principles in the guise of protection. Mr. Bush you have cynically used and abused your fellow Americans love of country to isolate them from the rest of the world. Anyone who is different, or has a different way of looking at things than you do, is suspect and dangerous. You have thrown up walls around your people and blinded them to the beauty of diversity all in the name of expediting your agenda. What confuses me the most is what exactly your agenda is Mr. Bush. Was it to make the United States the most powerful nation in the world so it could make everybody do what it wanted? Was it to completely isolate your country from the rest of the world so you and yours could have the freedom to do what you wanted with it? I can't see what it is you've been trying to do, what vision you have to carry what used to be the beacon that could illuminate the rest of the world with its values into the 21st century and beyond? Your country is probably the most polarized it has been since the civil war in terms of moral and philosophical divisions. Is that leadership? It makes me feel very sad to see what has happened to the promise and vitality that existed, be corrupted to such an extent that Americans are distrusted by so much of the world's populace. Doesn't that give you some indication that something, somewhere is not right in paradise? There's the old story of the mother watching her son in the marching band commenting on how the whole band is out of step, but her son is keeping perfect time. Do you think it's at all possible, Mr. Bush that this story could be applied to your America? Give it some thought and get back to me if you have the time. Yours truly, gypsyman.

The Winter Olympics: Send The Pros Home

2006-02-24T08:31:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's a Canadian thing, all that snow and ice, but I've always liked the Winter Olympics better than the Summer variety. Until recently, Canada hasn't done any better in the Winter than in the Summer games, so it can't even be put down to chauvinism. I suppose part of it is that so many of the sports are ones that are much easier to identify with from a North American mind set. Skiing, and combinations there of, skating, tobogganing, (if you can call strapping yourself to a piece of plastic, lying on your back and going down a sheet of ice feet first tobogganing) and snowboarding are all things that anybody at home can do. Unlike the sprinters, high jumpers, hurdlers, gymnasts, and pole-vaulters, who compete during the Summer Olympics, I have a much easier time identifying with the people who compete in the Winter games. Of course I'm not going to try ski jumping in my back yard or a triple toe loop on skates, but at least I've strapped on a pair of skis in my life and been skating. How many of you have ever decided to go for a casual pole vault on the weekend? Or maybe chuck around the discus with some friends? It's far more likely that you've gotten together for a ski weekend at some time in your life than sticking what looks like a cannon ball under your chin, and trying to chuck it sixty or seventy yards. It's not like the Winter Olympics are any less corrupt or commercial than the Summer games; just look at the whole fiasco that surrounded the Salt Lake City games from the organizing committee to the figure skating judging. Or any time a skier is interviewed in the winner's circle and they automatically flip their skis so the brand is facing the cameras; Nike or Fisher, equipment suppliers are the real winners in all these games no matter what the season. Drugs and means of cheating are just a prevalent, and perhaps even more so. Blood packing before cross-country skiing races (transfusions of fresh blood that supposedly gives you an advantage somehow) seems to have been a favourite for a long time and virtually undetectable until recently. I wouldn't be surprised by anything anymore when it came to devising new and ingenious ways of cheating by athletes and their coaches to give themselves any extra edge possible. But, even knowing all that, it still seems that there is something far less tainted about the Winter games. Perhaps it is the sheer insanity of some of the sports. Downhill ski racing may look glamorous to watch, but skiing down the side of a mountain at speeds up to 100mph and over is a really good way to get yourself killed I've always thought. There has been many a time I've tobogganed down a steep hill, that's covered in ice, but I've never done it lying on my back, steering by pointing my toes, and not being able to really see where I'm going. That's just insanely dangerous. In the Winter Olympics there is far more of an element of risk involved than most sports in Summer Olympics. Okay if you go out for javelin catching you might run the occasional risk, but nothing compared to what happens if you lose it completely throwing yourself into the air off a 90-metre ski jump. They not only expect you to survive, but you're judged on style points and how neat and tidy a landing you can pull off. (Wind milling your arms in a desperate attempt to maintain balance counts against you.) Unfortunately, I haven't been able to watch much of these Olympics this year except for a couple of periods of men's hockey. In the past fifteen years the only times I'll usually watch hockey at all anymore is during international events; the stuff that's played in the National Hockey League (N.H.L), and North America in general is just to boring to endure for long. But put the game on a decent sized ice surface, where there is room to skate and make passes and it becomes something enjoyable again. It also dispels the myth that Canadians are the best hockey country in the world. At this Olympics Canada will be lucky to finish 6th after not even making it out of the quarterfinals, losing 2-0 to Russia. What bothers me is how much media attention Canadian Olympic Hockey team has gotten. We have a speed skater who has four medals already at these Olympics; Canadian women are making huge breakthroughs in cross country skiing, winning a silver in the relay and gold in the 15 kilometre sprint; we won gold and silver in the men's skeleton, and have already exceeded out best results for medal totals at a games. But the majority of attention is fixated on the hockey teams failure to score goals and medal. What I find especially ironic about all of this is that in the three Olympics that professional hockey players have been allowed to compete, Canada has only won a medal once. The one medal, Gold at Salt Lake, only came about because Sweden lost in a fluke to Belarus, Russia was in disarray, and the Slovaks didn't have adequate time to put a team together. They ended up squeaking out a win against the American's who play the same style of hockey, but not even as good as the Canadians. Hockey isn't even Canada's official national sport that, honour lies in the hands of lacrosse, yet it seems to be such a national blind spot. Any attempt to criticize the way in which Canadians play or are taught hockey is treated as treason akin to burning the flag in the United States. All the euphemisms that are used to describe the way Canadians play hockey; willing to get their hands dirty, playing with heart, tough, and so on make it sound like skill and talent are irrelevant. Even the term for everyone's favourite type of player, power forward, implies muscle over talent. But what type of player does this end up producing? Well, what we saw at these Olympics were big, hulking guys who had circles skated around them by faster, more talented European players. In their last three games of the tournament, Canada scored only three goals, all of them in one period against the Czech Republic, on a goalie who was having a bad game. Once he was replaced at the start of the second period the Canadians couldn't score again. If it hadn't been for the Canadian goaltender, making some pretty spectacular saves, Canada would have lost the game. To be fair, that type of player is what's needed in the confines of the ridiculously small N.H.L. rinks where there is very little room to manoeuvre. Brute strength and the ability to run people over are much more important than being able to skate fast and pass the puck with any type of ability. Even then, with the game built and designed for behemoths in mind, last years leading scorer was the 5'7" Martin St. Louis of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. While people talk about how the players have gotten bigger and faster in the modern era, their speed has all the subtlety and skill of a run away car. They go straight up and down the ice, continually picking up speed, and running over all objects in its path, but can do little else. There were eight teams in the quarterfinals for the men's Olympic hockey medal round. Canada's final standing will depend on who the losers are in this round and the next. If the teams eliminated have a better record than Canada did in the preliminary round they will finish ahead of them in the standings. I don't think it's possible for them to finish eighth, but sixth, and even seventh are very likely where they will end up. The headlines across Canada, and front pages of newspapers, have all carried pictures of the dejected hockey players sitting on the bench as they watch the seconds count down in their loss. On the same day Canadian athletes had won four medals, two gold, a silver and a bronze, yet all it seems we're supposed to care about is one team's fortunes. On a day we should have been celebrating wonderful victories all that was deemed worthy of reporting was a bunch of professional athletes losing a game. How do you think that makes the people who survive on spare change and usually train at their own expense feel? These guys, who make more money in a month than most Olympic athletes, who are put on pedestals by the press and subsequently the public, get more publicity by losing than others do by winning a Gold medal. I'd be pushing for a ban on professionals in the Olympic games again. Send the dream teams home, be they basketball, hockey, or tennis. These games should be the hour when the people who strive for years to obtain the pinnacle of achievement in their sport are allowed their moment in the spotlight. The media and the public barely recognise their existence except for these two-week periods every four years, and now even that is being taken away from them by the arrival of professionals in basketball, hockey, and a lesser degree tennis. The Olympics have fallen a long way from their original idealism, if it actually ever existed, but some essence of that still remains in the efforts of the athletes who compete and win through genuine effort, and skill. There has been a concentrated effort to reform the Olympics. Corruption among officials is being rooted out, drug cheaters are being hunted down, (a little overzealously by Richard Pound is his desire for the spotlight) and they're even trying to make the arcane rules governing the judging of skating events understandable. But as far as I'm concerned, if they want to keep the light on the people who matter, the athletes, they need to turn back the clock to the days before they allowed the professionals to participate. Be they the hockey players from the N.H.L. or the Basketball players from the National Basketball Association, they are a distraction from the rest of the athletes who strive and compete for their countries. Give the games back to the people who spend their lives preparing for them, not the people for whom they are only an afterthought and something to do if they feel so inclined. I'd rather see a bunch of amateurs try their best and lose, than so –called professionals achieve the same results and steal the spotlight.

CD/DVD Reviews: Speaking In Tongues, True Stories, and Naked - Talking Heads

2006-02-23T03:49:00.000-05:00

Toronto, 1978, and the venerable Horseshoe Tavern at Queen St. W. and Spadina Ave. is packed to the gills. Old timers wouldn't recognise it as the place where Stomping Tom Connors shot his movie a few years back. Oh there might be a few ducktails still around, and there is definitely a lot of black leather, but the patrons aren't here to hear Hank Snow, or any of the other Country and Western favourites who have graced the old stage. Nope, tonight they're all here to check out the latest hot band to come up from New York City via the Mudd Clubb and C.B.G.B. A change of management had meant a change of format, and the Horseshoe has become a Mecca for punk and new wave bands from both Toronto and afar. After a warm up set from a local group that's left the audience's ears bleeding from the noise, anticipation is high, and so when three rather normal looking guys and a girl walk out onto stage, nobody pays them much mind until they pick up their instruments and approach the microphones. When the first words out of the lead singer's mouth are: "Can we get the volume turned down" they know they're in for something different than the usual three chord punk assault on the senses. That was the Talking Heads; different from the word go. From gawky, geeky looking David Byrne on lead vocals and guitar, normal looking Jerry Harrison on guitar and keyboards, Chris Franz on drums, and a rarity in the rock world a woman, Tina Weymouth on bass, they hardly looked like a rock band, let alone the writers of songs like "Psycho Killer" and "Life During War Time" Throughout their life as a band, the Talking Heads continually defied expectations. Whether in the stripped down, minimalist four piece band of the earliest incarnations, or in the nine piece funk band from mid-career, they were always a couple of steps ahead of both their audience and the music industry. You knew it was only a matter of time that the creative energy that fuelled that innovation would become constrained by popular music and need to move on. But technology is a wonderful thing, and Rhino records have done the world a great service by re-releasing some of their best albums on dual disc CD/DVDs. One side features the original CD plus some bonus tracks, and the other side is the music remixed in 5.1 surround sound for audio DVD players. Each DVD also includes copies of the original music videos that were released with the albums. I don't know if this is accurate or not, but the CD that somehow struck me as being their most popular in terms of airplay was Speaking In Tongues. Recorded with the full nine piece funk line up, and featuring a special guest vocal by Nona Hendryx on "Slippery People", and Bernie Worrell of Funkadelic playing synthesiser on "Girlfriend is Better", this disc makes you move whether you want to or not. Filtering through the dance beats, sliding into your brain without you really noticing, David Byrne's stream of conscience, oddball, but emotionally evocative lyrics, work their magic on your corpuscles. I haven't heard these songs in over ten years but I knew the lyrics like I had just heard them yesterday. Most amazing, is that I don't actually remember ever sitting down and listening to the record once. On first listen this sounds like a simple funk disc; grooves and beats pulsating up the spine and loosening up the whitest of asses, but listen again and you'll notice there's more to this disc than dance tunes. Layers of sound are built on the foundation of the beat. From the swirls of synthesisers to the background vocals, everything has been skilfully engineered and produced to create an energy specific to a song. From the frenetic drive of "Burning Down The House", with its almost tribal rhythms that come pounding out of the opening synthesiser, to the sentiment of "This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)" every tone, every sound, is fitted exactly into place. Listen to what could be a throw away vocal at the end of the later song; a simple "Ooh" sung by Byrne; it's precisely timed to fit into the finishing swirl of the rest of the instruments. True Stories was a solo David Byrne project, a movie he made about the strangeness of super market tabloids and life across America. In the movie, the actors sang all the material. The album True Stories was released after the fact, and featured the Talking Heads performing the songs from the movie. Confusing matters even more, Sire Records released a soundtrack from the movie that featured the original cast performing the same material that was on the Talking Heads album. Although released in 1986, which meant that it wasn't there last album, True Stories has always felt like a parting of the ways to me. The band felt like an afterthought to a David Byrne project, and although musically it sounds fine, there has always felt, to my ears, that something was missing. After the fun of Little Creatures, their previous release, there is almost a sterility to this disc, which when it was released made it one of my least favourite Talking Heads' albums. Certainly, songs like "Wild, Wild Life" and "Love For Sale" sound like Talking Heads' songs, but there is a formulaic quality to them that prevented me from ever really getting excited about them. Listening to it again ten years down the line, what strikes me the most is how it seems not to have the same level of thought and commitment that had been the trademarks of the band until that point. In a very round about and polite way, I guess I'm saying it was boring. Thankfully two years latter they redeemed themselves in my ears with the release of Naked. According to bassist Tina Weymouth, they decided to record in Paris to take advantage of the large émigré African musician population that lived there. They wanted to capture a very specific sound for this album, one they knew couldn't be reproduced by the musicians at hand in the United States, so they went to where they could find the people they needed. The Talking Heads were never what you would call an overtly political band. Although there was a large element of social commentary to David Byrne's lyrics, they weren’t ones for the anthem type standards of The Clash, or other members of the Punk generation. But on Naked they made some of their strongest political statements of their career. It sounds strange to say this but Naked always felt like a more international album than any of their previous releases. I don't mean musically, because obviously they had utilized a great number of sounds from all over the world before, but thematically it seems they looked beyond the borders of New York City for the first time. I remember listening to "The Democratic Circus" when the album was first released, and literally a half-mile away from where I was sitting the G-8 leaders were meeting in Toronto. The eight leaders of the biggest economies in the "Free World" had rolled into town to talk about whatever it is they talk about at these meetings, and it was just like a three-ringed circus. It was like being in Paris had given Byrne a perspective on how North America was seen, and saw, the world at that time. To this day, the song, "Mr. Jones" feels like an updating of Bob Dylan's song about Mr. Jones not knowing what's happening. He still doesn't know, but now it's not just at home; he's deaf and blind to the whole world. Musically speaking Naked also recaptured some of the adventurous atmosphere that had been missing on True Stories. Not only was it more musically diverse, but the production values and arrangements created thematic foundations for Byrne's lyrics. Naked was the last Talking Heads album I ever bought, and fittingly it was a reminder for me of why I had liked them in the first place. Intelligent lyrics and interesting music that combined to elevate pop music beyond its usual mundane expressions of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. They were a band that was never afraid to take risks, and disavowed complacency. The concert film Stop Making Sense released in the early 1980's gives a good indication of just how far the band had travelled up to that point in time. From their raw energy as a quartet, to the nine-piece funk band and various stops on the way the Talking Heads were a unique musical experience that happens far to infrequently in pop music. Intelligent, and ever evolving they distinguished themselves from their contemporaries with each album they put out, and concert they gave. How many other bands do you know that have asked to have their sound system turned down?

NaNoWriMo Notes #12: What's My Genre?

2006-02-22T06:57:00.000-05:00

What genre am I? No, that's not the latest pickup line in singles bars, like what's your sign used to be, it's the question authors have to ask themselves when they are preparing a manuscript to send off to either a publisher of agent. It sounds like a simple question doesn't it? One that any author should be able to answer about their own work. Well either I'm really so simple that even simple questions defeat me, or this is a whole lot trickier a proposition than I thought it would be. I had just assumed because I had elements of magic and mysticism in the novel I've written that it would fit into the Fantasy category. Sure, it's based on a reality that actually happened, but I've taken huge liberties with historical fact, in that I've just made it up as I went along with no reference to what actually happened. To me that's Fantasy; according to the publishing world however, it's not. It seems a Fantasy novel has to be right out there; in a reality that has no discernible relation to ours. No matter how fantastical elements of my story might be, it's still set on earth in a context that is familiar to most people. All along I thought I was writing a Fantasy novel and I was writing something else. What that something else is remains a bit of a mystery to me now. I guess you could call it historical fiction because it's based on an actual event that happened in our world's past, but doesn't that usually involve real places and accurate recreations of happenings? It's also probably not normal for historical fiction to incorporate magic, astral projection, and divination into the story line. How many genres and sub genres now exist in the world of fiction writing anyway? Off the top of my head I come up with the following list: Mystery, murder mystery, suspense, thriller, horror, espionage, science fiction, fantasy, sword & sorcery, historical fiction, romantic historical fiction, romance, hard science - science fiction, and we haven't even begun serious cross pollination yet. I'm sure you could have something called a romantic sword & sorcery historical fiction novel without even trying that hard. That's not even beginning to consider all the different sub categories for Non-fiction, which is a different kettle of fish all together. (That would be under cookbooks, fish stews) The thing is you have to be able to answer that question if you want anyone to even consider taking your manuscript seriously. It's all about marketing the product. Which bookshelf will it end up on in the bookstore, where will it blend in the best with the rest of the product? I know it sounds naïve to complain about things like this, but it feels like the blood, sweat and tears that have been shed by authors into making their work unique is a waste of time. You don't want to be so unique that you can't fit into a nice safe category now do you. Try and stay within the parameters we've set like a good little author and we might even try and promote your work. Just like everywhere else in the world now, nobody likes it if you deviate too far from expected norms. But what does that say about the creative process. If all of a sudden, you're writing along and you have to start worrying about whether or not you fit into one of the ready to wear categories? To me it says that your freedom to create is being co-opted by the necessity of having to make a piece fit. Maybe there are some authors who can sit down and say I'm going to write a hard science – science fiction novel. But what about those who have an idea for a story and just want to write it? Why should it matter so much which bookshelf it's going to end up on? Shouldn't what matters be the quality of the story? I would think that publishers would be more concerned about characters, plot and style than genre. If it's a good piece of writing can't they market it even if there is an ambiguity about its genre? It's all fiction after all. It's all telling a story about something no matter if you have a secret agent hurrying to prevent an atomic bomb from blowing New York off the face of the earth, or werewolves discussing dinner plans. Here I was thinking, foolish me that what would matter most to a publisher or an agent was the quality of the work they were being sent. But certain agents only deal with certain genres, and if your peg doesn't fit into their slot, then you're out of luck. Thankfully, publishers have a little more latitude than agents initially, and with the exception of a few imprints will accept almost any genre. But even than you need to be able to tell them in your query letter which category you fit into. Maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of this than it deserves, but it just came as such a shock to me to discover that definitions were so important and so exact. More and more, I'm beginning to realize that writing the books is the easy part of being a novelist. It's what comes after you're finished that's difficult. It's like a friend said to me the other day in an email, enjoy this time (the writing and editing) for all it's worth, because it will never be this good again.

Book Review: Captain Alatriste - Arturo Perez-Reverte

2006-02-21T04:05:00.000-05:00

Is there any more romantic a hero than the lone sword's man? He stands silhouetted against the rays of the setting sun; his wide brimmed plumed hat set at a rakish angle and his cloak decoratively draped over one shoulder. From the Three Musketeers to Errol Flynn and Zorro, we have been seduced by their daring deeds and their manly mien. Ready at a moments notice to risk all for God, King, justice, and a fair lady's blessing, he'll leap into the fray. Pure of heart and noble of purpose he is chivalry personified and an example for us all. Now there is a new star to shine amongst the pantheon of heroic figures: Captain Diego Alatriste. Alatriste is the creation of Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte and his English language debut is the book simply titled Captain Alatriste. How much this long overdue appearance owes thanks to the forthcoming movie starring Viggo Mortensen, as the good Captain, is doubtless just idle speculation. Whatever the reasoning behind the appearance of book one last year, and number two (Purity Of Blood) this year, fans of a thinking person's adventure story have reason to be grateful. Arturo Perez-Reverte has created a character that goes far beyond the one-dimensional hero of the past, and takes the whole notion of the heroic swordsman and stands it on its ear. Diego (the Captain is an honorific, he never was an officer in the army) Alatriste is a survivor of the first round of the Spanish wars in what we now know as the Netherlands. He has come home to Madrid to recover from a wound that has left him pain racked but has not disabled his abilities with a knife and a rapier. In order to make ends meet he, like so many ex soldiers has become a sword for hire. For the right amount of money he will provoke a duel with anyone you want and dispatch them to greet their maker. Were you insulted at court? Has your wife been sleeping with someone you don't approve of? Diego will act as your means to reclaim honour. Our hero is a hired killer, no more, no less. If the price is right, he will ensure that a person receives half a foot of good Toledo steel through their throat. A far cry from those gallants who never seem to have to earn money to make ends meet while they rescue damsels in distress or save the honour of the King. As the story progresses we learn that Diego is perhaps far more noble in his realism, than any of his predecessors were in their romanticism, in the game of swordsmanship. His rules of conduct, never stab anyone in the back, are attempts to hang onto the vestiges of honour he once adhered to. He has no illusions about what he does, and knows there is nothing noble or brave in being a hired killer. We learn about Diego and his life from his former ward, Inigo. The son of a former comrade in arms, he had been sent by his mother at the age of thirteen to be page to the man who had sworn to see him into manhood. As this vow had been taken while Inigo's father was dying from musket ball wound, there could be no going back on it. It is through Inigo's observations of the Captain that we find out about the demons that plague Diego. How he will on occasion sit up the whole night drinking, growing more and more silent in the quiet of their room, and sit staring at his sword and knife hung on the wall as if they were a curse. It is through two sets of eyes that we see 17th century Madrid. The wide eyed, somewhat innocent eyes of a thirteen year old boy filled with illusions of heroism and grandeur; and those same eyes years older looking back on events, providing a filter of cynicism through which impressions are sieved. In one breath, he will tell us about what a dashing figure the young King Phillip IV of Spain cuts in his youth, and then proceed to describe his future descent into ineffectualness and incompetence. Listen to Inigo's description of what was called Spain's golden age:

"And that infamous period was called the Siglo de Oro? What Golden Age, eh? The truth is that those of us who lived and suffered through it saw little gold and barely enough silver. Sterile sacrifice, glorious defeats, corruption, rogues, misery, and shame; that we had up to the eyebrows." Arturo Perez-Reverte, Captain Alatriste, Penguin Canada, 2005 p.108-109.

It is against this backdrop that our hero's adventure takes place. He is hired by mysterious masked men to frighten two English travelers. He and an accomplice are to accost them in a back alley, rob them of some papers, and let them go on their way. But then the orders are mysteriously changed. One of the two masked men leaves the room only to be replaced by a member of the Inquisition and the orders become darker. The two heretics are to be killed as quickly and quietly as possible. But during the attack, the man Diego has singled out as his victim acts in such a manner as to awaken the Captain's sense of honour. Not only does he refrain from killing his target, but he also saves the life of his companion. Oh how are lives are shaped by one little deed. From here on in, he is drawn into a web of political intrigues that threaten his life on more than one occasion. One does not foil the plans of the Inquisition lightly, no matter how honourable your intentions. Perez-Reverte has created in Captain Alatriste the perfect anti-hero swashbuckler. At times moody and introspective, but always real and alive, he is a perfect antidote to the syrupy heroes of film and cheap romances. He knows the things men are capable of doing in the name of God, King, and Country, as he has done most of them himself. But still he tries to hang on to the ideals of honour and justice in the face of changing times and opposition from powerful figures. Captain Alatriste is not only a fun filled ride of sword fights and daring deeds, but it exposes the reality that has too long been hidden behind the mask of the romantic hero. Long live the Captain, and may he live to fight many a battle for our entertainment and edification.

The Meaning Of Lists

2006-02-20T04:17:00.000-05:00

I think I've finally clued into why I didn't like "lists". It had nothing to do with the content, top ten songs written by a left handed lead bassist, or even the arguments that develop over them. It was lists themselves I hated. Let me backtrack a little here so you can understand where I'm coming from, or at least realize that I think there is a rational explanation for this. Over the weekend I started compiling a list of potential agents, and the occasional publisher, who I could send letters telling them about the wonderful novel I've written and what a great writer I am. It was with a sizeable jolt that I realized that this was the second time I had done something like this in my life where the emotional investment was a great deal higher than if these were simple job applications. Twenty-five years ago, I was sending out 8" x 10" headshots and resumes to agents who were going to make me a star. Hell, I was twenty years old; fresh out of theatre school, and thought I was God's gift to the acting world. Me, and who knows how many other millions of people around North America. Of course, I was a proper little snob and only wanted to do serious theatre, no commercials or television for me, thank you very much. So there I was, with a heap of padded Manila envelopes, a pile of glossies, a stack of resumes, a roll of stamps, and The List. I had laid it out carefully into columns: Agent's Name, Address, phone #, and room for follow up comments. Remember this was in the days before everybody had a personal computer, so I had done this all by hand. After a couple years of harsh reality, including the obligatory stints in restaurants, where nothing was panning out, I latched on to a small theatre company where I was able to carve out a niche for myself as production/general manager. My life became lists: lists of grants to apply for, lists of press releases sent out and to whom, lists of things that needed to be done or needed to be bought for a play to open on schedule, and most important of all, lists of creditors to phone to keep the wolves from the door. There were lists that ran backwards from opening night to six weeks earlier, lists that read like a Soviet Union Five Year Plan, and lists that made no sense what's so ever because they had been made at 3 in the morning. For five years, my life was writing lists and crossing things off lists. I even had lists of lists that I had given other people to work on. Of course, their lists were listed on my lists so that I could cross off the jobs they were assigned from my lists as they completed their lists. After five years, I had had enough. I decided to go back to freelance acting again. At least this way it was only one list that I had to keep track of. But my heart really wasn't in to it any more. After a couple of years of getting the odd job here and there, I was ready to go back to the life of a mega list maker. So, fifteen years ago I packed myself up, moved to Kingston Ontario, and opened a small theatre company with a business partner. It was, in some ways, one of the worst decisions I've made in my life. In the long run things have turned out as well as I could hope for I guess, but in terms of career choices, it was not very bright. The lists and I had lost any compatibility that we may have had at one time. More and more, I began to run away from reality in ways that are not recommended by anyone. After the dust settled, nearly six years latter, I made the decision to try and avoid lists and all they stood for. Just the thought of them could make me turn to a quivering pile of jelly. When my health started taking a turn for the worst, and people would suggest things like; you should make a list of where, what, when, and how. I'm sure I would get a look in my eye that was suggestive of deer in the headlights, because invariably the suggestion would never be repeated. It's now February of 2006, I'm about to turn forty-five, and I'm sitting here making a list. Once again I have a list of agents I've been compiling, who I'm counting on to, well hoping that maybe, they will at least read my book and like it enough to find me a publisher. What's interesting is I didn't even notice I was doing it. Even though I've spent the weekend at it I didn't once think, I'm compiling a list. Maybe that's because of the Internet. Every time I would go on line over the weekend I would go to a site that lists agents and check out a couple of them. If I went to their web site and thought they looked promising, I would simply add them to my favourites in a folder called agents. I never spent more than fifteen minutes at a time doing it, and any time I'd start thinking ahead to actually contacting them, I would stop myself by saying: "Wait until you've at least finished a second draft". It was only last night as I was turning the computer off that I realized I was making a list. The first good sign was that I didn't immediately break out into a cold sweat and delete the file from my favourites folder. I was okay with this list because there was no sense of urgency to it. It was research and preparing for the next step in the process. I'm not going to do what I did when I was younger and send out something to every person listed, it seems so pointless. I'm trying to get a feel for individuals and agencies based on the way they present themselves. The list I'm creating will serve a purpose other than simply telling me I have to do something or be a meaningless series of names. The people on it will be of my choosing, and will be those I think most willing and able to help me achieve my goal of becoming published. It's my personal top, whatever number it turns out to be, of those who will be the best for me. Just like someone's top ten lists of their favourite guitar players or vocalists, it will be highly personal and hinge on my own preferences. Instead of being something that will intimidate me it will help me define, what I want and like in an agent or agency. I have a lot more understanding of what it is that compels people to make those lists of their favourite things now then I did before. A list doesn't have to define your life; it can help you lend definition to a part of your life and give you clarity of thought. Some lessons take longer to learn then others, but I think I've finally understood the meaning of lists.

Culling The Herd

2006-02-19T03:36:00.000-05:00

It is obvious that something has to be done. Things have been going from bad to worse, Loss of habitat and increasing over population has been putting a strain on the species' ability to maintain sustainable healthy levels. Behaviour patterns that could initially be overlooked have now become so predominant that the tranquility and harmony necessary for continued existence has been threatened. Overcrowding, inbreeding, and pockets of isolationist behaviour, have combined to cause all sorts of anti-social tendencies to manifest themselves. Incest, violence between mates, offspring being abused, abandoned and left to fend for themselves, show that breeding patterns have been adversely affected by these trends. But it doesn't stop there. Interrelationships outside of that dynamic have become untenable as well. Simple interactions between male of the species, and even females, have become fraught with tension. Foraging behaviours have become more aggressive as more are competing for less. Instead of the previously seen willingness towards compassion, the elderly, lame, and others unable to fend for themselves, are being left to the mercy of predators and the elements. Worse yet, is an increase of clashes that are not based on survival. There appears to be a continual struggle to assert dominance over each other at a personal and species level. Dominant males have become far more belligerent, utilizing their strength not just to secure better forage and favour among females, but to impose their will on lesser elements within the species. This in turn has given rise to resentment among those less developed, and has caused an increase in bellicose behaviour. Respect for standards of social norms, regarding the resolution of disagreements, have fallen by the wayside. Instead of direct confrontations between individuals to solve disputes, there has been a steady increase in attacks on secondary individuals. Another disturbing trend that has been noticed due to the alarming increase in population, is the continual degradation of the species' natural habitat. Not only have normal sources of food become depleted from the effects of over foraging, but also their supply of fresh water has rapidly diminished. The major culprit for this is that with increased numbers comes an increased amount of refuse. Not only does that foul surface water supplies, but it also contaminates the water table. As fresh water becomes scarcer, the chance of disease spreading increases, and the overall hopes of species survival diminishes. As they are forced to co-habit less and less territory, the incidence of disease increases dramatically. Aside from the fear of water borne, waste generated, bacterial illnesses that can debilitate thousands, (and increase the waste disposal situation substantially) a sizeable increase in viral type infections and ailments has been noted. Given the chance of continual incubation due to overcrowding, these viruses mutate too rapidly for immune systems to develop defences. Individuals may be able to resist an initial strain, but a second or even third generation mutation could easily overcome their defences. Obviously, the situation is fast approaching a critical stage for the species. Unless some type of drastic action is taken in the near future, there is the very real possibility that they could face extinction. While on the one hand this may be seen as a desirable result by some, that takes a rather shortsighted view of the situation. All species, even ones like this that seem to have no redeeming qualities in terms of what they give back to the planet, have a roll to play. They would not have developed and evolved otherwise. No matter how tempting it might be to let Humanity die out because of their own stupidity, we owe it to the world to attempt to keep them alive. It's obvious that the normal means of keeping their population in check, mortality and susceptibility to death from injury and illness, have not been sufficient. It has become necessary for us to intervene before it becomes too late. The obvious solution is to begin a cull. But this cannot be just a cull of the sick and the lame, because that won't solve any of the problems. No, we must have a systematic cull that eliminates individuals from all strata of what they call society. Only then will be there a chance of them finding a balance in the future. Leaving just the avaricious and powerful alive would only allow similar conditions, that caused the problem in the first place, to be reproduced. We will also have to reduce their numbers significantly enough to allow their habitat to recover, and disease to die out. Therefore it is this council's recommendation that seventy-five per cent of the existing human population be eliminated post haste. We see it as their best chance of survival.

CD Review: IR2 - Fire This Time (various artists)

2006-02-18T04:41:00.000-05:00

Occasionally something happens, or you come across something, that snaps your head back and makes you just say "Wow". That happened a few months back for me when I came across the site put together by the The Fire This Time. Now anyone who has read anything I've written on a consistent basis will know that I'm pretty hard line when it comes to the issue of Native and Indigenous Peoples rights. For me benefit of doubt is always ceded to the Native people. But if I thought Canada was bad; compared to how Indigenous Peoples are treated the rest of the world over, we're damn saintly. We don't burn them alive in the streets for fun anymore, we've stopped appropriating their land, and have actually even started giving back some of what we stole. You can't give back the sense of pride in self and people that was stolen, but at least we can give back the means to hopefully develop a new pride in themselves. If the new government in Canada honours the commitments of the previous one, agreements reached in the last year with the provinces and First Nation leadership will go a long way to redressing that balance. But from Fiji to Brazil, and Chile to Indonesia, there has been little or nothing done to redress the imbalances of the last 500 years, or more, of oppression. Homelands are still being given away or stolen with government complicity. Peoples are living lives of such poverty and desperation, it has earned them the honour of their own designation: Fourth World. Aside from their living conditions, the biggest obstacle facing these people is the complete indifference of the world to their fate. Aside from the occasional celebrity using them as colourful backdrops for soon to be forgotten photo shoots and press conferences, and the occasional "Indian Uprising" like the Zapata in Mexico, they pretty much fall into the category of out of sight out of mind. The Fire This Time (TFTT) is seeking to change this. Using music, video, visual arts, and direct involvement with the affected communities and peoples they are working to give the silenced a voice. IR2 (Indigenous Revolution) is the music project they have developed as a step in that direction. It was a link from one of the participants in the IR2 project, the group Asian Dub Foundation, that led me to the TFTT site in the first place. Along with members of Asian Dub, some of the leaders of the Dub music scene from around the world have pooled their talents to create music and lyrics for this album. Individuals like Adrian Sherwood, Chuck D, and members of groups like Underground Resistance, 3 Generations Walking, Soma Mestizo, and a host of others have offered up their services to either provide production skills, lyrics or music. But where this differentiates from the usual "celebrity" benefit album is how individual songs are constructed. Take for example track #3, "Indigenous and Sacred" which features the words and music of elders, musicians, and singers from the Solomon Islands and Sosiakamu, plus Soy Sos of 3Generations Walking and Christiane D. of Soma Mestizo. The musicians are based on three separate continents, which made it hard for them to work in the same studio together. All the tracks had to be emailed back and forth between three locations around the world. The music and words from the Solomon Islands and Sosiakamu formed the core of the song. Soy Sos and Christiane D. had the job of incorporating their music into a mix that allowed the original music to feature. Dubbing techniques of repeating samples to emphasise certain phrases musically and lyrically are utilized to keep bringing our focus back on to what is important. The language barrier disintegrates as the voices of elders chanting for calm and tolerance are repeated. Sounds elicit an emotional response as readily, if not more so, as actual words, a fact borne out by the impact of this track. All of the songs on this disc are of a similar construction. Whether it's music underpinning a spoken word essay on the murder of Brazilian Indian Galdino, burnt alive by four wealthy teenagers for a joke, or the lyrics of indigenous Fijian women and music from Brazil on the track "Revoluta". These songs are all true collaborations involving countless emails, remixing and changes as each party strive to strike the right tone to best reflect who they are working with. The songs and lyrics on this disc are unabashedly revolutionary. They see injustice in the world and demand change for the oppressed. But unlike the hypocrisy of hearing these words come from the lips of a multi million dollar grossing recording star, they come from the people directly involved in the struggle to survive. Unlike the new age, "Native" discs of peace and tranquility you can find in your supermarket, these are songs of unrest and disquiet. Your not going to receive any spiritual guidance from this music, but if you are willing to listen, you will get an education and a sobering reminder that people are dying everyday just because they are indigenous. The music on this disc is superlative, there's more reason to listen to it than just the content. Some of the best Dub performers have contributed their talents and technological expertise to make this great musically. It's one of those rare occurrences where the music hasn't suffered to get the message out. Unfortunately, this disc is not available to be purchased. No label has yet to express willingness to release it. They have no problems selling music that advocates misogyny, violence, and drug use in the ghettos of North America, but seemingly balk at a little truth telling. But, you can download various versions of some of the songs in MP3 format. Even more uniquely, TFTT has made available for download the individual tracks that have gone into making up some of these songs. There are chants, acappela vocal tracks, and music tracks in MP3 format that can be downloaded for utilization in making your own music. This is part of how they are trying to give people a means of expression that has been too long denied them. For all those who complain about how the Internet is misused, to me this is an example of it living up to its potential as a means of sharing information and helping other people. The Fire This Time is a fascinating project, and collaborative effort between peoples of all continents trying to improve the conditions that far too many people are forced to live in. I hope to make this the first in a series of pieces about the site and the people behind it. Please, take the time to check it out carefully and listen to the songs they have for download. The music is great and the message even better.

NaNoWriMo Notes 11: The Doubting Game

2006-02-17T07:36:00.000-05:00

Well its done. Yesterday afternoon I finished the first draft of Volume one. Yes, that's right volume one. I had come to the realization about three weeks ago that I wasn't going to be able to fit the whole story into one volume. So, I had to start readjusting my thinking. I hadn't even reached what I was considering the halfway point of the story and it was already over the number of words that was a suggested length for a first novel. I've been writing single spaced pages the whole time, and saving each chapter as a separate file, so didn't have any concept of the sucker's actual size. I saved it all into a plain text file to make one long document and converted it to the standard manuscript format requested by publishers and agents alike: double spaced, inch around margins, and twelve point type. Sat back to let my poor little laptop make the changes, and presto: I had 325 pages of something or other. But in the last two weeks, I ran into a bizarre block. I couldn't bring myself to finish. The closer I got to the end of volume one the more I wanted to put it off. On top of that, I couldn't figure out the best way or place to end it. Eventually I realized what the problem was, I didn't want to finish. I had two pretty good reasons for not wanting to finish. The first was that I'd have to start re-reading the sucker and making corrections and edits to the best of my limited abilities. The second, and I know it sounds a lot like the first but it is different, was that I'd have to actually read what I'd written. Reading for editing is one thing, it's dispassionate and purposeful. Your looking for typos, mistakes in grammar, and listening to the words to see if they're saying what you wanted them to say. I find the best way to do that is not read for content; in fact, when I'm proofing something I usually start at the end and work back to the beginning just to avoid that trap in the initial scan. That way typos and stand out. Even on the second read, I'm still just checking it sentence-by-sentence, and paragraph-by-paragraph. Does each sentence sound right, and does each paragraph express the idea I was trying to put across. On the third read through, I check to make sure that there is a proper flow to what I've written, a beginning, middle, and an end. Does my opening paragraphs introduce the subject matter, does the body of my piece cover the right territory, and does it all lead to a conclusion? For a short article like a blog piece, if it does all that, I'm reasonably content. All I want from this type of piece is for people to have an opinion about what I'm saying. Whether they agree with it or disagree with it doesn't matter so much, as long as it's interesting enough for them to have an opinion. But a novel or a story is a different kettle of moose meat. I want people to be captivated; not able to put the book down at night because they need to see how things turn out. In order for that to work a book has to have the tonal quality, the right pitch. When I was writing I had an idea in my head of how I wanted my book to sound. People talk about seeing is believing, for me, with a story, hearing is believing. It's hard to describe, but when I'm writing fiction, I've an objective in mind above and beyond the writing of the story and transmitting the information about plot and character. I'm searching to capture a certain quality that shows my love of language and respect for the power of words. As much as I enjoy a good story, I enjoy the employment of words as building blocks for creating art. Does that sound pretentious? I hope not because I don't mean it to be. It's just that I want to take advantage of the gifts the English language offers a writer that enables him or her to go beyond the prosaic. The trouble is, that more often than not, it feels like my ambition exceeds my reach. I feel like I don't have the skill set yet to balance the two needs I see inherent in a novel; the story and the manner in which it is told. Sometimes, I'm sure I get carried away with trying to be too fancy with words and end up digressing miles off course. Faced with the prospect of the first read through of the story once I finished my first draft, I became more and more nervous? What happens if it's just a whole pile of self-indulgent crap and I've ignored the story? How about the opposite, if its just another boring adventure novel? Part of me is very proud of myself for having completed this task, but another part of me is terrified that its all been a waste of time and that I'll have to start over again from scratch. People can talk all they want about the experience being good for me, but that just doesn't feel like it will cut it. I'm not even talking about it getting it published, although that would be lovely. I just want to have written something that I'd enjoy reading. Sure we are our own harshest critics, and we will always be able to find things that could have been done better, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to enjoy reading our own work if its any good. I mean, if I don't like reading how can I expect anyone else to. "Here, I wrote this novel which I think is a piece of crap, you want to read it." I can see that going over really well in terms of publicity and even just getting a friend to read it. Anyway, all these types of insecurities have been floating around in the back of my head for the last two weeks as I've tried to finish the book off. Finally, I just said the hell with it. There's nothing I can do about it now, so I may as well finish and see what I have. Lower my expectations somewhat and be prepared for masses of rewrites now and forever until it is published. (Or not) When I first started out on this project back in November, I figured my biggest obstacle to overcome regarding finishing the book, was my willingness to actually exert the effort required. This feeling was intensified when I went a good three weeks without so much as writing a single word of the story. But that was more due to exhaustion born out of writing close to 70,000 words in the space of a month. I simply needed a break. Once I was able to recover and start heading towards finishing volume one, I found I was able to pick up where I left off. But when it became evident that I was going to be able to finish, that's when I began to question its quality. As is so often the case in these incidences, I discovered new ways of becoming my own worst enemy. Yet, in spite of that, I've been able to finish, and I do feel a certain sense of accomplishment. Last night I took a quick glance through the opening of chapter one, and discovered, to my delight it wasn't half bad. I'm hoping that's a sign of things to come.

CD Review: I'm A Moutain - Sarah Harmer

2006-02-16T03:26:00.000-05:00

The problem with expectations is that they inevitably lead to disappointment. While that's probably true with most of life, I find it especially true when dealing with either a book by a favoured author or a new CD by a familiar performer. Over the years, you have set the bar, fairly or unfairly, higher and higher for that artist. Expecting them to always surpass their previous efforts to entertain and enthral you. When they produce a novel or CD that is, in your estimation, something that anybody could have done, you are disappointed. It might be a perfectly good work, but because you expect more from them than you would from just any old artist, you are disappointed. If that doesn't sound like a particularly objective way of reviewing or critiquing a work, it's the truth of the matter. No matter how much anyone might pretend to be objective as a critic, it's impossible not to have expectations about work. What else are we to compare an artist's output to if not their previous efforts? How else would you be able to tell if they've made progress, changed their style, or attempted some radical shift? True, you can always compare them to others in their field who are working in a similar style, but that becomes more of a case of competitive comparison than actual critiquing. Saying someone is better than someone else doesn't give much indication of whether an individual is utilizing their talents to the fullest. That has got to be the longest introduction to a review I've ever written but in the case of the latest CD from Sarah Harmer, I'm A Mountain, I thought some explanation was required. I've been in the fortunate position of living in Kingston Ontario almost since Sarah first started performing in local bars. Any of the times that I have seen her play she has blown me away. (The version of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" she did with an early incarnation of Weeping Tile is still the best I've ever heard or seen) Some years back she put out an album called For Clem. It was a collection of older standards and traditional country tunes she and a couple of friends recorded on the back porch of her house. If you listen carefully, on some tracks you can here crickets singing along with them. Perhaps because she recorded these songs as a heartfelt message of thanks to her father, or maybe it was just a matter of catching lighting in a bottle, but there was something about that album that allowed it to break down the normal barrier that's between performer and audience. You could picture yourself pulling up a chair on that porch and being welcome to sit and tap your foot along to the music. They had woven a spell of intimacy that was as wonderful as it is rare to find in today's popular music. Her albums have always had a level of intimacy that I have found lacking with other performers. There is always the feeling that she is singing specifically for you. Perhaps it's the simplicity of production or the honesty of her lyrics that creates that feeling, I'm not sure, until now I've never stopped to analyse it carefully. The problem I have with I'm A Mountain is that it sounds like any one of the oh so serious, woman singer songwriters out there now could have written it: Sarah, Jewel, Tori, and whoever. They come from a long tradition of soulless, sentimental pabulum producers like Janis Ian, Pheobe Snow, and Carly Simon. There's always been a fine line in acoustic, singer songwriter style music, separating genuine emotion and self-indulgent naval gazing. In the past few years, a new breed of woman songwriter has appeared who talks about serious issues. Perhaps because I'm not a twenty-year-old middle class white woman the songs have no meaning to me, but all their music sounds alike musically and intellectually. Sarah Harmer's music has never fallen into that category by any stretch of the imagination. It's too real and too diverse in its take on life. Even her weakest efforts to date have shown far too much willingness to experiment with style and form for her to be classed in that category. The problem for me with I'm A Mountain is that it skirts around the edges of that territory. While songs like "Luther's Got The Blues" and "I Am Aglow" have a freshness to them both musically and lyrically that held my attention, none of the other songs were really that captivating. Technically her voice is as wonderful as ever and the songs are all well crafted, but they are lacking something in the heart-felt category that bridges the gap between performer and listener. I felt no reason to be interested in what she was singing about. Sarah Harmer is still one of my favourite singer – songwriters out there, and I will continue to look forward to her new albums. Hopefully I 'm A Mountain will just be an aberration in the otherwise wonderful catalogue of music she has produced. From another performer this might have been an acceptable album, but she is better than this, so I was disappointed.

The Dangers Of Herbal Remedies

2006-02-15T04:05:00.000-05:00

I've long been an advocate of what I call complimentary medicine. That is using techniques not normally utilized by your family physician to compliment the work they are doing. I refuse to use the word "alternative" to refer to things like acupuncture, herbal remedies, or massage therapy because that creates a connotation both unsafe and untrue. The word alternative implies that these treatments can be used instead of, or isolated from, the ways in which our medical system does things. While it's true I might make a cough medicine out of a couple of plant leaves that I know will help as much as any over the counter stuff, I'm still going to go see an orthopaedic surgeon when I break my leg. Somehow or other the word alternative has come to be equated with harmless when it is used in regards to medicinal practice. People have gotten mighty confused over the meanings of the words natural and organic. Just because it wasn't made in a lab it means it won't hurt you. Tell that to Socrates and the bowl of Hemlock Tea he had to drink. Herbals are not some new fangled remedy. They were used long before we had pharmaceuticals, and have gone in and out of style with genteel society over the generations. Victorian era society women would have a tisane to help calm their nerves and men would take tonics to restore their "vigour". It wasn't really until after World War one that people began experimenting with ways of synthesising remedies in a lab. Synthetic versions were thought to have the advantages of being easier to mass-produce, and the standardization of doses. Herbals do have the disadvantage that from plant to plant a variety of factors can affect their potency. Soil conditions, rainfall, and exposure to sun can all come into play. The other advantage to man-made medicines was the insurance of a constant supply. All plants have a very specific growing season and harvesting schedule. Some plants, like Dandelion, to have medicinal use can only be picked before June, while others in the fall. The other consideration is that in some instances the root of the plant is called for, and not only could it take years for the root to develop in size, once used the plant has been destroyed. So, while some people may still have been using herbals, during the post World War two years the use of pharmaceuticals took off. They were convenient to take, and had quick results. Two things that were of major importance in our new faster paced world. People wanted not to be bothered by being sick and needed to get back to work fast. They couldn't afford to take the time it took to heal using herbals. It wasn't until it became apparent that there were problems with some of the prescription drugs in terms of side effects that people began to rethink that attitude. When women who had been taking the anti nausea drug Thalidomide for morning sickness during pregnancy started to give birth to children with birth defects, it was the first sign that these drugs might not be as safe as was previously thought. As more and more cracks started to develop in the corporate drug world, and as the sixties progressed, people began to "discover" other methods of dealing with illnesses. Unfortunately, too many people had come to expect the quick fix provided by the synthetic drugs as the standard for treatment, and demanded similar results from herbals. This has resulted in a willingness to overlook the potential for abuse that exists in herbals as much as it does with any drug. One of the best examples is the way in which Echinacea angustifolia has been misused. The root of this flower had long been known for it's anti microbial properties, and works well to fight off low level infections such as fevers brought on by colds and flu. But it is a remedy not a preventative. Somehow or other people started to believe it was some sort of miracle drug that they could take to prevent themselves from getting colds or the flu. Would you take an anti-biotic before you got sick? No because it would be dangerous to your health. But that's exactly what people are doing when they take Echinacea and they have nothing wrong with them. What's even worse is that the demand for the root of this flower has been so high that it has now become an endangered species in the wild. It takes four or five years for an Echinacea plant to become fully developed and it was not given sufficient time to replenish. Open any decent Herbal Book and not only will it tell you all the properties of the plants: what ailments it should be used to treat, what part of the plant is used, when to pick it, and how to best utilize it (tea, tincture, or compress); it will also tell you it's contradictions. What medical conditions make what herbs unsafe, if you have high blood pressure don't use any liquorice root in a tea for instance, and they always say consult your doctor to see what long-term affects this medicine could have upon any other medications you are taking. It's been a number of years now since herbals have caught the public's attention again, and have zoomed in popularity. So much so, that you can buy them everywhere now. But even after the idiocy of using an asthma drug in diet pills (ephedra) caused people to have strokes, people don't seem to be learning the lesson that these are potentially dangerous. It depresses me to see that Health Canada still feels the need to hold conferences on the dangers of mixing herbal remedies and prescription drugs. That they still have to spell out for people that natural does not mean it can't be harmful after all these years of them being on the markets is a sign that the people who are prescribing herbals, and the companies manufacturing them are failing the people they are supposed to be serving. It's because of the abuse and misuse of herbal remedies and medicinal plants in general that we've already seen some of the more effective treatments become harder and harder to obtain. When it was shown that ephedra and it's derivatives were causing strokes when used in diet pills, it became a proscribed drug. In every Herbal book, that I've ever made use of, it explicitly states that people with high blood pressure should never use it, and it’s sole purpose is for the opening of bronchial tubes to help relieve asthma attacks. Why companies started to put in into diet products is beyond me. Herbal remedies have been used for centuries as medicines. Until they were saddled with the label alternative they were treated like we would treat any drug prescribed to us from a doctor. But now, all of a sudden, they have become safe as compared to what our doctor's offer us. If those of us who make use of these medicines aren't able to change that perception soon, we are gong to find governments moving in to ban the sale of loose herbs, and only allow pre-packaged pills and doses to be sold. That would be a shame, because part of the pleasure of working with herbs is having the ability to circumvent buying a product and making your own remedies. In a world where we have so little control over so many things, being able to have a say in the medicine I take, even if only in a small way, is a privilege. I would hate to have to give that up.

CD Review: Broadcasting The Blues: Black Blues In The Segregation Era

2006-02-14T04:56:00.000-05:00

Most of us have listened to some sort of Blues music at some time or another in our lives. You can't have listened to popular music in the last seventy to eighty years in North America without hearing something, that's got at least a hint of that sound to it. From Heavy Metal through to the standards of Frank Sinatra, the Blues have been the foundation that most pop music has built upon. Try and imagine what our world would sound like today if the Blues hadn't existed, and I think you'd hear the ringing sounds of silence. Even the traditional Irish and Scott's ballads that were the backbone of the earliest country music wouldn't have made it out of the Appalachians without a generous dollop of blues music. It was that cross-pollination that gave us the earliest Country-Blues, which in turn led to Sun Records and a guy named Elvis. The saddest part of the story of the blues has always been that the men and women, who were the writers and singers of this most influential music, toiled in obscurity and without recognition for most of their lifetimes. They'd see their songs and music being performed by young white musicians and never once received a dime for their work. One of the sad truths of racial segregation and discrimination was that it denied a huge segment of the world the opportunity to hear some of the finest music and musicians perform. Even now early recordings of so many of these people are only in the hands of collectors or museums. A new triple disc set by Document Records is a tiny step forward in changing that situation. Broadcasting The Blues: Black Blues in the Segregation Era is a wordy title for the set, but an apt one. Paul Oliver, the man who edited and compiled this disc, has been writing and broadcasting on the radio about blues since 1952. If you've never heard of him or his shows it's not surprising, they were on the B.B.C. I've often wondered how people like Mick Jagger and John Lennon ever heard the blues over in England. They always talked about how much this style of music influenced them, but where on earth did they ever hear it for the first time. Well this must be part of the answer, Paul Oliver's radio shows. A first quick glance through the nearly ninety songs listed on the back cover and certain names just jump out at you: Ma Rainey, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, and on and on. It's like a who's who of the greats of the past eighty years of the blues. The material on these CDs is a compliment to a book Mr. Oliver has published called Broadcasting The Blues. These songs, and interviews, are all taken from the scripts of the radio shows that Mr. Oliver has done over the years for the B.B.C. Some of them were specific documentaries on the Blues, and others were just his radio shows; where his play lists were made up of material dating back as far as the 1920's. Close to four hours of music crammed onto three discs can be a little overwhelming if there is no cohesion. In an attempt to supply some order to the proceedings, Mr. Oliver has arranged the discs historically: Volume One: "Before the Blues" deals with the roots of the music; Volume Two: "Blues How Do You Do" is an examination of the inspiration for the blues; and Volume Three: "Meaning In The Blues" explores the variety of subject matter sung about in the blues. Now if that sounds dry as dust, don't worry, because it's all done musically. They are just frameworks to hang the music on. Volume one is the only disc where historical sequence has any real pertinence, as after a couple of pieces of introductory blues, it takes us back to the beginnings. Starting with a Ring Dance as performed by Mamprusi Tribesmen in Africa we cross over to the Southern States to listen to "Holler" or work songs. Along the way, we taste the music that was played for the "Doctors" and their medicine shows, ballads, and what were known as "Coon" songs. These were mainly satirical songs that helped to deflect some to the sneers of prejudice. Some of the songs on this disc seem to have little to do with what we would call blues music. But it was from these tunes that singing styles and content were developed. It's on discs two and three that we enter territory we are more familiar with. But what makes these two discs special is the sheer diversity of the material. The voices and music of long dead men and women who sang for the release and the joy of singing echo down the years. Ghosts from a time when sometimes the only way you could escape your hardships were to sing about it. "It gives you relief…" says Henry Townsend in an interview talking about the blues. Relief from the feelings of being a second-class citizen, of grinding poverty, and of being looked down upon. Just as the spirituals helped slaves find escape from the misery of working in the fields; their latter day cousin the blues helped the children and grand children of slaves escape their soul-destroying reality. Regretting the past doesn't get you very far, but it's hard not to listen to these discs and regret that the men and women singing on them didn't get the recognition they deserved during their lifetime. The best we can do for them now is to honour their contributions to our culture and our lives by learning their names now, and not letting them be forgotten. Paul Oliver has put together an incredible collection of music and interviews on Broadcasting The Blues: Black Blues In The Segregation Era. It is discs like these that, are not only a pleasure to listen to, will keep those people alive forever. What's even more exciting is that he's only just begun working through close to fifty years of radio shows. There's plenty more where this came from.

Canada Needs Recall Legislation

2006-02-13T08:46:00.000-05:00

One of the major differences between the American political system and Canadian is the ability that American voters have to hold their elected officials accountable during their term in office. In Canada, our only recourse is to await the next election to express our displeasure with an incumbent, but in the U. S., you are able to not only impeach, but also have recalls, which force a politician to run again. I have only heard of one instance when someone tried a recall in Canada, and that was for a government not a specific politician. That occasion was so fraught with difficulties, (I think it included making sure that you had twenty five left handed albino pipe fitters sign the petition) that I doubt anybody will try the process again. Of course, as everybody on the receiving end of a recall petition or impeachment proceedings will tell you, the process can be highly partisan. But than again, it's not very likely that anybody from within one's own political party is going to initiate impeachment proceedings against them. For that to happen you'd have to be caught in bed with either a dead person or a live animal, and in some States even that might not be enough. Now what you do with wildlife in the privacy of your own home is nobody's business but you own, but if you're going to run for public office, there are certain rules of conduct that the people you voted for expect you to adhere to. One of the things most voters expect from you is an iota of partisanship. They voted for you because you claimed to represent a certain party and you believed in that party's platform. Now in some elections one could safely say that there isn't much to choose from when it comes to the two major political parties in Canada. In times past, on the federal level anyway, the Conservative and Liberal parties were pretty much interchangeable. While it's true that the Liberals have moved slightly to the right of the political spectrum economically, they have stilled stayed socially progressive. The Conservative Party of Canada has metamorphosed into something new in Canadian politics. They have distinguished themselves from the rest of the field by being socially conservative and seemingly intent on rolling back social – political changes of the last twenty years. (A quick background note. In Canadian politics the federal party, has little or nothing to do with the provincial party of the same name. The nature of the provincial parties is such that their policies and platforms change from province to province. Probably only the N.D.P. has some sort of cohesion between the federal and provincial levels. In the last federal election, the Conservative Party in Ontario was remarkably quiet and never, to my knowledge, endorsed their federal counterparts.) For some voters this meant the recent election was about preventing those changes from occurring. Politicians aware of those feelings played upon their fears in order to assure their re-election. Some Liberal party candidates even wooed potential New Democratic Party (N.D.P.) voters by claiming they were the best chance of stopping the Conservative candidate in that riding. Now I'm sure some of you have picked up on where I'm heading with all of this, but for those who (the majority of the world) don't pay attention to Canadian politics I'll fill you in. In the Federal election of January 23rd/06, the Conservative party won the most seats in our House of Commons. Although they did not win an out right majority, they still won sufficient seats to form the government. As the new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper's, leader of the Conservative party, first task was to select members of his caucus to become government Ministers. These would be the people who would take responsibility for implementing the party's agenda within the various departments of the government. Naturally, he was going to want people who were in agreement with the philosophies espoused by his party during the last election. You'd think the last person he'd want would be someone who had campaigned so vigorously against him that he actively solicited N.D.P. voters to vote for him to help stop the Conservatives. You'd also think that a person who stood up and gave an acceptance speech talking about how he looked forward to thwarting the Conservatives at every step along the way while serving in opposition, would be a bad choice for as a Cabinet Minister. Well the world of politics is a funny old thing that way, because Mr. Harper selected someone fitting just that description for his cabinet. David Emerson was elected in the riding of Vancouver-Kingsway as a member of the Liberal Party. He had served as Minister of Industry and Trade in the previous Liberal government and had campaigned as a loyal party member and a staunch supporter of previous Prime Minister Paul Martin. As the Liberal candidate in his riding, he received 44% of the vote, the N.D.P. candidate came second with 33%, and the Conservative trailed badly with 18%. This was a riding that was strongly against the message the Conservative party was selling. Even if some of Mr. Emerson's support came from people who were voting for him as the man, and not for the party he represented, the fact that 82% of the eligible voters in the riding, who cast a ballot, voted for someone other than the Conservatives lends credibility to the belief they did not support the Conservatives. Two weeks after standing up and declaring that he would be "Stephen Harper's worst nightmare" David Emerson accepted the same position in the Conservative Cabinet that he had held under Paul Martin. He claimed that after having had lunch with Mr. Harper, he realized he wasn't such a bad guy after all. It wouldn't have anything to do with the increase in salary and perks that go along with being a Cabinet Minister would it? I think the most surprising thing about this whole situation is the fact that nobody on the Conservative side of things seems to have been prepared for the firestorm of protest that this has caused. What's even worse is the rather blasé manner in which they seem to be taking to the reactions of the constituents in the riding of Vancouver-Kingsway. Instead of taking a conciliatory tone in their statements, they appear to be going out of their way to antagonize the voters. Saying things like, you should be grateful that you've got a Cabinet Minister out of the deal, doesn't do much to ease the feelings of betrayal that have been generated by this manoeuvre. Saturday afternoon hundreds of people gathered in a Vancouver high school to demand that Mr. Emerson resign his seat. They want Mr. Harper to call a by-election and have Mr. Emerson run again, but this time as a Conservative candidate. With no recall legislation on the books the people of Vancouver-Kingsway have no means of forcing the government to take action. The N.D.P. have formally asked the federal ethics commissioner to investigate Mr. Emerson's defection. They think that Mr. Harper could be in violation of Parliaments conflict of interest guidelines, which prohibits members from acting to advance their own or other Member of Parliaments' (M.P.) personal interests. I can't see there being much hope in that one, since both Mr. Emerson and Mr. Harper have already covered that one by claiming it was in the best interests of the country to have continuity in such a key portfolio. Anyway, when hasn't a M.P. acted in their own best interest? You investigate one for that; you're going to have to put the lot of them under a microscope. So, what it comes down to is whether the people of Vancouver-Kingsway can shame the government into actually doing something. As it stands now, the chances of that happening look slim to non-existent. While a couple of Conservative M.P.s are saying that they are going to propose legislation that would prohibit members from switching parties in mid stream, I've noticed that there has been a conspicuous lack of talk about recall legislation. It seems that although everyone is willing to protest loudly about Mr. Emerson crossing the floor and what a betrayal that act is, nobody is willing to open that particular can of worms. None of them seem to be too interested in handing voters the power to chuck them out of office before their terms are up. I can't say that surprises me, but it does disappoint me. I'm sure that most of them would reply if asked, that what they most fear would be the ease in which partisan attacks could be formulated by such legislation. Take the case of a riding where the final margin of victory was decided by a recount. If the loser decides he doesn't like it, he could organize a recall petition in the hopes of getting a new election, and this time making sure all the people who were supposed to vote for him do so. Out of necessity, any legislation regarding recalls would have to be written in such a manner that abuses could not happen. All that means is that it would take some thought to prepare a bill that would ensure things like what Mr. Emerson did are covered, while partisanship is curtailed as much as possible. Simply making those behind the recall legislation supply sufficient proof of misdeeds, like they would in a civil case, ought to provide enough of a deterrent to prevent abuse of the legislation. Create a list of behaviours that would be considered unacceptable, and than leave it to the accusers to prove that the person or party are guilty of such misdeeds prior to them being able to begin the process of petitioning for removal and I don't think anyone could complain about the process being partisan. It is high time that Canada ensures its elected representatives are held accountable for their actions beyond just risking re-election. Why should voters be stuck with someone who has betrayed their confidence in the manner that David Emerson has betrayed the people of Vancouver-Kingsway?

Canadian Politics: How To Work A Minority Government

2006-02-12T08:45:00.000-05:00

Here's the scenario. You're an opposition party in the federal House of Commons in Canada right now, where, as everyone knows, there's a Conservative Party of Canada minority government. The Conservatives are going to introduce a whole bunch of legislation that nobody in opposition is going to like when the house reconvenes in April Now you have enough votes that you could defeat them in the house on any vote you so desire, but that could also be seen as Non-confidence vote. The last thing anybody wants to do right away is have another election. Being the one who pulled the plug on the government would cause a big backlash against your party in the next vote. So if you don't want to have an election, but at the same time you don't want to support what the government is doing, what do you do? Well the New Democratic Party (N.D.P.) has come up with a solution. Olivia Chow, wife of party leader Jack Layton, has announced her intention to introduce national childcare legislation that would confirm the original deal that the Liberal government had worked out with the provinces Mr. Harper's Conservative Party had rejected that deal and made plans for their own legislation that has no support outside of his own party. Ms. Chow's proposal would receive the support of all the opposition parties ensuring its passage into law. The Conservative's will be faced with either scrapping their proposal or having to pay for two childcare legislations. Since the later choice would make them look ridiculous they will be forced to swallow pride and enact the more widely supported act that the previous government had negotiated with the provinces. Now I'm sure there will be much bleating from the right wing about the opposition subverting the democratically elected government. But they don't have a majority government and have already made it clear that they will try and force through any legislation they can. The Conservative Party of Canada was willing to cynically take advantage of the opposition's unwillingness to call an early election by defeating them in the house. They have not shown themselves to be willing to work with the opposition, and work out compromises that would make their legislation more palatable to the opposition. The previous Liberal government, who the Conservatives accused of arrogance, were able to hold onto power by showing a willingness to work with other parties to garner enough votes to be able to enact the legislation they wanted. In a minority government situation if you want to be able to govern you have to be willing to bend. It's the Conservative Party's own intransigence that has caused the opposition to start proposing their own legislation. By refusing to compromise, and even give the appearance of willingness to work with the opposition, the Conservative Party has left the opposition very few choices. The fact that they are willing to offer alternative solutions to issues, instead of just rejecting them and voting them down, should be seen as something positive. The opposition is giving the Conservatives the chance to prove that they can govern and work with the other parties by offering a counter proposal. It is now up to them to make the next move. If they continue to refuse to work within the confines of a minority government they face the very real possibility of becoming redundant to the actual governance of Canada. There is nothing stopping the other three parties from forming a loose, unofficial coalition. The N.D.P., the Bloc Quebecois, and the Liberals have more in common with each other than either have with the Conservative Party. If they work things correctly they will be able to ensure that it is their agenda that is carried out and not that of the Conservatives. This is a situation without precedent in Canadian politics. While there have been minority governments before, the circumstances that have caused this dynamic to develop are new. For the first time ever we have four viable political parties with significant support in the house. The other factor is the governing party has no one in the opposition whom they can turn to for support. The Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois are the only parties with sufficient seats to guarantee Conservative legislation passing in the house. The chances of the Liberals endorsing any part of the Conservative platform enough to come to an agreement on governing are slim to say the least. ( Of course if David Emerson is anything to go by Steven Harper may just have to offer enough them Cabinet positions and he could have a majority government) While the Bloc Quebecois may support the Conservatives on issues of provincial rights, they are miles apart on social issues. The Conservatives didn't do anything to endear themselves with the Bloc anyway by appointing a non-French speaking Anglophone as minister in charge of French Language rights. The chances of The Bloc forming any sort of permanent alliance with the Conservatives is slim at best. Of course that alliance would be problematic for the Conservatives anyway, seeing how they had spent a good part of the campaign condemning any perceived alliance with the Bloc by other parties as a betrayal of Canada. Than again, judging by their actions in the last week they seem perfectly content to say one thing and do another, so that may not be such a problem for them after all. Ideally what will come from the opposition forcing the government's hand by introducing legislation is we will get a situation where all four parties work together to best represent all of Canada. This will require the Conservative Party of Canada, and it's leader Stephen Harper, to realise they will not be able to cram their legislation down the throats of parliament. On the other hand if Mr. Harper is not careful he may well become the first Prime Minister of Canada whose a lame duck before he even starts his first term of office.

CD Review: Carolina Breakdown - Etta Baker & Cora Phillips

2006-02-12T02:09:00.000-05:00

When most people think of the banjo, they think of bluegrass music or other "Country" like styles. Few today remember that the banjo came to North America with the Africans brought over as slaves in the 1700's. These early versions of the instrument were simply fretless sticks attached to an animal hide covered gourd, strung with three or four strings. Interestingly enough the manner in which they were played still exists today in the style known as "claw hammer". The player doesn't strum the instrument but plucks on the strings, literally clawing and hammering out the tune. It's this percussive style that most of us are used to seeing utilized in today's modern folk and bluegrass bands. It's difficult for us to think of the banjo as an instrument used to play the blues; that's something we normally associate with guitars, harmonicas, and bass. But from the turn of the twentieth century up to the 1930's and 40's the banjo featured heavily in the blues that was being played in the Border States like the Carolinas. What we today would call country blues has its roots in this music. Unlike the fierce assault on the senses of the twelve bar blues that came up out of the Mississippi Delta, these blues were blended with the sounds of the Tennessee hill country. A meeting of the traditional Irish and Scotch ballads that were brought over by the European settlers and the music of the African slaves. Where this music flourished the most were in the mix blood families that appeared to have the freedom to mingle with both the races and absorb and learn both styles of music. Sisters Etta Baker and Cora Phillips came from just such a family. According to family history, and the United State Census of 1850, they were a mix of Black, Native, and European bloodlines. Indeed, looking at a picture of the two sisters, one wouldn't know they were from the same race let alone blood kin. The Music Maker Relief Foundation has released Carolina Breakdown, a CD of songs that were recorded between 1988 and 1990 in the homes of the two sisters. On occasion the tape has been left to run so you can hear them chatting before the songs. You get the feeling that you've stepped back in time to the days of house parties where neighbours would walk for miles to come sit in on a jam session that could go all night. Cora was well into her 80's when these recordings were made, so her technique probably wasn't quite what it used to be, but her banjo and guitar playing are still smooth as silk. Listening to the sounds of the guitar and the banjo, or the two guitars, interweave is like listening to silk being spun. Fine, intricate and satiny is the best way to describe this music. Instead of the usual mad dash that I'm accustomed to hearing on songs like "John Henry", licks are lovingly caressed and played for texture not speed. As musical styles go it's as different as night and day from the work of the blues musicians of today. Carolina Breakdown is like a missing link in the development of America popular music. It captures in time one of the ways that the European and African roots of our culture first began to blend to form something unique to this continent. It's also more than just a historical document. It's testimony to the fact that music is the province of the people. Originally it came out of memories of the music from whatever your country of origin. Music was the sole means of entertainment for some these communities in the Carolinas and it was the common ground between the different folks who settled in the area: it was a means of communicating There were no record executives or producers to tell them how they should combine the seemingly disparate modes of expression, so it just happened over the course of the all night jam sessions. If the players liked the way something sounded they kept it and somehow or other it became part of the collective understanding of what made up music. Etta Baker and Cora Phillips are masters of this musical style. Their playing on Carolina Breakdown is a joy to listen to. There is something mellowing and relaxing about this music that make you tap your toes and sway your body to the beat and rhythm. This was music that was going to be played all night long, so it wasn't in any hurry; it had all the time in the world. Listen to this music and be transported briefly back to simpler times. Listen to this album and appreciate the amazing talent that's been hidden away from the public for years. I wasn't sure what to expect when I put this disc in the machine to give it a listen the first time and I was blown away right off the top with their version of the standard "John Henry". From then on they had me. If you have a love of traditional blues and old time country music you will probably love this album. But there's another good reason for buying this album aside from the great music: The Music Make Relief Foundation. These folks have produced this and countless other albums of musicians who might otherwise have been forgotten. The money made from the sale of these discs, and other ventures, is used to help support some of these people who have ended up with nothing. If you follow the link above you'll find more information about programming and the artists who appear on their label. How often is it that we get a chance to listen to somebody's music and know that by buying their CD we are making a real difference in the quality of their life? If all the music they produce and sell is even half as good as Etta Baker & Cora Phillips' Carolina Breakdown then they should have no problem in making good on their ambition to help keep these people going.

CD Review: Zulu Groove by Afrika Bambaataa

2006-02-11T03:43:00.000-05:00

You know I'm sure people are sick and tired of hearing how things were better in the old days. If you're under twenty you've got to be especially sick of old farts like me, over forty, who keep telling you about "when we were young rap music meant something". Well if any of the above applies to you, you might as well stop reading now. Nothing that I've heard to date has yet to match the power and the poetry of Afrika Bambaataa. I first started hearing about him and hearing him occasionally in the 1980s when he was leading the charge in bringing rap/hip hop music out of the ghetto into mainstream acceptance. He of course had been around a long time prior to that, starting out in the 1970s while still in high school. It was a time when DJ's would compete to see who could create the best mix of music to entice audiences to dance. An early fore runner of what we now know as sampling, DJ's would inter cut varieties of music from their turn tables to create dance music. They would take their "coffins" (boxes with turntables set into them) to parties, parks and community events and face off against each other. Bambaataa (which means benevolent leader) evolved from this format into utilizing musicians and b-boys (break dancers) to create his sound. Influenced by the funk sounds of performers like James Brown he kept that hard edge to his music while integrating samples of other music. He had a far more political focus than the "home boys" of today and his lyrics and actions were reflective of that attitude. He worked on the anti apartheid album Sun City with Steven Van Zandt, Lou Reed, and others in what was Rock's first overt political act in years. But it was his willingness to cross musical boundaries that really set him apart from other musicians of the time, and still does today. Before RunDmc and Areosmith recorded their version of "Walk This Way" he had been working with Rock musicians. In 1984 he developed two groups, Shango and Time Zone. One of the key members of Time Zone was one time Sex Pistol and PIL luminary, John Lydon (Johnny Rotten to his friends) He's recorded with acts as diverse as Boy George, UB40, James Brown, and Nona Hendryx. He's done albums dedicated to exploring the sounds of the German minimalist electronic band Kraftwerk, and worked with George Clinton of funk fame. Building from his funk core he crafted unique sounds and pushed hip-hop into the electronic era. Listening to one album of his music is to listen to one moment in time in his career. Something else has come before, and you know he will be onto something new before you've finished listening to the disc in your player. The disc Zulu Groove is a reissue of a 1999 disc that combined extended play albums that he put out with Shango and Time Zone in1984. It contains the entire Shango album Funk Theology as well as mixes from Time Zone's World Destruction and Wild Style extended plays. Musically this is a funk collection. All hard lines and driving bass and guitar that you just can't sit and listen to with wanting to get up and dance. Except that you also want to listen to the lyrics. Unlike the majority of today's dance/rap/hip-hop with it's predominantly superficial concerns Bambaataa was well aware of the real world. Time Zone's "World Destruction" that opens the disc is a searing commentary on the neglect of Black issues under the Regan government. With a continual refrain of "he don't like us" repeated over the driving funk beat, the anger and frustration felt by African Americans during his tenure as President is made clear. Like fellow rapper Gil Scott-Herron, Bambaataa was not afraid to stand up and speak out against perceived injustices. In both "World Destruction" and "World Destruction (Melt Down Mix)" John Lydon's vocals jar one out of the seductive rhythms of the funk beat and force you to listen to what's being said. That familiar angry sneer cuts through like a knife through butter and proves that contrasts in art are just as effective as seamless blends. Sandwiched between the opening and closing "World Destruction" bookends are some of the best funk music I've heard in a long time. Afrika Bambaataa proves that he can create fantastic straight-ahead funk with the best of them. For all his innovations and crossing over into other genres, it's obvious where his true home is from the music that he created with Shango and Time Zone. From the Latin tinged "Soca Fever" to the driving funk of "Zulu Groove" this disc reminds you what great funk can be. For so many years we've been fed funk's watered down palatable versions on main stream radio, that when you actually hear how it's supposed to be played it's like listening to a whole different genre of music. Zulu Groove is a good introduction to Afrika for those who haven't heard him before. It gives you a taste of his willingness to ignore the so-called boundaries between the genres of pop music, and some of the juiciest funk licks this side of a Parliament/Funkadelic concert. If you think you know what rap and hip-hop music are supposed to sound like and you've never heard anything by Afrika Bambaataa than you've been living a delusion. Do yourself a favour, buy this album, or anything by him for that matter, and listen to a master at work.

DVD Review: The Richard Pryor 4 Movie Collection

2006-02-10T06:41:00.000-05:00

It always seems that whenever a celebrity dies it's only a matter of time before the vultures start circling to try and pick whatever meat they can off the bones of that person's fame. Sometimes though, it amazes me how quickly they can rush something on to the market in order to cash in on the publicity surrounding a death. Richard Pryor has only been dead since December 10th 2005 and already Universal Studios, through their Franchise Collection series, have rushed out a re-release of an old DVD The Richard Pryor - 4 – Movie Collection. Crammed onto one disc are four movies that either star, or in one case, feature Mr. Pryor: Which Way Is Up, Brewster's Millions, Car Wash, and Bustin' Loose. Back in December when Mr. Pryor died I wrote in an obituary the following: "Hopefully when people remember Richard Pryor it will be for his honesty and integrity, not for the mediocre movies he made that failed to make use of his talents." Like so many other comics whose gifts ran towards social satire his talent did not translate to the big screen easily. His stand up comedy dragged America, willingly or not, into the real world of Black America. Unlike the sanitized versions that had been presented on television, Good Times and The Jeffersons, he didn't make any concessions to the mainstream audience about the manner in which White people were viewed by the African American community. It was his work that paved the way for people like Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Chris Rock, and others. Richard Pryor proved that a black comedian could have a successful career creating material for a black audience. Unfortunately this never seemed to be understood by those making movies featuring Mr. Pryor. The four movies included on this disc only serve to exemplify the misuse of his talents in film. Too often the humour comes across as almost stereotypical black buffoonery: simple poor black guy who somehow manages to come out on top over evil well educated white guys. It's either that or some slick con-artist like his cameo roll in Car Wash as a sleazy preacher. Even in Bustin' Loose, which Mr. Pryor produced, falls into the trap of him playing a small time crook who gets the chance to redeem himself. Although he manages to work in a couple of good scenes where he pokes fun of liberal white guilt it doesn't serve to salvage the whole. Even the presence of the esteemed Cicely Tyson can't give this turkey wings to fly with. The material isn'r worthy of the talents that we know lie in Richard Pryor. Which Way Is Up is a lame tale of poor farm worker who accidentally becomes involved in the struggle to unionize the labourers. The secondary plot of his character having to balance the needs of a wife and a girlfriend who he's had a child with, comes dangerously close to perpetuating the stereotype of the irresponsible black male father figure and trying to make it seem funny. Brewster's Millions is a simple formulae film where the man (Richard Pryor) has to choose between the woman he loves and a small fortune. The simplistic plot revolves around him having to spend $30 million dollars in a month's time so that he can receive a massive inheritance. Of course the catch is that he's not allowed to tell anybody. So the woman of his dreams thinks he's an irresponsible jerk, because he's spending money like it's going out of style. Of course there are also the nefarious white lawyers who are trying to ensure that he doesn't succeed in his task, so that the money can be funnelled into their coffers. These movies are poor indications of the genius of Richard Pryor, and this re-issue is simply a shameful attempt to cash in on the man's name shortly after his death. If they had wanted to properly honour his work it would have been more fitting to either release one of his concert films. Live On The Sunset Strip would be a good start. For a package that is supposed to commemorate the talents of an artist there is nothing included that gives the purchaser any information or background on Mr. Pryor. There's no mention of his struggles with Multiple Sclerosis and cocaine addiction. The later he beat, while the former eventually indirectly claimed his life. This package of movies communicates none of the honesty and integrity that characterized his work as a stand-up comedian or actor. It would sadden me to think that people could be making judgements on the man's career based on these four films. Do yourself a favour and seek out something else as a memento or an introduction to Richard Pryor's career.

American Deserter Fights For Refugee Status In Canada

2006-02-09T07:15:00.000-05:00

According to the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration a person seeking either asylum or refugee status in Canada qualifies under one of two provisions. The first, A Convention refugee (refers to the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.) is someone seeking to enter Canada: "who is outside of their country of nationality or habitual residence and who is unable or unwilling to return to that country because of a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, political opinion, nationality or membership in a particular social group" The second, Person In Need Of Protection, is a person: "in Canada whose removal to their country of nationality or former habitual residence would subject them to the possibility of torture, risk to life, or risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment." It is up to the applicant in both instances to offer sufficient proof to the refugee board that any of the above conditions would apply to them if they had to return to their country of origin. There are of course provisos to these clauses to prevent their abuse. Canada, much to the surprise of certain American talk show hosts, doesn't want to find itself a haven for terrorists fleeing "persecution", will not grant such status to those "determined to be inadmissible on grounds of security, human rights violations, serious criminality or organized criminality" Unfortunately there are a lot of grey areas in this whole situation. Obviously some of the above definitions, especially security and criminality, will depend on the claimant's country of origin. If the country is one that denies its citizens basic liberties, and the person applying for shelter is in opposition, any records obtained from their home country would show them as a criminal and security threat. Would Canada allow in someone who had actively participated in violent acts against that government? Or would we only allow those who through no fault of their own, or who through peaceful activity found themselves if peril. In most cases it would be no to the first instance and yes to the second. Obviously there are mitigating circumstances in both instances. A person who can prove that their acts of violence were in self-defence would probably be admitted. On the other hand a person who hasn't committed a violent act, but is proven to have financially or otherwise provided substantial support to acts of terror may not be allowed in the country. During the Viet Nam war Canada became a safe haven for American youth seeking to elude the draft. Quite a few of them ended up becoming permanent citizens. I'm not actually certain on how that whole process worked, but I think a great many of them simply immigrated and didn't apply for refugee status. In those days it was far easier to just immigrate if you had someone to sponsor your application. (If anyone knows otherwise I would be very interested in finding out, a quick search of the web didn't reveal much of use) None of these individuals were actually members of the American armed forces at the time of their coming to Canada. They were fleeing the prospect of becoming soldiers so they could legitimately claim to be conscientious objectors, which may have been sufficient grounds to apply for refugee status. This is one of the major differences in the case that is currently being heard by the Federal Court of Canada in the matter of Jeremy Hinzman's appeal of the Refugee Board's decision to refuse his application for refugee status. Mr. Hinzman had been enlisted in the 82nd Airborne Division when he left the U.S. to come to Canada to avoid serving in the Iraq War. He is not just a draft dodger, but also a deserter from the American army. He has requested asylum in Canada because he fears he will face persecution in the United States for his refusal to take part in the Iraqi war. He claims that he would have considered himself to be committing a crime if he had killed anyone during the course of the war, because the war itself is illegal. During his initial application the Refugee Board refused to allow arguments to be entered on the legality of the war. They claimed all that mattered was the circumstances Mr. Hinzman would face if he were returned to the United States. They also questioned the veracity of his claim to be a conscientious objector because he had enlisted in the armed forces. But the biggest question of all is what constitutes persecution. According to the Refugee Board because the United States is a democracy with a justice system. That any prosecution brought against Mr. Hinzman could not be equated with persecution. There have been two arguments raised in an effort to rebut that statement. Amnesty International claims that because Mr. Hinzman took reasonable steps to obtain exemption from combat duty on the grounds of conscientious objection, that the potential prison term he faces is unjust. Mr. Hinzman's lawyer, who is also representing another man in the same circumstances, argued that placing his client in the hands of the American justice system would be like asking to be "thrown into the fire". In other words he is questioning the potential of his client(s) to obtain a fair trial. While the argument presented by Amnesty International stumbles against the "why was he in the military in first place if he was a conscientious objector" question, and thus loses some validity, his lawyer's objection is worth considering. Although the mood in the United States is decidedly less pro-war then earlier, there is still sufficient sentiment in its favour that would make a fair trial a difficult proposition. Although desertion during wartime is no longer a capital offence in the United States, the underlying emotions behind that sentence are still prevalent in the American psyche. It is taken as a betrayal of the worse kind; a rejection of your patriotic duty. Accusations of cowardliness and treachery are sure to be directed at Mr. Hinzman and any of the other young men who are now seeking asylum in Canada on these grounds. While he can no longer be sentenced to death, the maximum sentence is five years for Mr. Hinzman, consider what his life would be like after he is released from prison. What kind of social stigma would be attached to him for the rest of his life? He will be forever known as a deserter, a traitor, and unpatriotic. What kind of quality of life can he expect to live under those conditions? Persecution does not just come in the form of what a government can do to you directly; it can also come from the attitudes created by that government. The Bush administration has created an us or them mentality in the Untied States. If you support the war in Iraq you are a good American, if you don't you are unpatriotic and working against the well being of your fellow citizens. What would that attitude make of a person who was in the army, but refused to go fight in this war? Especially if he says this war is illegal. The government of the United States wouldn't need to persecute Mr. Hinzman or any of the other deserters hiding in Canada. The atmosphere they have created, aided and abetted by huge portions of the media, would accomplish it without them. They can sit back and pretend their hands are clean while Mr. Hinzman is ripped to pieces. One of the grounds for applying for refugee status in Canada is a well-grounded fear of persecution for reasons of political opinion. Well I think it's safe to say that Mr. Hinzman will be heavily persecuted on many fronts for his political opinions. While he may not come to any physical harm, the psychological trauma to him and his family would undoubtedly be severe. If for no other reason than that, Mr. Hinzman, and any other deserters should be given refugee status in Canada. They are not going to be welcomed back with open arms into their country of origin by any stretch of the imagination, so we should offer them a chance for a new life.

Stephen Harper and The Consevative Party of Canada: The New Hypocrisy

2006-02-08T03:37:00.000-05:00

I wonder if there were actually people who believed Stephen Harper when he said he was going to be different from other politicians. "We're not like those other guys, the Liberals" he implied through out his whole campaign, and in the days leading up to the election. "We are open and above board and don't stoop to political chicanery to get things done." Usually it takes a politician at least a few months in office to succumb to the temptations of power. They make some sort of effort to live up to their promises of accountability and clean living. The Conservative Party of Canada must have set some kind of record for acting like hypocrites. They hadn't even been given the keys to government washrooms and they've done two things for which they condemned the Liberals in the past. In fact both instances show how quickly they've learnt the lesson of political expediency taking precedence over promises and supposedly entrenched party policy. Ever since the Conservative Party of Canada was in their first incarnation as the Reform Party, one of their major complaints has been with the Canadian Senate. The governing party appoints Senators in Canada, usually as a reward for service to the party. Our Senate has very little actual power, they might be able to delay the passing of a law, but they can't prevent anything. The Reform Party, and now The Conservative Party of Canada, has demanded all along that Senators, if not elected by the public, at least chosen by provincial legislators, with each province being guaranteed a certain number of Senators. This, would prevent governing parties from appointing Senators willy-nilly to suit their own nefarious purposes. One of the things they were most set against was the appointment of people to the Senate in order to offer them a position in a government's Cabinet. Many governments have done this in the past when they do not have a member elected in a province, or a region, so that they can at least have the appearance of representing that part of the country. After nigh on twenty years of complaining about this practice, the first thing this first time governing party does is (This party had never formed a government in Canada, no matter what newspapers say about the first Conservative government in thirteen years. This is not the same political party that was elected under Brian Mulroney. That party was known as the Progressive Conservative party) that very thing. They appoint some party hack, Michale Fortier from Quebec to the Senate so they can put him in the Cabinet. This is a guy who is quoted as saying that he didn't want to run in the election, because the time wasn't right to be involved with politics. What could have changed in less then a month? Maybe being offered a Cabinet post without having to go to all that trouble of being elected, or actually risking getting people's approval had something to do with it. Considering that the Conservative's didn't win a single seat in Montreal and that is where M. Fortier is from, could it have been decided in advance? Okay it looks like we're not going to get any seats in Montreal, so will you make the sacrifice of taking a Senate seat, and a place in Cabinet? You'll have to run in the next election, but by than it will be fine, everyone will have forgotten how you got in power. Last spring the Conservative party made quite the stink when one of their members crossed the floor to join the Liberals. Belinda Stronach had lost the leadership race to Stephen Harper, and was considered very liberal on social issues. She supported same-sex marriage and was pro-choice. She had tried to work within her party and it wasn't working. She was offered a cabinet post in the Liberal government, and more room for advancement. The timing of course was seen by the Conservatives as being the biggest betrayal, because it was the one vote that allowed the Liberals to stay in power last spring. But in some ways that makes the most sense; if you no longer support the party your with, you don't want to go into an election as a member of their caucus. Naturally at the time, Mr. Harper condemned this behaviour as underhanded and a betrayal of the democratic principles behind elections; she had been elected a Conservative, and was now a Liberal, what would the people of her riding think. She gave the voters in her riding a chance to decide on her in this past election, and she actually increased her margin of victory as a Liberal, over what it had been as a Conservative. So imagine everyone's surprise that David Emerson who was elected as a Liberal, in a riding where the Conservatives finished dead last, showed up at the Governor General's mansion on Monday to be sworn in as a member of the Conservative party's new Cabinet. This was a man who during the election was calling Conservatives a party with a hidden agenda that discriminated against immigrants, (his riding is heavily immigrant) and encouraged New Democratic Party voters to vote for him in an attempt to stop the Conservatives. In his victory speech after winning his riding he promised to be vigilant in fighting the Conservatives in any infringements of civil liberties and social issues. Now he's a Minster in their Cabinet committed to ensuring their survival as a government. Even when it comes to such issues as same – sex marriage, which he voted for the last time, and tighter immigration laws that he threatened his constituents with if they voted Conservative. Mr. Harper, of course, sees nothing untoward about a member of another party switching sides to come and work for him. That's totally different than someone going the other way. I just wonder why it doesn't constitute a betrayal of the people who voted for Mr. Emerson as a Liberal, nearly three to one over the Conservative candidate, and a betrayal of the democratic principles behind elections? The Reform Party used to see themselves as some sort of anti-politician political party. We won't conduct business as usual in that corrupt Ottawa way. But now that they have finally obtained power under the name of The Conservative Party of Canada, they've set a land speed record for political hypocrisy. They haven't even opened their first session of parliament and they already look like the opportunistic liars and cheats they used to accuse the Liberals of being. They said it was because the Liberals were venal and corrupt from long years in power with no one to challenge them. This Conservative Party has never been in power and has already proven them selves to be as arrogant and cynical as the Liberals ever were. That doesn't really inspire much trust in anything they say does it? I think we would be wise not to give them too much time in power, for their own good. They wouldn't want to become just another political party now would they?

The End Is Nigh: Finishing The First Draft Of "The Novel"

2006-02-07T06:16:00.000-05:00

It's only been three months plus a week since I started work on the "novel". It just feels like an eternity, but I've finally reached the point where I can say with confidence that the end is nigh: of volume one. I had taken some time off from the writing of the thing for a chunk of December and January. Oh I didn't ignore it totally or anything, just kept it on the backburner stewing away while I wrote blog after blog. After churning out the first 70,000 words during the frenetic frenzy of National Novel Writing Month 2005 last November I needed to distance myself from the process to see if I still cared enough to finish. I've had many initial impulses in my life for novels and stories that have just petered out from either lack of interest on my part, or because they obviously weren't going anywhere. It took me a long time to learn that a storyline for the characters to follow was not just conventional, but extremely helpful from an author's standpoint. Having goal in mind does give you something to focus on in the long run; a place for your characters that you've forced marched since the first page to end their journey. If nothing else it's only common courtesy. Otherwise they could find themselves wandering around in circles and never going anywhere. At least this way if they're wandering around in circles they have a destination that you're working them towards. Anyway, having left everyone stranded in Chapter twenty-five for a while, only checking in periodically to write a hundred words or so to see how they were doing. I decided I needed to make some decisions. First I had to figure out where the hell in the story I was and how much longer I figured it was going to take them to get to "the end". I was standing at 89,000 words and not even half way through. My choices were to compress the rest of the book to fit into another 50,000 words, or make it two volumes. If I chose to do one volume it would involve a radical change in the style I had developed to that point in order to speed the pace up. It would also mean leaving out some interesting character development and sub plots that I still wanted to play with. I like the relationship that was starting to develop between two of my characters and it would have to be ruthlessly cut from the story if I went the one volume route. There's no two volume DVD author's version when it comes to novels. What doesn't stay in the hard drive is never recovered for purchase by a few extra dollars next year at Christmas. If I were going to make this a one-volume affair I would have to go back to the beginning and ruthlessly cut out things I had loved writing in the first place. In the end there really wasn't that much of decision to be made. It was going to be a two-volume set. Once I had reached that conclusion everything started to flow again. Three chapters were banged out in a matter of a week, and what looks to be the final chapter of this book has been started, so the end is most definitely nigh. Of course the temptation exists to just keep writing. It's a far nicer prospect than the one I'm actually facing in the coming weeks of having to now go back and proof read this sucker and edit it into some sort of shape to send off to a publisher. I've barely looked at any of the stuff I've written since it went down on paper in November so have no idea what shape it is in. I'm not suffering from any illusions though, so I'm sure that I've a good chunk of rewriting to do before I would even consider letting a publisher glance at page one. It's been one thing to offer people the chance to read the first draft online (that offer still stands for those interested, just let me know and I'll e-mail you the link) if they so desire; they know that it's only a first draft full of all sorts of weird spellings and inconsistencies. (At one point I had called one character by three separate names and had renamed one of the races of people without noticing) But it is another thing altogether to send something off to a publisher. I'd be lying if I said that I would be disappointed if I couldn't at least get someone to read the whole manuscript, I'd also be lying if I didn't admit that I write for the purposes of publication. I want to see my work between the covers of a book on the shelves of a bookstore. Sure I write because I love to and have not much choice in the matter. Any day when I can't write anything is a disaster and I feel less than complete. It's a compulsion and an obsession as far as I am concerned so I'm going to write no matter what. This does not mean I wouldn't mind making some money off it. It's damn hard work for me sometimes and it would be great if I got some return on that labour. Of course in my writer's pride I also think it's better than "most of the crap out there" so if they can get published there's no reason in the world my book can't. I know very little about the publishing industry except for all the negative stuff that everybody hears all the time: inbred, conservative, and so on. But that doesn't seem to put a dent in my optimism (or naivety take your pick) that one-way or another this sucker will get published. I don't mean self published either. I have nothing against the idea of self-publishing, I already make use of Lulu.com for a bunch of materials, but I want this book to stand on bookshelves in bookstores, rubbing shoulders with the authors I've reviewed. She deserves to be happy and get a little piece of the spotlight. Once I have her all nicely edited and prepared for submission I'll start sending out the query letters requesting an audience for her with powers that be at a variety of publishing houses. I'd rather not play the game of trying to get an agent at first, because to me that's just another person who will try and figure out if they can make money from me. One of those is enough for now. Perhaps it sounds a little like I'm cheating turning the book into two volumes, and believe me I'm wondering that myself. But you know what I'm finding out, is that those thoughts haven't done anything to diminish my sense of accomplishment. I've started and finished the first draft of a book. So what if it doesn't mean I'm done with the story, now that I know I can finish one I know I can finish the second part without a problem. Maybe they will never get published except through my own means, that won't take anything away from the face that I created a world, populated it with people I like, and told a part of the story of their lives. That makes me feel pretty damn good about myself.

State Of The Gypsyman Address

2006-02-06T05:52:00.000-05:00

That's it. I've fuckin' had it; enough's enough. I suppose everybody has a saturation point and I think I've just about reached mine. What am I on about now you ask? Well just about everything if you really want to know. It can be pretty much whittled down to what's been in the papers lately. War, war, and just for an alternative how about some talk about a new war. Of course if you want a change in diet from war there's always religion, which usually leads to war so you might as well just see above. There are the daily reports from Iraq, or if you're really unlucky, about Iraq from the folk safely back home not getting shot at behind their podiums. We can win the war in Viet Nam; oh I'm sorry that would be Iraq. We will only bring the troops home when the job is done not a moment earlier. How do you know when that happens? Anyone figured that out yet? Does the body count have to fall below a certain level first, or is it when the number of troops that you've got left on the ground has dropped too far. How many lives were budgeted to be lost in advance? " Well if we want to take on Iran afterwards we can only lose so many"… Iran is the new war by the way. "Can't rule out the military option" is every one's favourite phrase this weekend. It will be easy; just change all those q's to n's and were set. Nobody pays attention to the names, as long as they sound Arabic nobody will notice that it's the same speech you gave about Iraq two and half years ago. Nuclear weapons – weapons of mass destruction; what's the difference? Not much really, or at least, not so anybody's going to notice. Anyway think of how easy it will be. Right next door to Iraq, all we have to do is just cross over the border and we're there. The navy and the air force are getting bored; they haven't had the chance to blow anything up from the sky in a while. The sailor types are just itching to launch more of those tomahawk cruise missiles and I'm sure the air force is looking at having to spend some of its budget if it wants to buy more toys next year. Give them some new targets for goodness sakes! Oh and hey, remember Afghanistan? Yeah that was the place the war on terror started, our first victory. Except we still haven't won that one because people are still getting killed over there pretty frequently by those guys we defeated. The Taliban are still out there in the mountains. They come out of their caves periodically to kill a bunch of people and remind them that if the NATO troops ever leave they'll be running the country again in less than two months. But we won that war didn't we? Didn't we? If that's not bad enough reading about all of that every single day, there's the ongoing war on terror in North America to curl your toes. The President of the United States has no problem authorizing illegal wiretaps on anyone who might be a security threat. I want to know who makes the list and what constitutes a security threat? Twenty years ago I was considered too much of a security risk to work at the G-8 conference in Toronto Ontario. There was a pretty picture taken of me in front of the American consulate in the early 1980's protesting the testing of cruise missiles in Canada. I guess that made me too dangerous to hand out press releases to journalists. I'd guess you wouldn't want to phone Cindy Sheehan up right about now and make any jokes about where she wants the dynamite delivered. Is their list of "Dangerous Subversives" going to be along the lines of Nixon's "Enemy List"? (If so, there's going to be a lot of competition to get on it. What kind of leftist are you if you couldn't get on Bush's "Subversive List). You know the one that had people like Bill Cosby and Warren Beatty on it; threats to America each and everyone of them. (Well maybe they are, but for different reasons than Nixon's people thought) Of course nobody's going to have to worry about an invasion from Canada now. The border is going to be patrolled by Blackhawk Helicopters and fighter jets. That's good, so now when they see a possible terrorist crossing the Peace Bridge they can just blow him and any fellow travelers away with a rocket attack. That there's the whole anti-Muslim thing going on that's starting to stick in my craw. Okay some of them are damned scary, and nobody, and I mean nobody, has the right to randomly blow up innocent civilians no matter how justified they think they are. Just because it's being done by bombs from the sky doesn't legitimize it any more then if it's dynamite strapped to some yahoo's body. The thing is though that the rest of the world has pissed on the Muslims since their inception. It started with the Crusaders and has been going on ever since. "Death To the Infidels" was something that was shouted from as many Christian mouths as Saracen. They tried to be nice, they let Christians and Jews live under their rule and practice their beliefs. They used to be a damn site more tolerant of Jews than the Christians were, just check out Muslim Spain if you want verification of that little fact. But you keep pushing people too far and you're going to create the situation we find ourselves in today. It's sort of been lost in the shuffle that the Scandinavian countries have been recently contemplating passing laws prohibiting parts of the Muslim dress code, or enacting legislation limiting Islamic immigration. Muslim people have been treated like something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe by our erstwhile allies in Europe since the end of World War Two. For some reason there was a serious shortage of able bodied man power at the end of that little set too, so most of Western Europe was more than willing to open their borders to "guest workers". Some of these guests have been there for two generations but will never be allowed to become citizens or allowed to vote in the country where they born. If it hadn't been for these folk I'd like to see how well off the European Union would be now. In Germany they have an affectionate name for Turkish guests: cockroaches. Like I said I'm not excusing the behaviour of any of the bomb-toting cowards who won't at least stand up and fight for what they believe in. I've more respect for a soldier who fights his enemy face to face, even if I don't believe in what they are fighting for, than any of these "martyrs". (Although martyrs have always pissed me off: "Oh it's okay I can do it myself, I'm used to it" becomes "Oh look at me I've just blown myself up to kill some women and kids, aren't I special?" real fast in my opinion. And vice versa.) But, I hate to say it, what really has made me so tired of it all, to the point of having to write this post or cry for a week, is the predictability of it all. Something happens in the world and you know before anyone says anything what everybody is going to say. Right, left, centre, whatever or whoever can always be counted on to say the same things over and over again. So very few people sound like they thing anymore. My opinion is decided by my politics not what I feel personally. I can never agree with George Bush even if he's correct because he's a Republican and a Christian. Or I can never agree with Al Gore because he's a godless Democrat. I know those are pretty simplistic examples but you know what I mean. Hell I'm supposed to be left of centre I suppose, but that's only because I believe if we're going to have governments the least they could do is look after the people who elected them. I don't mean their corporate sponsors either, I mean the people who live in their country and are just trying to make do the best they can. I've never understood what's so wrong with making sure everybody has a decent education, a place to live, and enough food to eat. Governments don't seem to be good for anything else, so the least they could do are those few things. If that makes me a socialist or worse in some people's eyes, so be it. But good lord the crap that comes out of people's mouths who I'm supposed to be politically allied with is just as much a conditioned reflex as the stuff that comes out of a conservative Christian's mouth. It's like everybody has a switch they flip which shuts off their brain and ears so they can talk without being interrupted. Okay, I'm done. I think the pressure gauges have stopped red lining now, and I can go back to being sort of calm and rational for a while. This world is a pretty spectacular place and part of its charm is the diversity of thought, opinion, and belief. We all need to take more time to appreciate it, including me.

Affordable Housing: Verbal Slapstick At Its Best

2006-02-05T08:26:00.000-05:00

Everybody knows what an oxy-moron is right? The deliberate formation of one word out of two contradictory words for effect: bittersweet or something similar along those lines. Than there are those oxy morons that we'd have to call accidentally ironic: Military Intelligence is an old favourite. Those words aren't normally polar opposites, but through their associations, or through our experiences of them, they have come to gain a meaning that is unintentionally sarcastic. In most cases their commentary is tinged with bitterness and have a certain amount of cynicism invested in them. One of my new favourites in that category has to be the phrase affordable housing. There's such promise in those two words; the implications being that there is a house or place of residence out there that's within everyone's means. I know for myself the first time I heard that phrase I had high hopes that it meant housing units within my price range. I wasn't silly enough to believe that it referred to anything other than rental properties when it came to my financial situation. People on fixed incomes have to be realistic about their means and what is possible. It wasn't until I began perusing apartment for rent advertisements that alarm bells started to go off. 95% of the listings that I looked at were well beyond the amount that the government considers sufficient to cover the shelter costs of two disabled people. What were most galling were the display ads proclaiming Kingston's (Kingston Ontario, Canada where I live) best affordable housing. Checking the advertised rents showed that they were a minimum of around 100 dollars more a month than our shelter allowance. In fact, I wondered who would actually consider some of those prices affordable. Not someone who is on minimum wage or even slightly higher is for certain. Was this title of affordable anything to do with what people could actually afford, or was it a means for a large company to prove they are deserving of building more rental units. I decided to do some checking into what the definition of affordable housing is as used in this context, According to what I've been able to ascertain, in Ontario affordable housing refers to the average price of a unit within it's category. So if the average price of a one bedroom apartment in Kingston is $750.00 per month plus utilities, it is considered affordable At one point in time Ontario was home to some of the better tenant protection legislation in Canada. Each year a fixed amount would be set, usually in line with any cost of living increase, that landlords were allowed to ask for as a rent increase. They weren't allowed to raise rents when an apartment came vacant, unless it was time for the annual increase. If a landlord had done extensive renovations that upgraded the quality of the facility they could apply for an additional amount in the form of a one-time increase. Of course rent control only applied to units that were below a certain dollar amount per month, recognising the need to put a ceiling on rents for the poor, while letting the landlords still rent out luxury residences that cost an arm and a leg. There was probably some sort of allowable ratio between the two, to ensure that a landlord supplied both types of units. But all of that became history in 1995 when a very right wing version of the Conservative party took power. Aside from gutting social services and programs they also scraped the whole rent control system, allowing landlords incredible carte blanche in the setting of rents. While annual increase were still limited, any time a unit came available it was now possible to raise the rent as much as you felt like. When this new feature was combined with easier means for landlords to evict tenants; (including the excuse of needing to do any renovations that might require tenants to vacate), and easier access to over the limit rent increases, rents in Ontario cities quickly sky-rocketed. According to the theory behind this loosening of regulations, landlords would be encouraged to build more rental units, and supply and demand would keep rents down to acceptable levels. The problem was that landlords decided to work the other side of the street of supply and demand. By not building more units they were able to charge high rents knowing people would be desperate enough for somewhere to live they would pay what was demanded. In smaller cities like Kingston another scenario developed. One developer is able to decide the average cost of an apartment in the city by owning a huge chunk of the units available for rent. As the majority of the apartments they own have been built in the years since the gutting of our rent control system, they have been able charge what ever rent they want for new apartments. Each time a vacancy came up in an older building the rent would be elevated to match that of an equivalent unit in a new building. The implications of this go far beyond just what rents people in Kingston are paying now. When levelsof government meet to talk about creating more housing units they look at the average price per unit, the affordable rent, and use that as the benchmark for new units. Instead of finding out what people can really afford to pay in rent, and establishing a base in that manner; they are looking at what people are forced to pay in order to live with a semblance of dignity. It used to be a rule of thumb that one should never pay more than thirty percent of your wages on shelter; it would cost that other 70% to live properly. Now people are fortunate if the balance has not shifted to the extent that they pay 70% of their income on shelter and are forced to scramble to try and feed themselves and have a semblance of a life. There is no such thing as affordable housing anymore; it is a myth perpetuated by governments more interested in appearances than actually doing anything. Kingston Ontario has a population of 161,000 according to the welcome signs on the highway. We have the lowest vacancy rate of any city in Canada and the average price for a two bedroom apartment, the affordable cost, is somewhere over $800 a month plus utilities. Once you move to the larger cities, that's the price of a single roomed apartment with a bathroom and kitchen attached. While recent headlines have trumpeted money being made available for building geared to income housing (housing where rents are not allowed to exceed 30% of the tenants income and whose occupancy is restricted to those below a certain level of earnings or on fixed incomes) nothing is made mention of the fact there is no budget to maintain the ones in existence. At present the waiting list for a one bedroom geared to income apartment is five years in Kingston Ontario, and drops to one year for a two bedroom. The majority of this housing has been allowed to degenerate to slum due to insufficient funds to both maintain and secure the premises. They also have fast become welfare ghettos where people without hope are piled one on top of each other and quickly stop caring about their existence. The majority of the units are placed in isolated, out of the way areas of town, further increasing the ghetto mentality and prevents occupants from having easy access to the rest of the city. Even if you are eligible to live in one of these units you are somehow expected to survive in the open market for whatever period the waiting list demands, and than be forced to live in unsafe and unpleasant conditions. None of this is conducive to providing individuals with much hope that conditions are actually going to get any better when it comes to the issue of safe, accessible and affordable housing. I'm sure that compared to conditions in other countries there's very little to complain about, and that there would be people in the world who would be grateful to have what little that's available here. The thing is we are supposedly one of the wealthiest nations in the world and this shouldn't be an issue at all. I know there are plenty who would disagree with me, that's obvious because of the state of things, but I would think that a government's priorities should be focused on the health and well being of its citizens, not how they can save a few bucks at the expense of the least fortunate. I suppose until that time comes we will have too live in a world where terms like affordable housing and military intelligence are the verbal equivalent of slipping on a banana peel: funny to watch but lousy to experience.

Grandfather Memories

2006-02-04T09:06:00.000-05:00

My grandfather was born in 1900 on this date, which of course means if he were still alive he would be 106. Unfortunately for me he died in 1985, which still means he had a good run for his money. He was pretty much ready to go; he had blacked out one night getting out of bed and had fallen and broken his arm. He never came home from the hospital, dying a few days after being admitted. People can say all they want about his blood pressure and strokes etc. but as far as I'm concerned he went because he'd had enough. His body was betraying him; my grandmother was in remission from Leukemia and I know he didn't want to be left alone; and he was tired. Eighty-five years is a long time for anyone to hang around in this world, and it's even longer when you've spent a lot of your life struggling in poverty. Narciss (Arthur) Marcus was the son of Romanian Jewish immigrants and was born in Montreal. He grew up in the Jewish ghetto on St. Urbain St. like so many other more famous compatriots. Supposedly his grandfather had been an ultra religious rabbi, but somewhere along the line the family seems to have stepped back from their faith. Even as a child it appears my grandfather spent very little time in the synagogue. The family's life in Europe seems to change according to what e version of the story the person your talking to knows. But some of the more consistent facts are that my mother's grandfather spent time in Paris in the 1800s, which is where he learnt French. He had also been a lamp lighter in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, before coming to North America, and they had had to flee Europe because my he had stabbed a Cossack during a pogrom. (My mother claims that this story is questionable because she was never told it, but both my brother and I heard it, so that's good enough for us.) However it happened, the Marcus family ended up in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Montreal was a common destination for Jews from Romania. They differed from a lot of the other Jewish immigrants in that they were usually more educated, urban instead of rural, and inclined to politics. Like so many other immigrant groups there was a hierarchy among Jews that was invisible to outsiders. One of my grandfather's favourite stories, which he loved to repeat in front of my grandmother while holding her hand and beaming, was to recall what his family had said when he announced his intentions of marrying her: " Remember to hold your head high, you are a Romanian, they're just Pollacks" At which my grandmother would chime in and add: "The only thing lower than a Pollack was a Litvack." (Lithuanian Jew) My grandfather had been thirty-one when he married Bertha Banks, which in those days was quite late in life, and had until that time led, judging by his descriptions, an eventful life. Supposedly it started when he was two years old, which was his age the day he wandered away from home to go to the fish market. He stayed fairly close to home after that until he was sixteen and he tried to enlist in the army underage. He was actually in the army for one night, until his mother found out what had happened and went down and hauled him home. Although at the time he must have been disappointed and embarrassed, I'm fairly sure that in latter years he probably didn't regret missing out on the horrors of the trenches too much. He always used to joke about helping the Bronfmans make their first million (Seagram's Whisky) during the twenties. He never gave out too many details, but from what he did tell us it was obvious that he and his brother Dave would fill the trunk of Dave's car with whisky and drive it through the Quebec backroads and over into Vermont during prohibition in the States. I still remember him making comments about actually preferring the bathtub gin that people were making to the bottled whisky he was carrying down to sell to them. I don't think they were part of anything larger than just bootlegging the whisky out of their car's trunk, although he did have a couple of stories he used to tell us that were based out of Chicago. Just makes me wonder what he was doing there in the twenties. When he married he immediately settled down in an effort to support his wife and the two girls who would be born in the first four years of their marriage. But this was the Depression of the 1930's and jobs were scarce. In 1933, when my mother was born, they were living in downtown Toronto, in one room with a bathroom down the hall. During the thirties the family moved from Windsor to Montreal and back to Toronto again as my grandfather hunted for work. Like so many others they were saved by the war and the need for people to work in the factories who weren’t able to fight for one reason or another. It was after the war that my grandfather started the career that would see him through to the end of his working days; working in men's clothing. He was never part of the shmutah (rag trade, or cheap clothing manufacture) business like so many of his brother's in law, nor made the money they did. He climbed the ladder from shop assistant to finally owning his own franchise. He must have owned the last Dunn's Tailor shop in Eastern Canada (Many years latter I remember being astounded to see a Dunn's tailor store in downtown Vancouver) It was around the time that he was just taking over his franchise in the west end of Toronto that I entered the picture. Since I was born in Ottawa, and my grandfather worked six days a week I have no memories of him until my family moved to Toronto in 1966 when I was five. It's funny how you associate certain people and certain stages of your life; with my grandfather the association is divided into childhood when he and my grandmother living in a two-bedroom apartment in the Jewish neighbourhood of Bathurst and Eglington in Toronto, and adolescence when they bought a condominium out in the far suburbs. I'll always remember the smells from that first building; the combinations of a variety of things being cooked; as the smells of comfort. They were big solid apartments that I remember as being as fascinating. Whenever I read a story that takes place in an older apartment, it's this apartment that I visualize in my minds eye. The el shaped hall way that led off the living room down to the bedroom and the bathroom; the square kitchen where the smells of baked chicken, kugel, chopped liver, and matzah ball soup always hung in the air; the living room/dining room which could feel vast when I was alone, but small and cramped on Sunday nights when we were crammed in their with my aunt an uncle for dinner. I remember a conversation I had with my brother a number of years back. I had just told him about how really rotten my childhood had been. He had taken a couple of weeks to absorb it, but when he did, he phoned me back and we talked about things. One thing he brought up was that apartment. He asked me if I remembered spending our summers there. I had replied of course, and he talked about how it always felt like such a relief to be there and to get away from our parents. Thinking back on it, I realize it was one of the few places I felt safe during my childhood. I knew my grandparents loved me, you never doubted that with them. It wasn't anything they said, but the way they treated us. They didn't spoil us, nor did they let us get away with murder, but I was never afraid of my grandfather even when he'd get angry about something. Perhaps that's what grandparents the world over do for their grandchildren, make them feel special, but for me what was neither of them scared me. I don't think I realized until recently how significantly my father had terrified me as a child. Thinking about the times as a teenager when I would visit him after my parents had separated, and realizing that even as a young adult I was terrified of being alone with him. If it was that bad then, I must have spent my childhood in a permanent state of fear. It's no wonder that staying with my grandparents was looked on with such relief. Of course there were other benefits as well; not the least being the wealth of expertise and experience my grandfather had in subjects not taught in schools. We learned how to shoot craps, and notice if the dice were "loaded", weighted to fall in certain way; the variety of ways in which poker could be played and how cards could be marked; the intricacies of shooting pool (it's very embarrassing to be beaten by a man who can barely see to the end of his pool cue, but can get around a table through memory and feel) But what sticks out most in mind were the family outings to the racetrack. My grandfather loved horses, not just the betting on them. He thought they were the most marvellous animals in the world. He loved to go down to the paddock before each race and look at the horses. That's not to say he didn't know how to bet on them, because he did. He probably had just as good an eye for a winner as any professional trainer. That was the other reason for going to see the horses parade before being led out onto the track. I asked him once what he was looking for but he couldn't really say. It was just the eye of experience, and knowing what had gone into making a winner in the past that allowed him insight into what he was looking at. Of course he didn't pick winners every time, no one does. There are so many variables that come into play; track conditions, will the horse get blocked by another, and a thousand other little details which the better has no control over. What he could do was see the horse with the best chance of winning based on the horses in that particular race on that particular day. When he was no longer able to see the odds board in the infield he stopped going to the races. We should have known that was the beginning of the end. When he was eighty and his appendix ruptured he almost died, and even though he recovered he was never the same afterwards. But what really destroyed him was when my grandmother got Leukemia. He would spend his nights at my mother's apartment downtown, and than go to sit in the hospital for the day, only leaving when visiting hours ended. When they filled her body with radiation in an attempt to kill the cancerous cells and almost killed her he turned into an old man in front of our eyes. She survived to have a remission but he never recovered, and it was only a year latter that he died. By the time he died his hearing was almost gone, he could barely see in spite of the numerous lens implant surgeries he had, and his body wouldn't allow him to walk with comfort anymore. If one were to measure his life in terms of finances and other material means, it was one just like millions of other people. I'm also certain that there are lots of people whose grandfather meant a lot of the same things to them that mine did to me. My grandfather would have been 106 today and has been dead for twenty-one years. I still miss him.

CD/DVD Review: Billy Bragg Volume 1

2006-02-03T07:41:00.000-05:00

The tradition of the solo troubadour dates back probably to pre renaissance Europe when performers armed with a lute and a song would woo their ladyloves with extravagant words praising their charms. Traveling musicians roaming the countryside have been the subject of many a story and song themselves, until the image has obtained a kind of inherent romanticism. Balladeers have also served to disseminate information and tell the heroic stories of the realm. So it wasn't too great a leap for singers too make the jump to political activism in the early days of the fights to organize labour unions in North America. Men like Joe Hill penned many a song that was sung at union rallies to raise the spirits of the miners or factory workers who were trying to fight for living wages and safe working conditions. That the mill owners and government officials found it necessary to have Joe Hill framed and killed on a murder charge shows just how much they meant to people. In the days of the Great Depression people like Wood Guthrie would travel the country singing songs to the people in the work camps, attempting to keep spirits up and to rally them to fight for a better life. . Although as the years have passed the popularity of the solitary person on stage with a guitar has dwindled, with the hay day being the early 1960's, every so often a new one is thrown up that strikes a chord with audiences everywhere. In the 1980's it was Billy Bragg. After spending three years in a band called Riff Raff and a three month stint in the British Army, Billy embarked on a solo career with just him and his guitar. Inspired by the punk ethos advocated by The Clash, and the emotional guitar work of old blues players, he became the quintessential troubadour of his times. Eschewing the lavish rock star life style of big venues and big bucks, he embarked on tours of pubs, church halls, and mining pitheads. His songs didn't mince any words; re-working the old union organizing songs of the twenties and the thirties to reflect the realities of Margaret Thatcher's England. In the "us against them" world she created, songs like "Which Side Are You On" were as relevant to the times as they had been in the Depression. An unabashed socialist, Billy advocated the rights of the workers and the downtrodden in an increasingly conservative world. Which made his commercial success all the more surprising. With no marketing specialists, and public relations consultants his 1983 EP Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy sold a 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom alone. But what set, and continues to set him apart to this day, from other "political" musicians was the obvious sincerity behind his music and the lack of contradiction between what he said and how he lived. When your touring consists of climbing in the back of a beat up Volvo station wagon with your guitars, amplifier and manager, there's something a lot more genuine about you than the guys staying at the Hilton with their entourages. What's more is Billy wrote adult love songs. As he put it in an interview he was looking to write songs that "talked about love without saying I love you, but showed the forms love can take". Songs like "Love Gets Dangerous", and "Love Lives Here" aren't designed to get you drooling over the performer, and have themes other than teen lust or boy meets girl, loses girl to other boy and whines about her. In some ways his love songs are probably more subversive than his political material for that reason. He actually makes his audience think about relationships and the emotional interplay between people. Dangerous stuff that, elevating the subjects of a pop love song into real people and not just objects to be won or lost in a competition. If Billy ever needed any official stamp of approval for his credentials as a singer of integrity; as if anybody could have doubted that after hearing him just once, it came in the 1990s. He was asked to front up a special project involving unfinished songs left behind by Woody Guthrie when he died. Woody's daughter Nora approached Billy to write the music for some of the 2500 songs that Woody had only written lyrics to. Collaborating with the band Wilco, English fiddler Eliza Carthy, blues man Corey Harris, and singer Natalie Merchant, Billy recorded two albums of these never heard Guthrie tunes. Mermaid Avenue was released in 1998, and Mermaid Avenue Volume II in 2000. It has been more then twenty years since the release of Billy's initial EP, so there are bound to be a lot of people out there who have missed out on the Billy Bragg experience. Yep Rock Records is doing the world a huge service by not only re releasing early titles like Brewing Up With Billy Bragg and Talking Poetry To The Taxman, but also putting together an elaborate box set entitled Billy BraggVolume 1 This set includes seven CDs of music, 2 DVDs of previously unavailable concert footage, and the usual biographical booklet. It's one of the most complete retrospectives of any artists early years that I have seen in ages. Since it showed up at my door I've spent the ensuing hours listening to songs that, for me anyway, recalls a time when it felt like music could make a real difference. In Billy's voice I hear overtones of Joe Strummer and in his guitar the urgency and immediacy of punk. There's nothing decorous about Billy, he's right there in your face. He still has the power to force you to have an opinion on subjects. The material may not be as topical as it once was, but the attitude behind it remains as relevant today as it was yesterday. Just as listening to old songs about the Depression years written by Woody Guthrie carry an emotional impact, Billy Bragg's songs about the conflicts between the miners and Margaret Thatcher transcend their topic. His songs about soldiers returning from the Falkland's Island war can just as easily be about soldiers dealing with coming home after serving their rotation in Iraq. War and its horrors don't change just because the venue and technology have shifted. The DVD concert footage, while some of the sound quality isn't the best, are fascinating period pieces. Watching him perform behind the Iron Curtin in East Germany and Lithuania in the mid eighties singing about workers rights causes you to reflect on both what we know about the repressive natures of those regimes, what their reactions to genuine unions was like, and the events that we know will happen in about five years time. I found myself looking at the audience members and wondering how many of them would be marching in the streets of Berlin in 1989 as part of the revolution that saw the collapse of the Soviet regimes. History is a funny thing sometimes and although I dearly love Billy's music and songs, some of the comments he made during one of his concerts in the DDR were so politically naïve that they made me wince. I couldn't help myself from thinking that if the people in his audiences tried to act upon any of the ideals or ideas expressed in his songs, they would find themselves in a jail cell. It doesn't detract from the truth and integrity of his music, and I hope that he to was aware of the situation and his words were chosen to accommodate his circumstances. Not that he ever endorsed the policies of the regime, but something about it just made me feel uncomfortable. Of course I also wondered if the authorities had listened to the songs he was going to play in advance, because some of the things his music advocates would not have gone over well in with politburo members. Those concerns are offset by the quality of his performances. I've never had the opportunity to see Billy live, and probably won't, and these concerts do a wonderful job of communicating the power and passion of a Billy Bragg performance. You get an idea of his integrity when listening to him, but it's only when you see him perform that you understand the depth of his commitment to what he's singing about. Two of the highlights of the DVDs for me were a BBC interview/feature done on Billy in the mid eighties after he was somewhat established. It was well done and you gain a better perspective of the man and his ideals. I can't imagine anything similar being done on North American television at the time or even to today. The other piece that held me, probably for personal reasons, was a short clip of him singing in Spanish in small hall in Nicaragua. This was in 1985, during the height of the American backed terrorist campaign in that country, and the small crowd was a mixture of people. A couple of soldiers, some farmers, and others gathered to hear some English guy whose songs they wouldn't have been able to understand. I have no idea what song he was singing, but it was obviously one the audience knew because they were all singing along. Watching Billy on stage belting out this song, with a huge grin on his face, summed up all his finest qualities as an artist and a human being. He genuinely loves what he does and is able to communicate that felling and belief in spite of language barriers. Billy Bragg Volume 1 will be in stores on February 21 2006. Billy himself will be landing in North America in March. His first gig will be March 11th in Toronto Canada, which means it won't be a wasted flight if he gets turned back at the border entering the States. Since he's booked to play at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin Texas let's hope that doesn't happen. All things going to plan he'll be doing a two week tour of the United States to support the reissue of the four discs and this great box set. If you don't own anything by this singular recording artist, than I'd highly recommend Billy Bragg Volume 1 It's a remarkable tribute to a genuinely unique performer and individual.

Our Story Is Not History For Everybody

2006-02-02T07:33:00.000-05:00

There's nothing like having your own ignorance brought to your attention to make you start thinking of the implications of that which caused your lack of knowledge. The first thing I do after being corrected or being informed is try and figure out why it was I didn't know that information. Usually it something as trivial as not having been exposed to the knowledge; I can live with thay, because it is something that can be easily corrected. Other times it's because of prejudice on my part, where I've let my political beliefs colour my judgement. That pisses me off a lot, because I like to think that I don't let ideology cloud my thinking. But as far as I'm concerned neither one of those are a big deal when compared to third reason. Either studying or giving other ideas closer consideration easily corrects those two problems. No the one that bothers me the most is when my ignorance is born of circumstances created by the forces of history and other events beyond my control. I suppose I should cite an example in order to clarify what I'm talking about. The simplest thing to do would be to use the circumstances that made me think of this. For the past few months I have been a member of a Yahoo group called Epic India. This is a group that was formed to discuss the works of the Indian author Ashok Banker. Mr. Banker has taken upon himself the mammoth task of creating modern English adaptations of all the great Epic stories of India. He has finished work on his first effort, a six volume retelling of the three thousand year old Ramayana (all six volumes are in the hands of the publishers more or less, with volume five in the stores now and six to be released in the near future) His next project, which he has already begun work on, is to be a ten volume retelling of The Mahabharata. In a recent e-mail to the group Ashok gave us a link to see a map of what he said was somewhere named Bharat during the time period of The Mahabharata. Being the observant fellow I am, I noticed the inclusion of the word Bharat within the title of the epic. Hmm I wondered, is there a connection, and if so what?

Bharat is the Indian word for India. India is a mispronunciation of Sindhu, which was the name of the great river that the British mispronounced “Indus” and later adopted as the country’s name, India …Maha means ‘great’. So the epic’s name literally means ‘Great Bharata’… Ashok Banker letter 2006

Hands up everybody who is not of Indian heritage who knew that the British had renamed the country by mispronouncing the name of a river? It's things like this that have inspired Mr. Banker's attempts to retell the stories of India from an Indian perspective instead of the one that dominates the history books of the world. In an interview he gave in August 2005 he said: "Yes, of course, I wish to reclaim Indian history. Not only for Indians, but for all to read… I'm merely staking my claim to a right which has unjustly been denied me and other Indians ever since the East India Company banned the translation of Sanskrit and other edicts and scriptures into English two hundred years ago." This of course got me thinking of all the people's throughout the world who have had the same thing happen. Whose name has been taken away from them either accidentally or as a deliberate policy. The most obvious example for North Americans is the people who were here before the Europeans showed up. Those people, who we now lump together under the title of First Nations instead of the original misnomer of Indians, were never a single bloc of people as Hollywood and history books would have us believe. The various language groups and people's were as distinct from each other as Germans are from French and Italians from Russian. How many countries around the world has the pattern been repeated. People living in a country that carries a name bearing little or no relationship to who and what they are. It's no coincidence that almost the first thing that most African nations did upon achieving independence from their colonial overseers was changing their names. The inheritance of the arbitrary dissecting of Africa amongst the colonial powers has been the distribution of peoples outside their traditional tribal territories. This has led to some of the worst incidences of mass murder in recent years. How many of us can claim to know where these people's homelands were prior to them being displaced? We live in a world composed of huge lies. We see everything through the filter of history that was written by the conquerors. Even though we are aware of this, as a society we make little attempt to adjust our attitudes and feelings of superiority. "Why should we care about others when we are the best" is the attitude that trickles down to us from our leadership. Our God, our lifestyle, our way of choosing leaders, our everything is so much better than anything they could possibly have. Look at how many of them want to come here, to the "Land Of Opportunity". Well of course there's been immigration. Those countries have been the scene of so much poverty caused by the exploitation of their resources and labour force during colonial periods that they are only now beginning to recover. Perhaps you need to start watching something besides CNN if you haven't noticed that countries like India have become economic powers in the last few years. Why is it that so many of us cling to the misconceptions of the past? What is it that we are so afraid of that we must bluster on about being the best of everything? Or even worse, expect everyone to be like us. What does it really mean when our leaders say things like, our values can be an example to the world? Why is it whenever I hear someone use the word values I have the feeling they want to impose their way of thinking on the rest of the world? They never say what those values are, but everyone assumes its what they personally believe in, so that's okay. The whole world should be just like me. What is so wrong with people being different? Why can't we just accept that others believe in different things than us and stop trying to impose our way of life on them? Whether it's extremist Muslims, Christians, Hindi, Capitalists, Jews or Communists, none of them seem to understand that our diversity is what makes humans so unique. Instead of trying to fit everybody into one mould, we should be celebrating what we can offer each other. Even within our own culture there is diversity of belief, and opinion that makes our lives more interesting. If all of us thought the same, this site would be damn boring. When we continue on with the past traditions of being ignorant of other people's beliefs, and continue to espouse our superiority, we increase the chances for conflict. Colonial attitudes have proven unwieldy in the past and have caused nothing but trouble; don't you think it's time we tried something different?

Speed Kills: Not Video Games

2006-02-01T07:23:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday night, January 24th, a wealthy and exclusive residential neighbourhood in Toronto Canada was witness to an event that's growing in popularity among North American teens; street racing. Nobody might have paid any undue attention to the two Mercedes Benz cars travelling at 140 kmh (90 mph) in a 50 kmh (35 mph) zone save for the fact their actions resulted in the death of a local cab driver. One of the two cars smashed into the taxicab with such force that it folded the vehicle around a utility poll. Adding to the poignancy of the case are the discrepancies in status between the teenaged defendants and the victim of the event. While the young men are the progeny of affluent families, the late cab driver had been working as a cabbie for the last six years in order to afford to bring his wife to Canada. He was due to be sworn in as a Canadian citizen on Friday February the 3rd and had been expecting his wife to able to join him shortly after. The young men have been charged with criminal negligence causing death, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, and failing to stop after an accident causing death. They are currently out on bail of $50,000 a piece and living under numerous restrictions including being prohibited from driving. A case like this doesn't need any distractions from the details of the actual events. It has already been complicated enough by the sentiments aroused concerning the circumstances of the deceased. But media outlets have begun to muddy the waters further by focusing on the fact that a certain video game was found in the front seat of one of the two cars being raced. "Did Need For Speed Kill" was the headline the following day in the Toronto tabloid The Toronto Sun and was also the theme of many a talk radio call in show. In other words did the fact that these two young men had obviously played this game at some point have any bearing on the death of the cab driver? In the article linked to above, Scott Colbourne of The Globe and Mail, author of the article linked to above, answers with a qualified yes. Mr. Colbourne writes a weekly column for the newspaper on matters relating to online and computer media and examines them within the context of our overall society and culture.

Here is my personal answer: Of course it did. Video games are now part of the wider culture, just like movies, books and car magazines, and our culture sends out some very contradictory messages about the use of vehicles as playthings…The idea that driving fast means something -- that there's a real need for speed -- is deeply ingrained in society. We have speed limits, but a car's monetary worth is partly based on how much it can surpass those limits, on how many horses it has under the hood…Scott Colbourne, The Globe and Mail Tuesday January 31/06

We are a society hooked on the power of a motor vehicle and the sexiness that goes with it. We are obsessed with their speed and the implied coolness of owning a high-powered, high performance, vehicle. Look at movies like The Fast and the Furious or anyone of hundreds that feature car chases through city streets. Street racing has been a staple in movies for ages, whether it was the showdowns on the drag strip in old fifties movies or infamous chase scenes in French Connection and Bullet. Then there are car commercials that rhapsodies about their ability to go from 0-60 in minimal times; can take corners at speed and appeal to our fantasies of being behind the wheel a lean, mean street fighting machine. What kind of image is a car manufacturer selling when they have their latest model speeding around a racetrack? Do they really think that by flashing on the screen "Professional driver on closed course" they are offering sufficient counter point to their message of speed and more speed? One only has to look at the customizations young men use to modify their vehicles to see how pervasive the need for speed has become. Scoops on the engines to increase air flow and efficiency; racing foils added to the rear of cars that increase speed, and special noise generators on the exhaust pipes that modify the car's sound to suggest more power. What other purpose can any of these accoutrements serve aside from preparing these vehicles to race? No one is going to put foils on a car so they can sedately drive the speed limit to take the car grocery shopping or go to the Laundromat. Yet we still act shocked and dismayed when we hear about incidents like the accident last week. It's become easier and easier to blame the entertainment industry for anything that happens. It used to be violence on television that was the cause of societies ills, then it was popular music with it's salacious lyrics, and now the new kid on the block are the video games Sure some of them are violent, and some of them involve high speed car driving, but so does almost every movie or television show in the theatres or on the air. But, the argument goes, in video games people are active participants and are encouraged in that behaviour. Why should playing a video game encourage behaviour of any kind, they're obviously not real. A game isn't going to make you do anything that you were not inclined to do in the first place. Toronto Police Service Detective Paul Lobsinger was quoted in the Toronto Sun article, buried near the bottom of the piece, as saying: "There is a small percentage who have difficulty separating reality and simulation, fantasy. It's a very, very small percentage… This was not the game's fault. There are millions who play this game and don't go out and do this." If these games truly did influence behaviour wouldn't there be much more wide spread behaviour of the kind depicted in them? In some ways games are probably the least likely to have the effect of pushing people into the streets to race their cars, as they do allow them to experience the thrill and the difficulty of driving a car at high speeds. Any of the racing games I have had experience with have told me how hard it is to control a vehicle when driving at accelerated speeds. They have also made me realize I probably have no business being behind the wheel of any vehicle, but that's another story. Of course there are going to be some people who can't differentiate between fantasy and reality, but they are not going to need video games to influence their decisions. Those are the types of people who cross over the line between what is socially acceptable and what isn't all on their own. Blaming entertainment media for crime or behaviour is a cop-out. It's utilizing a scapegoat in order to ignore a serious societal problem. Blaming pornography for the objectification of women is attacking a symptom not the deep-rooted societal antipathy towards them that allows pornography to exist. If we did not already believe women to be less then men that form of objectification wouldn't happen. The same applies to video games and whatever they are being blamed for this week. In the case of high-speed car races the culture of worshiping a motor vehicle has existed since they became a mass consumer item. They were marketed from the get go as being essential to defining ones masculinity. There's a reason for the jokes about male sexual prowess and cars; the car companies in their need to ensure sales created that atmosphere. Passing the buck to movies or video games allows us to feel morally superior about an incident without having to accept any responsibility. The truth of the matter is that as a society we are all guilty in the death of that cab driver last week. If we did not continue to worship at the altar of the internal combustion engine, praying for heightened status through our devotion, street races like the one that took his life would never happen. To paraphrase the National Rifle Association: Video games don't kill people; people kill people.

Our Glamorous World

2006-01-31T09:20:00.000-05:00

There's an old expression, probably from the British Isles, which used to describe somebody under the influence of a magic spell as being under "a glamour". This was used especially in instances of fairy, or the fae's, involvement. This type of bewitchment usually involved the victim becoming so enamoured of something or body that they would eventually waste away to nothing on the human plane. There was nothing here that could compete with what the glamour offered. Nowadays the word glamour is quite a bit more prosaic and is used as an adjective to describe a person's, thing's or lifestyle's affect on us. In some ways of course it still retains its connotations of casting a spell on the observer, as those who are glamorous affect their observers. What exactly does glamour mean? According to my handy-dandy- pocket Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary glamour (from the Scottish gramarye meaning magic power) is a noun meaning alluring charm or fascination. By extension glamorous means you have those attributes. If one were to judge the word solely by those definitions it would be easy to consider it quite subjective. Like beauty, glamour should be in the eye of the beholder and individuals free to decide what holds sway over them. But like beauty, our terms of reference for glamour are dictated by the limitations imposed by societal pressures. In North America our ideals our defined on a daily basis by movies, television and advertisers; we have specific magazines dedicated to telling us who and what are glamorous and why we should want to be like them. For far too many people their notion of self-image revolves around the message that is delivered by these so – called repositories of the truth. Magazines like People, US, Vanity Fair, and Glamour are all dedicated to propagating the myth of the ideal lifestyle and physical image through their continual detailing of who and what define glamorous. Not only are their primary content dedicated to the "stars" but the pages are awash with advertisement after advertisement preying on people's desire of becoming just like those featured in the article's pages. It's in this fashion that the lifestyles of the "stars" are made to be important, but even worse, painted as the ideal. Their fancy cars, their opulent homes, and most of all, their appearances are depicted as being what any sane person should be striving to obtain. The message of you should want to be like them, is perhaps one of the most widely spread and harmful concepts being foisted on the public today. Not only does it establish unreasonable expectations in regards to measuring your life as a success or failure in the long term, but its impact on how people view their body image has an immediate effect. Young women trying desperately to be accepted with peer groups refuse to believe that the person who they are is worthy, so they look to these images of glamour for guidance. They see pictures of women who have obtained a certain body type through genetics, starvation and surgery and measure themselves against that standard and feel like failures. At a minimum it will cause them to become obsessed with their appearance enough to worry about the clothes they wear, their hair, and their manner of speech; hiding their own inherent beauty behind imitations of glamour. At worse, if they are already so susceptible, they could develop an eating disorder along the lines of anorexia or bulimia. Eating disorders are not simply caused by a person's desire to lose weight in order to emulate someone else's appearance; they are far more complex than that. However when combined with the feelings of inadequacy and guilt that are pre-existing in one disposed to being anorexic, it could be enough of a blow to their sense of self to initiate the onset of the disease. That these conditions exist in our society today is without doubt, one only need look at the success and pervasiveness of magazines and television programmes dedicated to the examination of so-called glamorous life-styles for proof of that. Why they thrive is another matter. How is it that so much of our life has come to revolve around people of so little value to our society as a whole? None of them are responsible for doing anything to improve our lot by making breakthroughs in science or medicine. Neither is the majority of their endeavours going to be intellectually challenging or artistically inspiring enough to influence future generations. In fact many of them have an influence that only lasts for the briefest of moments. What kind of "glamour" have they cast over us that holds so many in such a thrall that we fixate on even the least of their kind to the point of obsession? Is there that much dissatisfaction felt by that many people for the lives they lead that it translates into desperately wanting to be someone else? Perhaps that's it. Look around the world and see how many people have had their childhood dreams dashed. How many people feel like the world has let them down, and that in some manner or another their lives haven't turned out the way they planned it? Working at a job with no prospects for advancement and subject to the whims of people who are higher up on the ladder than you probably wasn't what you had in mind when you left school. The opportunity to escape, even momentarily, into some fantastical realm of perfectly beautiful people living the ideal of the American dream of making it big, is too tempting to resist. Even to give yourself whatever imitation of that dream you can afford is to allow for some fulfilment, no matter how minor. It is far easier to fantasize than to actually do something about changing your reality. At the risk of sounding paranoid it is also probably preferred that people remain content with their lots in life and not seek to change their situation. There is a need in society for people to do jobs that service others. There is very little in the way of incentive that can be offered to those people to do those jobs except escape through mindless fantasy. Pie in the sky rewards of eternal bliss in heaven is no longer sufficient bribery for our consumer driven populous. They need something in the here and now to keep them happy. Vague promises of you too can be a star, and living vicariously through those who are living in that stratosphere, are the inducements offered to satiate the need for instant gratification. To some of us it may not look like much of a carrot augmenting the whip, but to others the tantalization of fame's potential is too great to resist. Why else would people subject themselves to participating in "reality" television programming or appearing as the subject of a talk show if not for that fleeting chance at the brass ring of celebrity? In many ways glamour hasn't changed much from that old saying of being under a spell. The power of celebrity and stardom still hold numerous people in thrall. Clothing styles, manners of speech and concepts of physical attractiveness are dictated by those deemed glamorous. Glamour is something that we are supposed to want to obtain, because it will give us standing and prestige amongst our peers. The fact that it's based on arbitrary standards and superficial ideals is a sad commentary on the state of our society and the manner in which we measure accomplishment. We can only hope that there will come a day when intellect and integrity are held in the same esteem as physical beauty and material wealth. When that day arrives we will be able to say that we have obtained maturity as a society. Until then we must accept the fact that superficiality has cast a spell over a large proportion of our population and anyone who can, will utilize that to their advantage. Politicians, the entertainment industry and anybody else wishing to influence public opinion, already make as much use of these circumstances as possible. To some extent we are all under "a glamour" on a daily basis.

Making Money Off Iraq

2006-01-30T04:38:00.000-05:00

In the days of the Roman Empire people used to compete to be awarded positions of responsibility in her various outposts. From one far-flung corner to another plums like Tax Collector and Customs Officer were wildly sought after, even to the point of being passed down from father to son. Lest you think that the people of the ancient world were filled with a burning ambition to serve their emperor in whatever way possible, those were two of the positions where individuals saw the most potential for the lining of their own pockets with gold. Unlike those higher up in the chain of command these lower offices provided plenty of opportunities for wealth, while requiring little outlay in return. Unlike the governor, who received a cut from every office by the way, who had to host formal occasions and maintain a sizeable staff, these men were able to operate with a minimum of expenses and a maximum of potential for reward. As long as they weren't stupidly greedy and do anything that would draw attention to their activities that would force authorities to take action, they were set for life. I'm sure that it was taken to be accepted practice by the central powers, and a studiously blind eye was turned to all such activities. As long as the Empire was getting it's expected return they didn't much care what individuals did out in the field. How else were you going to convince someone to leave the comforts of Rome to go the damp and wilds of Britain if there wasn't the opportunity to come home far wealthier than when you left? Ten years or so after starting one of these positions a person who played their cards right could be set for life. There was little or no auditing of the books or whistle blowing back in those days. As everybody from the guard at the customs shed to the governor was getting their cut, it was in all their best interests to see that the system was maintained. So it should come as no surprise to people the recent revelation of the horrendous mismanagement of funds in occupied Iraq. A U. S. government audit has revealed that tens of millions of dollars supposed to be used for the rebuilding of Iraq has either been squandered or is simply unaccounted for. If one casts one mind back to the days when the American troops first entered Baghdad, while priceless artefacts were being looted from museums, they were standing guard over the offices responsible for the oil industry. This was where the money was going to come from to rebuild the beleaguered country. With the ouster of Saddam the embargo could be lifted against Iraqi oil. The taps could be turned back on and the money could flow into the country again. It looked to be a foolproof plan. Win the hearts and minds of Iraqis by rebuilding the country, while at the time not costing American taxpayers a cent. How could it go wrong? Well one way is that the American officials in Hillah responsible for overseeing the project being unable to account for $97 million of the $120 million in oil revenues earmarked for the reconstruction. No records seem to have been kept; tens of millions of dollars are reported to have gone in and out of the South Central region's vault with nobody having any idea of who, where, what, or why. What's actually sort of scary is this audit has only focused on the one region of the country, for one fiscal year, 2003-2004. Inexperienced American occupation officials, many of them people who had worked on George Bush's campaign, were responsible for organizing this "hearts and minds campaign" aimed at winning over the Iraqi people. Things are so bad that of the $23 million in oil revenues the project officials claim they can account for; there exists paper documentation for only $8 million. One must assume that the other $15 million has been accounted for orally as in "Joe took four of us for lunch, and it cost $50,000" or something similar. Than of course there are the records of how some of the money was spent, or was supposed to have been spent, and that's just as damming as the missing amounts:

An American service man took as much as $60,000 and gambled it away in the Philippines.
an agent keeping $700,000 in an unlocked footlocker.
an elevator repaired at Hillah General Hospital for $662,800 that then crashed and killed three people.
the pipes of the Olympic sized swimming pool "repaired" for over $100,000 and still pouring out brown sludge.
only a quarter of the $23 million dollars entrusted to civilian and military project and contracting officers ever found its way into the hands of contractors.
a contractor paid $14,000 four times for the same project.
a contractor for a library only delivering 18 of 68 personal computers that they were paid for.
of $7.3 million spent on a police academy, $1.3 million was spent on unneeded construction or materials never delivered and $2 million is missing.
two field agents responsible for paying contractors left the country never accounting for nearly $700,000 each(they've never been identified and when the auditors confronted their manager he tried to give them fake paperwork)
U.S led security transaction command spending $945,000 for seven armoured Mercedes-Benzes that were too lightly armoured for Iraq. Auditors have only been able to account for six of the cars.

South Central Iraq is the least contentious area of the country in that there has been little or no trouble. Audits for other more troublesome areas are still on going. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has been conducting the audits for the Pentagon and the State department. These preliminary results show that whatever the intentions of the people involved with the project, it's been an abject failure. People on the ground over there aren't stupid. How much of the continued insurgency is connected to the fact that conditions aren't improving for civilians as they had been promised? If in areas where there is little or no hostility and work is being done so shoddily that locals are actually dying what do you thing their reactions are going to be? The majority of the contractors are foreign. If not American operations, than other members of the coalition and their allies, and they are showing themselves to be more interested in carpet bagging than actually doing any work. In this sort of situation appearances are just as important as anything else, and according to these reports not only are there no visible results but it looks like nobody actually cares about rebuilding the country. To the people of an occupied country that can only lead to mistrust of the people who are claiming they are there to be helping them. How would you react to this situation if you were a local? If you saw money that was being made by your country's revenues being shared out amongst foreign profiteers who seemingly have no interest in using it for its intended purpose, wouldn't you be a little miffed? Unlike the Roman Empire of old the American government is a democracy and the people who work for it can be held accountable for their actions. Already the auditors have requested the American Ambassador to recover over $570,000 of misspent money and recommended that criminal charges be laid against certain individuals. But it appears that millions of dollars will never be recovered and some people are getting off Scott free. Will the actions of the Inspector General be enough to reassure the Iraqi people that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated and overcome the mistrust that has generated? A lot depends on how much further the rot has spread. If this was an isolated series of incidences that has not been pervasive through out the country, than trust can be won back. But if it is widespread, it looks as if the American forces could be tied up in Iraq for a good long time. Without the trust of the people, anything connected to the occupying forces is automatically suspect, lending credence to the arguments of the insurgents. If George Bush wants to have Iraq wound down before he retires from office, a priority needs to be the salvaging of the reconstruction program. As long as it appears as a means for Americans to line their pockets at Iraqi expense the country will never be pacified.

James Frey And An End To "Sharing"

2006-01-29T05:48:00.000-05:00

Now that the dust is settling on the whole James Frey Million Little Pieces fiasco I'm beginning to think that we owe this guy a debt of gratitude. Maybe with the way this whole thing has blown up in the publishing industry's face we'll finally see an end to peoples' desire to tell us all about their misery. If there's one thing I've hated more and more in the past few years is the way the word "share" has been used. All somebody has to do is tell me they want to "share" something with me and I start looking for an exit. It used to be such a nice word you know, implying consideration and generosity. Somebody would offer to share their good fortune, their cookies, or some other treat; it was one of the virtues we were all taught about as children. Sharing stuff with your best friend meant you would give them a chunk of you candy, not dump on them. Now when someone offers to share something with you it's some sort of personal experience that they feel compelled to tell you about. Wasn't sharing supposed to be something you did which had no strings attached that showed your appreciation of the other person? It was about giving something away to make somebody else feel special. Instead they now pour forth some tale of woe, or courage, or perseverance and we're supposed to be uplifted and inspired by their fortitude and heroism. Of course they also just happen to become the centre of attention, but that's just incidental isn't it? Now who's making who feel like they're someone special? Have you ever watched one of these people being interviewed on any one of daytime talk shows? The cameras cut between the teary eyed guest on the couch talking to their confessor of the moment and a concerned face in the audience. The audience reactions have become Pavlovian to the point of ridiculous. They respond to their cues better than most actors gracing the small screen these days. What's even better is when the host of whichever show it is offers to share the story with their audience. Excuse me; you're going to share someone else's misery with us? My how generous of you. Who is it this week, a rape victim? Boy the milk of human kindness must just flow through your veins letting everybody out there in television land hear all about somebody's worst nightmare. The audience is there for the same reason people like to stop and look at accident scenes: they want to see blood and bodies. It's a chance to show how compassionate they are, by saying: "Oh isn't that horrible" but without having to do anything about it. It's like writing a check for a charity to feed the starving; it relieves your conscience without forcing you to have to do anything about the problem. For the people who are the subject of these shows there's the obvious attraction of being the centre of attention. But something I've noticed in people I've known who have been the victims of some sort of abuse, including myself, is that at some point early in their recovery, they have a bizarre compulsion to tell almost everybody they meet what's happened to them. This is just an extreme instance of the same need. I don't know whether it's searching for sympathy or testing people to see what their reactions will be. In some instances it's also a way of fighting back against the abuser who may have forced you to be silent for years. Any time you tell somebody it's another blow for freedom. But there's nothing selfless in the act of telling other people. I remember too well the faces of people I used to spring it on. The only sharing that's going on is of the horrors of the experience and that's not exactly what I'd call generous. "Oh wow what a treat, I got to hear all about how Sally was gang raped by her brothers when she was nine today" That's just not the same thing as being given half a chocolate bar at recess by your best friend. Sure if a friend feel safe and comfortable enough with me to be able to tell me of some horror from their past, I'm honoured that they have that confidence in me. Although that's still not the same thing as sharing as far as I'm concerned, it’s a whole lot better than these public confessionals that we're subjected too now in the form of memoirs and talk shows. This has been a huge industry that first started to see the light of day with the old "Donahue" show back in the seventies. But even at the height of his popularity I doubt he would have believed the influence these shows would eventually have on popular culture. Appearances on "Oprah", and to a lesser extent any of the other shows, lend an author instant credibility if not bestseller status. Through these shows focus on "human interest" type material a market was created for a genre of book that had not really existed before. The tell all, baring of the soul, memoir whose purported purpose is to provide an example of how to change one's life around. For quite a period of time these stories have been taken at face value and nobody has questioned their accuracy. Audiences and readers have lapped them up to the tune of millions of copies sold and publishers have been riding the wave to the bank. They’re not going to care one way or another if the author plays a little fast and loose with the truth, all that matters is it's place on the best seller list. But now it looks like they've killed, or at least severely wounded, their cash cow. First it was James Frey being exposed, now it's Nasdijj, a writer of supposed Navajo decent, come under fire. The publication LA Weekly has published an article offering proof that he is actually a white man named Timothy Barrus, a writer of gay and straight pornography. He's written three memoirs detailing a life of poverty and deprivation growing up as a poor half-breed Navajo whose mother died when he was seven. He claims to have suffered from foetal alcohol syndrome, adapted a son who suffers from the same problems, and recites a litany of woes, misdeeds, and hardships throughout his books. It's interesting to note that both his publisher and his literary agent severed their relationship with him in 2004, but will only say it wasn't because of issues to do with his background. As of yet "Nasdijj" has not issued any response to these allegations. But a film producer who was interested in adapting his first book has dropped the project after learning of inconsistencies in the story and the author's resistance to fact checking. The doctoring of memoirs has a long and distinguished history and it's always been for the same purpose: for the self-aggrandizement of the author. In the past it has taken the form of claiming to have witnessed historic events, or done heroic deeds but today's false historians go in the opposite direction. But thanks to Mr. Frey these types of stories might start taking a hit in their popularity. Publishers are going to be a little more circumspect and take longer looks at manuscripts according to Ashbel Green, a senior editor at Alfred A. Knoff: "I think for a while, this will make people careful" she's quoted as saying in the Globe and Mail. Lets hope that this carefulness will also begin to extend to the public, and that people's appetite for "shared" stories will begin to wane. Maybe then the bestseller lists will be able to list fiction as fiction and non-fiction as non-fiction and not have to worry about something that falls half way between the two. I'm hopeful that Mr. Frey's true legacy will be that he marked the beginning of the end of sharing oneself, and we can all go back to sharing chocolates and comics.

Roseanne And Pop Culture

2006-01-28T04:44:00.000-05:00

Do you remember those old high school exams where they would give you quotations from somebody or other in reference to something you had been studying? You'd get this quote and than underneath it would be one word: Discuss. Well I'm going to play that little game on myself today. There was a great quote in the Globe and Mail today about the state of pop culture from one of the stars of the past. Roseanne.

…It's boring and dull and so prescribed and handpicked. Everybody looks exactly alike. And acts exactly alike. There's no colour, no anything. Look in the magazines. Every girl looks like every other girl, they bore me to death. I'm barely interested in my own life, let alone other peoples'. Especially the young, they have nothing to say whatsoever. They're distractions. They do the job they're supposed to do: Keep everybody from noticing what's going on. It's the whole dumbing-down thing. Roseanne Barr Globe and MailSat. Jan. 28, 06

Before I get started on this process I should admit that I've always had a great deal of respect for Roseanne. True near the end of her career in the spotlight she started to become almost a parody of herself, and I don't think I could ever quite forgive her for foisting Tom Arnold on the world. But I prefer to remember the early years of her T.V. show before either she or John Goodman became famous. I don't think there has ever been a show quite like "Roseanne" for its willingness to fly in the face of pretty and generic. Long before Drew Carey and Cleveland, there was Roseanne and Milwaukee. Carey's show was much more conventional than Roseanne in its style of humour and the way it mocked people of that lifestyle. There was always the feeling that we were supposed to laugh at these working stiffs instead of empathise with them. "Roseanne" was different in that you laughed at things that happened on the show, but hardly ever were the characters held up for ridicule. Their problems were the problems faced by so many people in North America; unemployment, teenage marriages, the struggle to make ends meet, and all the other facets of life that had never shown up on television before. Roseanne herself was like a breath of fresh air (okay more like a typhoon) just by being who she was and not making fun of it. She had to be the first woman of size on television that was shown to be sexually active and the object of physical attraction for a partner. The best thing about that it was never made into a big deal. It was just the attraction between a husband and wife like on any other sit-com. Long before it became fashionable "Roseanne" opened the closet door on her show and had a Lesbian as a main character. The show dealt with issues that were hardly ever seen on television, and not just controversial ones, but real ones. Breast reduction surgery is not something that one sees talked about very often, but as with a lot of large women Roseanne's character was faced with having to undergo that procedure for her health. The whole episode was dealt with in the show's usual mix of humour and good taste, so as an audience we were able to appreciate what a woman faced with this procedure goes through emotionally and mentally. Roseanne and her television family were some of the realest people you were liable to see in prime time. There still hasn't been a live action family that has come close to capturing as truthful a depiction of life for lower middle class Americans as this show did. It may have helped people find humour in their daily lives, but there is no way this show could have been considered a distraction from everyday reality. Which brings us back to Roseanne's quote that started this whole post about pop culture just being a distraction from the real world. There's two ways that one could look at that statement. The first is to say, well yeah, isn't that the point of pop culture anyway, to provide light entertainment and not have any basis in reality. If you're of that mind, well the argument has nowhere to go, because you can just agree with her assessment and get on with watching television and blocking out the world. To be honest there's a lot of truth in that sentiment anyway. Many is the time I've made the conscious decision to watch a movie that is deliberately escapist so that I don't have to deal with mine or the world's reality. But where that argument falls down is when you consider how many people don't make that conscious choice, but simply park themselves in front of the television and stop thinking. It's not even the watching of the programming that is necessarily the distraction; it's the hype that surrounds the so-called celebrities that appear on all these shows. The media's obsession with the ins and outs of relationships, weight gain and loss, and all the other minutiae of these unimportant lives that is passed off as vital news. The fact that this artificial world of film, T.V., and music stars garners so much attention is how it acts as the distraction. People get far more caught up in the wedding of two people who appeared on a reality show then they do in the fact that people go to bed hungry at night. Roseanne never played by the rules when she was in the spotlight and was roundly criticized for some to the things she did. She now says that during that time she "went a little crazy" from being at the centre of things. She too came in for her share of tabloid press with her marriages and divorces, and sometimes-odd behaviour. In her quote she makes pop culture and the distractions it creates sound like a deliberate effort on the part of somebody somewhere to influence the way we think. The thing is Hollywood has always operated in this manner. Since the early days of silent film they have always tried to make sure that the stars are kept in the public eye one way or another. How else can they sell tickets to movies? The media, the studios, and the stars are all in on it together. It's a symbiotic relationship in that they depend on each other for survival. The media needs the stars to report on, the stars need the media to keep their names prominent in the public eye, and the studios need the stars kept prominent so they can sell tickets, DVDs and merchandising rights. It's in all of their best interests to make us think they are important. They sell us on how wonderful it is to be a star, and wouldn't you love to have their glamorous lifestyle. People watch and dream of being something other than what they are. The product is almost secondary; the real show is the lives of those involved in its making. Does that make popular culture the big villain when it comes to distracting the public from the reality the world faces on a daily basis? In so far as it being a deliberate "Bread and Circuses" ploy by anyone, I don't think so. For the simple reason that the whole system is beyond anyone's control. It's become such a firmly entrenched part of our social fabric that it exists in spite of the social climate not because of it. We could be living in an ideal world with no war, no illness, no crime etc, and we would still have The National Enquirer, starlets, and studio executives. I'm no big fan of the whole system or much of what gets telecast or played on the radio. I can understand Ms. Barr's complaints about the state of things in pop culture. But I don't see it as being a deliberate attempt on anybody's part to distract the public from the woes of society. The people involved in the industry are far too self-centred to be able to see beyond fulfilling their own needs to think about anything else. Unfortunately the whole pop culture industry is pretty much a monster of our own making. It would be nice to blame it on somebody else, a plot to make society dumber, but that's simply not the case. Pop culture exists to sell itself and nothing more, if nobody were buying it would change itself immediately.

Disabled: The Invisible Minority

2006-01-27T03:59:00.000-05:00

One of those great pop psychology sayings that's making the rounds a lot these days is that anger is actually grief in disguise. Maybe that's what meant by someone giving you grief when they piss you off? I don't know. But if there is any truth to that sentiment than I must be feeling one hell of a lot of sadness over the way people with disabilities are treated. Actually saying that I'm angry (or grieving, insert which ever you prefer, I'm going to stick with anger. What feeling like ripping someone a new one has to do with crying I haven't quite figured out yet) over the way disabled people are treated isn't quite accurate. It implies that people actually consider them when they make decisions. The truth of the matter seems to be that disabled people don't even merit any thought. Oh sure you'll see the occasional wheelchair ramp to get into a building, or handicapped parking (two spots out of three hundred and they are usually occupied by someone who's just stopped in for a second so didn't think it would matter that they used the handicap spot), and even Braille numbers in elevators. (If a blind person doesn't know they're there in the first place how are they going to "see" them to use them?) But quite frankly that's just like fancy wood veneer covering rotten wood. There's nothing of substance underneath that façade of caring. Somehow or other the disabled manage to slip off most people's radar screens when they talk of minorities. Maybe it's because disabilities don't limit themselves to any one group of people. They have the best affirmative action program going. There is no convenient label to stick on ability discrimination like there is for race, sex, and religion. Maybe I've just put my finger on the problem. With no label people are lost. How can there be systemic discrimination against people with disabilities if there is not catchy word for it? Hell they even have one now for discriminating against people due to their age. If you can't accuse somebody of something like abilityism than you may as well not even bother trying to point out the problem. Does that sound a little cynical and sarcastic? Well it's hard not to be sometimes in the face of what's encountered on a daily basis by people with disabilities that able-bodied people probably don't even have to think about. Here's one for you; what do you do with your cane when you go out for dinner? You can't leave it at the coat check (if there is one) because you're going to need it to get to the bathroom (up or down a flight of stairs). Which leaves what? Propping it against the table where it can fall down and trip waiters. Laying it on the floor under the table where it's not very accessible and easily stepped on? That may not seem like a big deal but it's just one more extra thing that disabled people have to concern themselves with. It's those little things that really add up and end up being the most frustrating. You've already had to adopt to so many new ways of doing things on a personal level, that finding out there's no recognition of the difficulties faced when you're in a supposedly public venue, it makes you feel like people would have been happier if you'd just stayed at home. Have you ever watched an elderly person trying to negotiate one of those so-called access ramps with a walker? Going up isn't so bad, even though the incline is a little severe. It's the coming down that always looks so precarious. I swear it looks like they're about to fall half the time because of how quick the ramp speed becomes. Some of them look like they've been designed by the same folk who make the ski jumps for the Olympics. I suppose you can't really blame the private sector for their attitudes, they take their cues from the government and the way they treat disabled people. As far as I can tell the disabled seem to be viewed by many levels of government as just another means for collecting revenue. A few years ago the government of Ontario enacted some new legislation for the benefit of disabled people. While there was some monies set aside for what they call programming (occupational therapy jobs like stuffing envelopes for minimum wage) the major focus of it was too increase fines for illegal use of handicapped facilities. There were no monies put into assisting with the day-to-day cost of surviving. In Ontario the income support program for disabled people (Ontario Disability Support Payments or O.D.S.P.) had been frozen since 1993 without an increase. In the winter of 2005 a 3% increase was finally approved. That may sound all right, but consider that landlords were allowed to increase rents by 2.9% that year and all of a sudden it's vanished. It's not even as if it were going to be a regular cost of living increase either; just a one time deal to make it look like the government was more compassionate than its predecessor. Of course a lot of people would probably have to use their left over .1% to pay for physiotherapy costs that were no longer going to be covered by provincial health insurance. Just to show that they're no slouches in ignoring the disabled either, the federal government got into the act. Just before the election was called all four parties got together to work out a deal so as to fast track legislation through the house to get people on fixed incomes a heating fuel rebate. These one time checks were to help offset the extraordinary heating fuel costs that had come about this winter due to Katrina and other circumstances. Somehow they seemed to forget that disabled people are on fixed incomes. They only designated seniors surviving on government pensions, and parents who were poor enough to receive a special child benefit check as being eligible for this assistance. Maybe they thought disabled people don't get as cold as other people? Like if the have nerve damage or something they can't feel their extremities anyway so what do they need heat for? Ah well if worse comes to worse we can always have a bonfire with our crutches and canes. I don't know would firewood be considered an aid for living like one of those bars in the bathtub you can use to climb in and out with? If so than we could apply to the government to pay for it through programming. What I find really puzzling about the whole situation of ignoring disabled people is how they can miss us. Most disabled people come with some sort of accompanying props: crutches, canes, walkers, and wheelchairs are the ones most commonly seen. You'd think that would make it easier to notice that disabled people exist. But it actually seems to work in reverse. It's amazing how few people notice either a wheelchair or the fact that somebody inhabits it. I've seen people literally lean against the back of a wheelchair, not even aware that they are pretty much sitting on somebody's back. Or wait patiently while a person struggles with pulling a door open because their hands are occupied with a cane and parcels, and not realize they could use some help. If I were to use this behaviour as a yardstick for people's awareness of the disabled in general, I guess it should be no surprise that governments seem to overlook our existence as well. At least the general public and the private sector make no claims to the contrary and I've seen enough individuals go out of there way in an attempt to help and assist people to compensate for those who ignore us. The hardest part of making the transition from being able bodied to disabled is learning to accept your limitations. Until you reach that point of acceptance you are in a state of perpetual frustration. Even then you are continually chafed by the restrictions imposed upon you by a body that's betraying you. This is not a state of mind conducive to an even temper and forgiveness on most days. When this is compounded by the attitudes displayed by all levels of government, and by a good chunk of society I think I do a remarkably good job of keeping my temper in check. Of course I notice they don't have handicap elevators or ramps leading up to bell towers…

DVD Review: Other Voices, Other Rooms

2006-01-26T04:23:00.000-05:00

There's something about certain depictions of the American South of the 1920's and 30's that reminds me of 19th century gothic/romance novels. I don't know if Brontesque is a word; as in reminding one of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, but the air of mystery and gloom that seems to surround old decrepit plantations certainly can give the moors a run for their money. The South may lack the fogs and crags for people to get lost in or fall down, but it has its own share of dangers. Mysterious swamps filled with ghosts and spirits ready to steal your soul. Not to mention more down to earth dangers like rattle snakes whose bite can kill you or bogs that could swallow you whole. Heat and humidity are every bit as oppressive as cold rains and mists, and poor dissipated Southern gentry can have just as many secrets as their brooding English counterparts. Change the mysterious old faithful servants from white to black, and the brick manor house with drafts to a disintegrating pre civil war plantation house and the transition is complete. Other Voices, Other Rooms incorporates all those elements down to including an innocent to be the witness to the how far the mighty have fallen. The movie is based on Truman Capote's work of the same name; his first published novel, and was originally released back in 1995. While re-releasing it now may seem like a cynical attempt to cash in on the newly released feature Capote, it would have been a shame for this work to be lost. Although it's almost redundant to say, since most of his work can be classified as such, this first novel of Capote's was semi-autobiographical. It tells the story of a boy, Joel Sampson (played by David Speck) and the summer he is temporarily reunited with his father. Ten years before the movie takes place Joel's father had mysteriously abandoned him and his mother. As the movie starts Joel's mother has just died and he is living with his aunt and uncle. Out of the blue they receive a letter from Joel's dad asking that the boy be sent to live with him. Joel's father is living on an old plantation that looks like it hasn't seen any upkeep since before the civil war. When Joel arrives he is met by an old black man named Jesus Fever (Leonard Watkins), who delivers him from the bus to the Skully plantation in an old beat up horse and cart. The horse and cart are appropriate because we seem to have traveled backwards in time when we arrive at the plantation. No plumbing or electricity are used, and history weighs heavy on the buildings. Joel is met by the lady of the house, Amy Skully (Anna Levine) who along with her cousin Randolph (Lothaire Bluteau) are the last remnants of their family living on the estate. Aside from their servant Jesus they also have a young black woman Zoo (April Turner) working for them as cook and maid. Joel's demands to see his father are rebuffed by both Amy and Randolph, with the excuse that he is too sick, and instead Randolph strives to amuse and entertain the young boy. It's obvious that he has no idea of what to do with a child, or what interests them, but since Randolph is fascinated with Randolph, he figures everybody must be. When Joel finally does get to see his father he finds him to be bedridden and unable to move. He wants to know what's going on and why it was the Randolph wrote the letter pretending to be Joel's father. Randolph says that neither he nor Amy could bear the thought of their dear friend's son, now hopelessly ill, growing up an orphan. Randolph seems almost desperate to amuse and befriend Joel. He regales him with stories of fancy dress balls and the time Joel's father and him spent in Havana. Joel's father was a boxing promoter and they were touring with one of his prizefighters Pepe, and Randolph's girlfriend, Dolores. But complications arose one night after a fancy dress ball, when Dolores dressed Randolph as Marie Antoinette, and he spent the whole night dancing with Pepe. While Randolph was falling in love with Pepe; Dolores and Pepe were having an affair. Randolph is charming and irresponsible; melodramatic and flamboyant; and incredibly self-indulgent. But he is able to win Joel over as a friend and companion and gradually brings him into his world. They have fun together painting and reading and gradually Joel comes to accept Randolph as a sort of surrogate father/best friend. We know there is something rotten at the heart of all this charm. The run down plantation house with its chipped plaster and paint peeled walls is too indicative of something decaying for the place to be healthy. Overgrown with weeds the life is being choked out of the grounds, just as the people living there are slowly suffocating. Lothaire Bluteau's (best known for his starring role in Jesus of Montreal) depiction of Randolph is magnificent. He is easy to love and despise all in the same breath. He is like a child who has continuously been given his own way, and had every wish indulged when through no fault of his own, he all of sudden finds the carpet pulled out from under him. Amy is so brittle she looks like she could smash into a million pieces at any moment. She is resentful of being asked to do the things Randolph has her doing to preserve their secret, and jealous of the time he spends with Joel. In the end she is the one who spills the secret that they've been hiding, not because of any remorse, but because she's tired of not being the centre of attention. Anna Levine is not given much to work with Amy, it would be easy to play her as one long whine, but she manages to get beneath that surface and show the genuinely lost person under the petulance. When Randolph pays attention to her, she is suffused with happiness, and Ms. Levine is able to give us glimpses of what Amy could have been if she had not been deprived of her potential. David Speck as young Joel is very convincing. His reluctance to befriend Randolph wars with his love of the exotic and make believe. David is able to show the conflicts that Joel has with wanting to live this strange live with Randolph and Amy, while at the same time realizing there is something wrong. The contrast between Joel's almost adult nature and Randolph's irresponsibility in the scenes they share, show just dysfunctional the Skully clan are. When an eleven year old boy is the practical one offering advice to the adults, you know the world is inverted. This is well directed and well scripted adaptation of a straightforward story by Truman Capote. There's nothing really fancy; no big stars or special effects. Just that rarest of things these days; a nice well acted movie with a good story, and technically pleasing to the eye. That may not seem like much, but in these days of multibillion-dollar epics and overblown characters, (on and off the screen) it's nice to be reminded that there are still movies out there content to tell a story. Other Voices, Other Rooms is a pleasure to watch from start to finish for that very reason.

Book Review: The Thousandfold Thought - R.Scott Bakker

2006-01-25T09:43:00.000-05:00

What if every night you relived the destruction of the world as it happened two thousand years ago? What if you and those who shared those dreams were the only people who believed that those events had actually occurred? If it was your job, along with those few others, to track down every rumour that could potentially signify the return of the evil that would bring about a second apocalypse: could you do so in the face of the scorn and disbelief of the whole world? In the first two books of his trilogy The Prince of Nothing; The Darkness That Comes Before and The Warrior Prophet, R. Scott Bakker introduced readers to just such a man. Drusas Achamian is a sorcerer, or as they are known in the world of the Three Seas, a schoolman. Of the four schools of sorcery: The Mandate, The Scarlet Spires, The Imperial Saik, and The Mysunsai, only Drusas' Mandate fellows and himself retain the memory of the end of the world. We have walked with Drusas into the midst of a holy war; a crusade whose leader he has been ordered to investigate on suspicion that he is a harbinger of the second apocalypse. Although he is unable to gain access to Maithahet, the initial impetus behind the war, he finds signs of the return of the Mandate's great enemy amongst the combatants. The Skin Spies can assume the shape of another person and live behind their assumed body's face. They have superhuman strength and are extreme perversions of humans. Even more alarming, if possible, is his discovery of a man named Anasurimbor Kellhus amongst those gathering to march in the crusade. It was an Anasurimbor who marched through the first apocalypse and Drusas must discover if this man from the forgotten Northlands where the ancient kingdoms lay is the one who will be the cause of the second cataclysm. By the beginning of The Thousandfold Thought, book three of the series, all signs are pointing towards Anasurimbor being along the same lines as his forbearer. He has been elevated by the lords and nobility of the crusade onto the rank of prophet and has won over complete control of their hearts and minds. He has even succeeded in wining Dusas's confidence sufficiently for him to teach him the sorceries of The Mandate School; by far the most powerful of all the schools. It is Kellhus' ability to discern the Skin Spies and destroy them that wins Drusas over to his side. Even though he is filled with misgivings about teaching him the songs of power, or Cants, he is unable to see another option. Almost against his will he has been forced to believe in the man's abilities and power. In the Thousandfold Thought R. Scott Bakker continues to spin his complex tale of magic, religion and philosophy. The world he has created offers a fun house mirror of our own history. Everything is suspiciously familiar but is distorted or exaggerated beyond the normal into an almost grotesque caricature of events that have occurred in our own world. Men of power had plotted and conspired to show they were best suited to serve the god by leading the armies. But they have all fallen by the wayside with the coming of Kellhus into his glory. He has supplanted all other leadership through the simple expedient of being able to see people's true motives, and speaking them aloud. It has been his plan all along of course to take over the crusade from back in The Darkness That Comes Before when he first heard of it. How else was he supposed to go deep into the territory of the heathen? But Bakker throws a twist into the works, and has us wondering, with those who follow him; could this guy be for real? When we see him through the eyes of Drusas we don't want to believe in him or worship him, but we do anyway. Through the eyes of Cnaiur the barbarian, he is a devious liar that will twist you inside out by knowing exactly what you will do before you do it. But even through the eyes that despise him there is no denying the power of Kellhus. Has Kellhus become that which everybody wants him to be? How does destiny work anyway is what Bakker seems to be asking. When Kellhus sets out from his people's retreat at the beginning of the trilogy to answer the summons of his father, what wheels were set in motion by that simple act? How come there was a crusade just waiting for him to lead that suited his purposes ideally? Even his monastic training in the understanding of the way in which men think based on what came before shows no precedence for his power and abilities unless he is the harbinger of the second apocalypse. For what else is there that came before that would allow for this future to happen? Kellhus manipulates those around him, but with such apparent innocence and lack of guile; he's doing it for their own good after all; that as the reader, you are susceptible to his powers as well. But the question remains, is he the Warrior Prophet because that is who he is, or by playing the role of the Warrior Prophet does he ascend to that position without meaning to? Bakker's characters are not simple constructs of good and evil. The pious are guided into unspeakable acts of evil in the name of their god. The demon skin spies are manifestations of perversion but are fighting a holy war of their own which is every bit as sacred to them as the one fought by the humans. Of them all Drusas seems to be the most honest and human in his emotions and ambitions. He is the everyman of the novel questioning, but wanting to believe. As a Mandate schoolman he has grown used to being singular in his beliefs and considered a pariah. But being alone wears on a person and he had fallen in love earlier in the series with a prostitute named Esmenet. She in turn had given up her profession and sworn devotion to Drusas. But when he was kidnapped and presumed dead, she sought comfort in Kellhus' arms and when Drusas returns he finds her elevated in status to Consort of the Prophet. Even then he resolves to teach Kellhus as he is the one who has finally proven the Mandate to have been right after all these years. Perhaps he will be the one who cleanses the world of their enemy since he can detect the Skin Spies where others cannot. As far as Drusas can tell Kellhus will either prevent the apocalypse or be it; he knows the risk he takes is unimaginable but he sees no other choice. As the Crusade and Kellhus move closer to their final confrontations with the heathen armies and his father Kellhus has learnt what he requires. For the final battle Bakker brings in everything that has come before into play. Under the sands of the final battleground are thousand year old catacombs that had housed the creatures of the first apocalypse. While the battle rages for the city above his head Kellhus confronts his father below. What is an apocalypse? Does the world have to physically be destroyed, or just redefined and rewritten? Is not every major shift in thought and civilization apocalyptic in that a world of thought and attitudes are always being supplanted by another? In The Prince Of Nothing R. Scot Bakker has created a fascinating study of how thoughts and beliefs are shaped and formed. But these are not books of philosophy they are stories of people, war and magic. The Thousandfold Thought, like its predecessors, is the work of a masterful storyteller. Bakker's characters have depth and dimension beyond what is usual for fantasy. It seems we have entered a new era of fantasy; where authors are taking care to create characters that can join the pantheon of fictional heroes that has been built by "serious novelists". With these three novels Bakker joins the ranks of Erickson, Banker, Scott and Barclay as part of a wave of fantasy authors who are breaking down the barriers between fiction and fantasy. Without pretension they set out to tell the their stories and in doing so create whole new possibilities for the genre. R. Scott Bakker has created a world which is both recognizable and alien simultaneously. His plots, while intricate are not convoluted; his characters are complex and not cartoons; and his writing is though provoking and challenging without being deliberately obtuse. The Thousandfold Thought is the masterful conclusion to a trilogy of the highest order. I can only hope that Mr. Bakker will soon create more worlds for us to discover.

Canadian Election Results 2006: Conservative Minority/Paul Martin resigns

2006-01-24T02:14:00.000-05:00

Well the results are in, and as expected the Conservative Party of Canada has won a minority government. It will take a few days for the dust to settle and the recounts to be over and done with until we know their exact margin of victory. As it stands now though the final tally of seats is: Conservatives 124, Liberals 103, Bloc Quebecois 51, New Democratic Party 29, and one Independent. The biggest news of the night may not be the results, but the fact that Liberal leader, and now former Prime Minister, Paul Martin has announced his resignation. Although there was speculation that he would not run again as leader if the Liberals lost, his resignation so soon after the results were finalized is surprising. Although the Conservatives picked up a few seats in the Metro Toronto Area, the numbers were not sufficient to make any serious inroads into the traditional Liberal power base. They did pick up an additional 12 seats, and the N.D.P. also picked up 5. The Conservatives held on to their rural Ontario seats, and took some from the Liberals, but it was the N.D.P. who benefited the most from the soft Liberal vote in Ontario Where the Conservatives picked up seats was Quebec. They managed to take eight seats away from the Bloc Quebecois and two from the Liberals. Whether this was simply a protest vote against the Liberals, or the beginnings of a trend towards supporting a federalist party that will guarantee more provincial rights remains to be seen. In the Maritimes the situation remained virtually unchanged with only two seats changing hands, from the Liberals to the Conservatives. On the Prairies nothing much changed from the last election, save for the Conservatives solidifying their hold on Western Canada. They completely swept Alberta, the home province of the former Alliance Party; won 13 of a possible 14 in Saskatchewan with one seat going to the Liberals; and in Manitoba the results look to be identical to last election at Conservatives 7, N.D.P. 4, and Liberals 3. British Columbia, where polls closed last in Canada, will decide what the final size of Harper's margin of victory will be. Although as of 12:40 am E.S.T. with all the polls closed for well over an hour now, things look to be close to final. At dissolution of the house the Liberals only had eight of the 36 seats, and the N.D.P. five so the only way the Conservatives had to go was up. This was the Conservative party's chance for a major breakthrough across Canada. The Liberals were beset by scandal and the public was ready to make a change. Liberal leader Paul Martin was widely seen as inept by the majority of the country, while Steven Harper of the Conservatives looked solid and dependable. Polls leading up to the election showed them with leads as large as twelve percent of the popular vote, which would have translated to a majority government. But in the end they could only muster 36% of the vote compared to the Liberal's 30% and the N.D.P.'s 17%. This can only be seen as something of a disappointment for a party that had hopes of forming a majority government at one point. In fact even the size of their minority is somewhat less than anticipated. In order for them to pass any legislation they will have to garner significant opposition support for their programming, which will limit their effectiveness as a government. The Conservatives will be hard pressed to find common ground with either the Liberals or the N.D.P. on much of their agenda unless they are willing to modify elements of it radically. Approaching the Bloc Quebecois at this point would be seen as an extremely cynical manoeuvre considering their rhetoric of the campaign about aligning with separatists. The question now is whether or not Steven Harper and his Conservative party will be able to do anything with their election win of any significance. Their best bet is to try and accomplish as much as possible as early as possible while the Liberals don't have a leader. They won't be in any hurry to have an election until their new leader, whoever it maybe, has a chance to settle into office. That should give the Conservatives about a year to show Canadians what they can do in government. Although I don't think that means they should be able to count on being able to force through anything contentious like anti-abortion legislation or massive spending cuts to health care and other social programming. The smartest thing they can do is enact some safe legislation that will make people comfortable enough with them that the scary Conservative label becomes hard to play in future elections. If they are able to do that, they give themselves a healthy chance at a majority next time around. The next year or so promises to be an interesting time in Canadian politics, with lots to watch and talk about. The big question being, who will the Liberals find to replace Paul Martin? But there's also the fun of whether Steven Harper will be able to keep some of the more extreme elements in his party quiet. It's one thing to keep them under wraps for an election, another all together when they're in power. Either one of those items could cause the pendulum of power to swing back again to the Liberals. If Alexander Trudeau is ready to take up the reigns of the Liberal party, picking up the mantle of his late father Pierre, or the Conservatives spend the next year shooting themselves in the foot, the Conservatives could see all the gains of this election vanish in the blink of an eye.

War On Terror Comes To Canada

2006-01-23T14:50:00.000-05:00

In the early hours of yesterday morning a strike force of combined air force jets and Tomahawk cruise missiles carried out an attack aimed at eliminating two suspected sleeper cells of Al Qaida terrorists, including a supposedly high ranking lieutenant of Osama Bin Laden. The two-pronged attack lasted only fifteen minutes and was reported a success in a preliminary press announcement released by the Pentagon. This statement, released shortly after the planes were returned safely to their bases, was sketchy in its details, but did provide the following information.

Early this morning elements of the 5th squadron of the Louisiana National Guard took off from their home base to meet up with naval vessels off the coast of upstate New York. From there they proceeded to their destination where, along with three Tomahawk cruise missiles they successfully carried out their preordained disposal of ordinance. Acting on information obtained from highly sensitive sources we had pinpointed the location of not just one but two sleeper cells of Al Qaida terrorists in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We had also received information that in all likelihood one of the chief lieutenants of the Al Qaida itself was in residence at one of the aforementioned sites. The three Tomahawk cruise missiles went in ahead of the bombers to minimize the chances of resistance, at which point elements of the 5th squadron dropped their payload of smart bombs and vacated the area in safety. None of our pilots or equipment sustained any damage other than normal wear and tear of flying an operation of this kind. Our first reports back indicate that we were successful in meeting our objectives and eliminated the targets in question. We won't know exactly what happened until we can analyse the data from the bombsight cameras but once we've done that we should have some nice video for you. As always in these raids there was the regrettable chance of civilian casualties, but, although its early days yet, it seems likely any collateral damage has been significantly minimal. As Canada is an ally and neighbour we obviously regret any significant loss of civilian life in this mission, but these types of missions always carry that risk. In a time of war we all must be prepared to make sacrifices. The President, the Pentagon, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff would like to take this time to extend their condolences to any and all Canadians whose families suffered a loss during this raid. Our prayers our with you.

When reached at his new residence at 24 Sussex drive in Ottawa, Canada (the traditional residence of all Canadian Prime Ministers) newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper had this to say on the matter.

" I would like to thank the President of the United States for taking the time to phone me this morning to give me his personal assurance that all steps would be taken to ensure minimal loss of civilian life during this raid. Knowing that his concern for the well being of the citizens of this great country was equal to mine was truly heartening. It just shows you what good can come of having convivial relations with your neighbours. Unlike my predecessors who maintained a hostile attitude towards the American President, I'm sure this new spirit of accommodation on the part of my government will go a long way towards healing the rifts that may have developed between our two great nations. It was in that spirit that I approved this raid without hesitation. It is time that Canadians shouldered more of their share in the War on Terror, and proved their willingness to lay down their lives for freedom just as our neighbours to the south have done. I would like to take this moment to extend my condolences to those families who may have lost a loved one through any misfortunate accident that could have occurred during this raid. The technology available to the American fighting forces is second to none, but even it's unable to guarantee the sanctity of life for those living in the vicinity of a bombing raid. It is my intention to visit the site as soon as I've been advised that the area has been cleared of any potential hazards and is safe for civilians. I wouldn't want to interfere in the work of the military. Thank you very much"

Initial reports from the scene are sketchy because emergency crews have been unable to reach the site due to the intense heat of some of the fires burning. They do know that the three of four block radius that was struck was primarily residential, and made up of families. What strikes City of Toronto officials as especially odd is why member of Al Queada would have picked one of the predominantly Jewish neighbourhoods in Toronto for their sleeper cells. All they can assume was that the members were working as domestics in the various households, because all the buildings in the area were high-end, single-family dwellings. As the day progresses we hope to provide you with further details as they come available.

Torture, Soldiers, and The Geneva Convention

2006-01-23T08:48:00.000-05:00

On the battle field death happens. That comes with the territory in a war zone. Soldiers who go into battle do so knowing full well they may not be alive at the end of the day. Under those circumstances it is to be expected that men and women will attempt many desperate measures to stay alive; measures that under normal circumstances would be frowned upon by society. War is hell is not just a neat phrase that sells movies for Hollywood. People get their arms and legs blown off, their internal organs lacerated with shards of hot metal, and their veins drained of blood. It's probably easy to lose track of ones humanity in the heat of battle and to forget you are trying to kill another human being who is trying to kill you. It is the very rare occasion where a soldier is held accountable for his or her actions during an engagement. If soldiers in the field had to start second guessing how much violence was allowed to them while trying to kill someone, not only would it be the ultimate in hypocrisy, it would impede upon their chances of staying alive. After a certain point soldiers in battle are going to have start relying on instincts in order to survive. There is no time to be thinking about the how and means for of killing the other person before they kill you. In fact the few instances where soldiers have ended up being held accountable have been those where there has been pre-meditation and thought beforehand. (The My Lai Massacre of 1968 is an example of such a situation where) It's only once the battles are over on the field that rules kick in. The Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war of 1929, revised in 1949, lays out careful guidelines on how signatories are supposed to treat enemy soldiers under their care. No matter how hard you were trying to kill someone, or they were trying to kill you, an hour ago, once they lay down their arms all bets are off. You can no longer fold, mutilate or spindle them. You become responsible for their health and well being; including supplying them with adequate food, shelter, clothing, and medical treatment if required. (Remember we are talking about combatants from the battlefield, not potential terror threats or spies) It seems like some of the units, or soldiers at least, charged with interrogation of prisoners seems to have missed the memo on that treaty. A warrant officer has been found guilty of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty for his role in the death of Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr was accused of carelessly sitting on the prisoner's chest after covering the prisoner's head with a sleeping bag, and his mouth with his hand. All this was in an attempt to make the prisoner give him information. Whether the General would have been able to perform the miraculous and actually speak when his air and vocal abilities were being impeded to such an extent is something we will never know as he died. As punishment for neglecting to let his prisoner breath Chief Warrant Officer Welshofer faces a dishonourable discharge and up three years and three months in jail. The prosecution painted a picture of a man who was frustrated by the constraints placed upon him by regulations and The Convention. Who had to be brought to heel by superiors in order to curb his enthusiasm in the interrogation rooms. In response to a letter sent to superiors Welshoffer was told to take a deep breath and "remember who we are". The defence tried to make the case that given the circumstances of the time, the ongoing insurrection, and what they called a lack of clear guidance on the matter of conducting interrogations, relieved their client of culpabiltiy. Both of these arguments conveniently avoid acknowledging the existence of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Major General Mowhoush was a prisoner of war. Guidelines for his treatment were readily available at all times, and no matter what the circumstances, there is no way any deviation from those guidelines should be acceptable. I have always thought of the negligent as an extreme form of the word careless. While the later implies some minor mistake the former is something serious with severe consequences. While you can say that the death of General Mowhoush was a severe consequence, can Welshoffer actions be dismissed as simply negligent? Was he negligent in that while attempting to suffocate General Mowhoush he succeeded? Or was he negligent in allowing others to see him do it? (Two soldiers who had also been originally charged with murder had their sentences dropped for agreeing to testify) Or did allowing his prisoner to die without coughing up any information count as negligence? Welshofer was using violence to try and frighten and intimidate his prisoner to tell him information he may or may not have had. It may be useless to try and attempt to read his mind about why he chose asphyxiation as his means to try and extract information, but there can be no question as to his intent. It was a deliberate and premeditated attempt to inflict harm. Obviously he was not intending for General Mowhoush to die, he's not going to say much dead, so this was not a premeditated murder. But to call it negligent is to deny the amount of responsibility that Welshofer bears for his death. The defence attorney tried to divert blame from his client by saying a pre existent heart condition was more a cause of death than his client's actions. But in my mind that increases, not decreases, his culpability. Welshofer would have been aware of the General's medical history, and still sat on his chest and impeded his oxygen intake. Neither action could be considered conducive to the well being of someone with a bad heart. In fact any sustained interrogation, let alone the physical abuse inflicted by the Warrant Officer, would have been dangerous. Under the term of the Geneva Convention a soldier surrendering to an enemy is guaranteed a certain standard of treatment. As a signatory to this treaty the United States Army, and all of its soldiers, are required to meet those standards. Finding Chief Warrant Officer Welshofer guilty of negligent homicide for the death of a man he was torturing is a singularly cynical disregarding of that treaty. It is not often the intent of a torturer to kill his victim; in fact usually the direct opposite is the desired result. According to the United States Army it seems that Welshofer was negligent in his duties as an interrogator, as he allowed the prisoner to die without extracting information from him, so he is guilty of negligent dereliction of duty. Therefore, since Major General Mowhowsh died due to Welshofer's negligence; Welshofer is guilty of negligent homicide. The sentence completely ignores the fact that all of the activities leading to the death of the Mowhowsh are strictly forbidden under the Geneva Convention. It implies that the only thing Welshofer did wrong was allowing the prisoner to die while he was being tortured and ignores the fact that torture of prisoners of war is illegal. Of course the American military is only following the lead of the Bush administration on this issue, as they have been pushing to allow the use of torture. But even they must realize that endorsing the use of torture against captured combatants on the field of battle places their own soldiers in the position of being subject to the same mistreatment. The American media and administration made quite the stink about the treatment of downed airmen in the first Gulf War when Saddam paraded them in front of the television cameras. But those actions seem trivial compared to the "negligent" death of a prisoner during torture. If the American government and military no longer wish to be considered signatories to the Geneva Convention that is their prerogative. But they could have the decency to warn their own citizens of the consequences for the American soldier. Perhaps the administration believes it doesn't matter what they do; that American soldiers will be mistreated in any event. Maybe they'd like to check with the families of those individuals who serve in the armed forces before they simply write them off in advance? Does everybody fully understand the implications of their ipso facto withdrawal from the Geneva Convention? Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush, and all those others out there supporting torture seemed to have neglected to let anybody know about the other side of the coin. What can be done by them to others; can now be done to Americans with equal impunity. Not only that, but they will have surrendered the right to complain about the mistreatment of American soldiers at the hands of their captors. The American people need to realize that if they accept their governments use of torture on captured military, that they are condemning their own soldiers to the same treatment. Judging by the slap on the wrist the Chief Warrant Officer Welshofer has received, that's the path they're being led down now whether they know it or not.

CD Review: Blues Reflex - Bob Brozman

2006-01-22T08:05:00.000-05:00

I've finally run across one of those musicians where I can honestly say; what can I say about this guy? I could say he plays guitar and sings; but, that's like describing a beautiful, multi coloured flower, with an exquisite scent, as a plant. It's so damn inadequate. Faced with an artist who somehow meshes the musical styles of three continents (at least) into one song, it doesn't seem right to call him a blues guitarist, but that's the best place to start for Bob Brozman. It's not that he doesn't play the blues, because lord knows he plays them better than most anyone alive today; but again, it comes back to the plant thing: inadequate. Just look at the instruments he's credited with playing on Blues Reflex. The average song will feature at least three guitars; ranging from a National Tricone Baritone, a Kona Rocket Hawaiian Guitar, a regular National Tricone and others; a variety of other stringed instruments including a seven string Hawaiian and a ten string Bolivian Charango; and just for variety he does the percussion and sings as well. So, I hear you saying, there's lots of guys who do that. What's the big deal? The big deal is that with the exception of only a couple other guitarists that I can think of (Ry Cooder and Harry Manx) he's one of the few that immerses themselves in the guitar and its culture to learn how to incorporate it into what they are doing musically. It's not just cool, or a passing fad for him; it becomes part of his sound. Blues Reflex shows off that variety of sound in one package. In fact it's sort of like a mini world tour of Bob stylistically. Being this is the blues it makes sense the disc starts in church with "Dead Cat On The Line". It's introduced by a taped clip of a 1929 radio sermon from the Rev. J.M. Gates and then moves into the song. It's a message song about communications and how the wires don't sometimes connect because there's a dead cat on the line messing with transmission. It's a slow rolling song with two guitars, playing off each other, and Brozman's voice scratching and chopping out the lyrics. First impressions are what usually stick with me, and in the case of Bob, whether he actually sounds like him or not, he evoked in me thoughts of Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong with a Tom Waits attitude. It's on the third track, "One Steady Roll", that our world tour starts with a stop in Reunion Island for and infusion of African sega rhythms. Bob plays all the percussion on the two guitars used in the song, and moves Chicago blues to the Indian Ocean without missing a beat. From here on in our odyssey is in full swing. Whether it's an original song penned for this recording, "New Guinea Blues", or a reworking of a classic like "Death Come Creepin'" Bob's versatility and comfort with a variety of musical styles shines through. Although he has an obvious passion for the old resonator sound generated by a variety of National guitars, he knows enough not to limit himself to just one tone musically. To take some of the hard edge of the steel strings away, he will almost always use at least one softer strung guitar. What this allows him to do is create two distinct sounds (at least) so that the listener can easily discern the multiple textures of a song. Listen to "Poor Me", Bob's adaptation of a Charley Patton recording. He doesn't change the lyrics, plays it like the old time song it is (1920s blues) but the guitar sounds are something out of Bob's heart and mind. He starts with the sweeping sounds of the softer strung guitars, according to the credits two seven string Hawaiian guitars, and then part way through the song he adds the stronger sound of the National. Like the symphony orchestra properly utilized by a composer and a conductor, Bob uses the various sounds at his disposal to increase the impact of his pieces. He doesn't just cover classic blues songs and play them, he interprets them for his audience. His devotion to the genre is obvious from the love and care with which he treats the material. Not one song on this disc has the feeling of being "tossed" off. There is far too much attention paid to the details that go into making the songs work. "There's so much music out there…I guess I'll get some sleep in the next life" pretty much sums up the excitement one feels emanating from Bob's music. This is a man who is in love with his music and sinks himself heart and soul into every song he records. His devotion is such that it extends beyond the playing, to the instruments he utilizes. He has become an expert on the unique sounding National guitar, both as a player and as a historian. Not only has he accumulated a large collection of customized instruments, he also developed a close relationship with John Dopyera the inventor of the guitar. In 1993 Bob published The History And Artistry Of National Resonator Instruments as a repository for all the information he had accumulated about that unique guitar. Blues Reflex is only one of Bob's 26 discs available at this time. More then half of the remainder are musical collaborations with individuals from the variety of musical cultures he draws upon for the playing you hear on Blues Reflex. Bob Brozman is no dilettante playing at "world music". He is an aficionado of not just guitars, but the music that resonates from the hearts of peoples from the Mississippi Delta to Papua New Guinea. Blues Reflex offers us a glimpse into the world of Bob Brozman via his love of the blues. The only question remaining is: how many of the trails he blazed are you going to follow after listening to this one disc.

Canadian Election 2006: Final Dirty Weekend

2006-01-21T04:41:00.000-05:00

It's down to the final dirty weekend. After what feels like one of the longest election campaigns in recent history, Canadian politicians have two days left with which to sway voters. The big question of the election has switched from; would the Conservatives be able to convince enough Canadians that the Liberals are too corrupt to rule anymore? To, have the Liberals been able to frighten enough people away from the Conservatives to prevent them from winning a majority government? Polls at the beginning of this past week were showing support for the Conservatives inching into majority territory with their lead peaking at ten percent higher than the Liberals. As the week progressed that lead gradually began to erode again until it fell back into minority government land. The fact that all poles are only accurate within a plus or minus 3% range means that both results are still equally possible. But the impression one got from the way the polls were conducted and released is that the public looked at the possibility of a Conservative majority and started backing away. It's no coincidence that Paul Martin (Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal party) has spent the past week bashing away at the Conservative social agenda. Reminding people that the Conservatives are anti-choice, anti-gay marriage, and pretty much anti-anything else he can think of. Steven Harper hasn't helped himself in that one with his speculation about the courts and their influence on legislation. Seeing how it was the courts that paved the way for gay marriage, and freedom of choice for women he was supplying a little bit of fuel for that fire. It might explain why he's turned back to attacking the Liberal party's lack of integrity. This has been a campaign that has been mysteriously devoid of issues. Oh sure people will occasionally mention stuff like tax cuts, spending proposals or whatever, but it just doesn't seem like anyone really has their heart in it. Everybody knows that it’s going to come down to whether or not Canadians are going to be willing to entrust their country to Steven Harper and the Conservatives. Obviously the Conservatives have gotten that message loud and clear. Somebody has gone around with a role of duct tape and sealed everybody's mouth in the party except for Stephen Harper. The Conservatives have imposed on the national consciousness the idea that no one else aside from him is running for the party. They've been counting on two things. One that they will be able to paint the Liberals with the brush of scandal so successfully that people will ignore their social conservative nature; and two, everybody's short term memory problem. On the first part they got lucky with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (R.C.M.P.) announcing they were starting an investigation into activities surrounding the Ministry of Finance and insider trading due to leaked budget information. Nothing like an announcement of yet more potential corruption to damage what little credibility the Liberal's may have had left. It also served to distract people from thinking about anything like social issues. If Paul Martin and the Liberals started harping on about them, it would just sound like scare tactics and desperate attempts to stave off defeat. That's the bind that the Liberal party has found themselves in for this election. Even when they speak the truth about Steven Harper and the Conservative party's social agenda, it sounds like the act of a desperate party. They needed somebody else to make those statements; somebody like the New Democratic Party. (N.D.P.) Ah yes the N.D.P., supposedly the social conscience of our country. The party that informs the public about the issues they should be caring about and than the public chooses which of the other two parties sound most like the N.D.P. on that issue and vote for them. If anybody had the moral authority to speak out against Steven Harper and the Conservatives it should have been Jack Layton as leader of the N.D.P. But where have they been in this election. There was a real opportunity for them to present themselves as a genuine third alternative this time round. At the very least they could have served notice that they could be counted on in a minority government situation to be a moral compass for the other two parties. But even the extreme right has been missing them. Long time conservative pundit John Crispo bemoaned their lack of participation in the election on economic issues. He wondered why the N.D.P., of all parties, wasn't making more of an issue that both Liberal and Conservative tax cuts were favouring the extremely rich. That while the poor kept getting poorer, and the middle class was sinking, the really rich kept getting richer and were being helped by their friends in either one of the established parties. I'm sure there would have been those who would have dismissed the N.D.P.'s criticism of Steven Harper as just so much left wing whining, but they would be those who would be voting Conservative already. If the N.D.P. could have been bothered to exert a little effort into attacking Harper and the Conservative's social agenda, it would have lent credibility to the Liberal attacks. If they figured that helping the Liberals would make them look bad, or if they were better off attacking the Liberals for the sake of their own political fortunes, than not only was that morally questionable, but politically stupid. The best chance the N.D.P. has of ever winning seats is if the Liberals and the Conservatives split the vote and they can sneak in around them. If too many people defect from the Liberals to the Conservatives, they lose. By not attacking the Conservatives on their social agenda they made them an even more attractive alternative to the corrupt Liberals. Before the election started everybody knew it would come down to fear versus corruption. Could the Liberals paint the Conservatives as American Christian right-wingers set to turn Canada into a Republican outpost and hold onto the reigns of power that way? Or would the Conservatives be able to convince enough Canadians that the time was right for a change and they should throw the corrupt bums out, to form their own minority government. No one had even considered the possibility of a Conservative majority. But now in the final weekend it looks like a foregone conclusion that the Conservatives will form the next federal government in Canada. What remains to be seen is if they've persuaded enough Canadians that they're not the scary boogiemen the Liberals depict them to be and they end up with enough seats to form a majority government.

CD Review: Klezmer Travels The World - David Glukh International Ensemble

2006-01-20T07:53:00.000-05:00

Klezmer? What's a Klezmer? Microsoft sure doesn't know because it keeps telling me I've misspelled it and doesn't offer me any alternatives. For starters Klezmer is not an object it's a subject. So the question should be; what is Klezmer? Simply put Klezmer is Jewish secular music. That of course tells you absolutely nothing at all about it, but it's a good start. The literal translation from the Yiddish is "vessel of song" The word was derived from a similar sounding Hebrew word, k'li zemer of the same meaning. Although the tradition of the klezmorim (non liturgical musicians) dates back to biblical times, it wasn't until the 15th century that klezmer music was developed. Taking its name from the word for the instruments played by klezmorim, the musical style is connected with the development and growth of Hassidic and Ashkenazic Judaism. As these peoples were primarily to be found in Eastern and Central Europe, klezmer music has many similarities to the folk music of those regions. Czradas from Hungary; polkas and mazurkas from Poland and Czechoslovakia; waltzes and tangos all found their way into the klezmer stew. Much like the Yiddish the songs were sung in, the music would reflect an ensemble's country of origin. Keeping true to its roots in Jewish liturgical music, while incorporating these elements allowed klezmer to develop the unique sound we associate with it today. The other factor was the instruments. Either by choice, or necessity, many of these performers needed to be mobile, so naturally they would be attracted to instruments that were easily transported. Banjos, piccolos, clarinets, violins and, latter, accordions have all been key elements of the klezmer sound. With the mass immigration to North America in the mid to late 19th century emptying the shtetls (Jewish peasant farming villages of Eastern Europe) klezmer music was exposed to even more influences. In turn it lent its colour to work being produced in North America. Clarinets were brought out of the bands and made into lead instruments by musicians like Benny Goodman, who would have grown up listening to kleamer. Even the sound of swing and jazz clarinet is comparable to the way it sounds in klezmer. But as it was being incorporated into other music, klezmer itself was falling by the wayside. It wasn't until the 1980's when interest in world music started to rise, that klezmer was "rediscovered". Since then there have been a steady increase in the number of klezmer bands available for audiences to listen to. Given the international flavour inherent in klezmer, it surprises me that until now, no one has attempted to do what the David Glukh International Ensemble has done in their latest album. Klezmer Travels The World sets out not only to celebrate the original roots of the genre, but to seek out styles of music not normally associated with klezmer. I know the myth of the wandering Jew claims he is to wander the earth until Christ is resurrected, but I somehow doubt that he takes a klezmer band with him on his travels. Therefore the music of China and points east has probably never shown up in a Klezmer tune before. "Klezmorim in China" supposes that some klezmer musician show up in China to attempt collaboration with Chinese instruments and performers. When David Glukh who, along with the rest of the ensemble is a classically trained musician, discovered that J. S. Bach liked klezmer, it was only natural for him to compose "Baroque Klezmer", a fusion of the two styles. The one thing I've had against a number of the bands involved in the klezmer revival is their inability to move beyond the strictures of how they believe the music should be played. The result is good music that begins to sound annoyingly similar after a while. They seem to have forgotten that the music originally evolved through its ability to absorb the sounds surrounding it without surrendering its identity. David Glukh's original compositions, like the two mentioned about and "Gypsy Craze", are perfect examples of how that is accomplished. You're still listening to the music of the shetls, but now some friends have dropped by to help out. David Glukh's instrument of choice for these recordings is the piccolo trumpet. I have to confess to my ignorance of never having heard of, let alone heard, a piccolo trumpet. It is usual for the leader of a klezmer troupe to play a clarinet, as the sound can both evoke sadness and express jubilation. If I hadn't known it wasn't a clarinet being played I don't know if I could have honestly told you I noticed a difference. Perhaps the notes were just that much cleaner, or the sound a little more pointed at times. But it conveyed exactly the same feelings as the more traditional woodwind. Throughout Klezemer Travels The World The David Glukh International Ensemble embraces the unique ethnic diversity of klezmer music, and on occasion expands on it without ever losing touch with its core essence. Although klezmer was the music at weddings and other celebrations, it does not stop it from communicating the experiences of its people. There are the wild, almost frenzied dances, that are defiant celebrations in the face of the real suffering Jews would have experienced in Europe during the period of the reformation, and through the years up to and including the Holocaust. Doleful instrumental ballads balance playful polkas much as the reality of dirt scrabble poverty and persecution weighs on any festive occasion. That the five players of the ensemble are gifted enough to not only play this music with all the passion and integrity required, but are also able to expand its horizons, speaks volumes about their abilities. I've been listening to klezmer music since the earlier days of its revival in the eighties, and these gentlemen have to be the best I've heard yet. If you have never listened to klezmer music before, or even if you have, Klezmer Travels The World will be a musical experience, and journey, you'll not regret. It's probably the most exotic cruise of the world you can take without leaving home.

CD Review: Gospel Music

2006-01-19T03:15:00.000-05:00

There are many mysteries in this universe that are probably best not explained. The answers would probably be just too weird for our poor little brains to cope with. One of the biggest and strangest mysteries out there is the fascination that skinny white Jewish guys like me have with Black gospel music. What is it about that stuff that makes it strong enough to go against over 5,000 years of biological and racial memory and that just hearing the opening notes from a choir makes me want to run out and find the nearest Southern Baptist Church and throw myself into the water. Luckily for my mother's heart I live in Canada; it's January, and nobody in their right mind is going to immerse them selves in a creek in this weather. Anyway the nearest Southern Baptist is who knows how many thousands of miles away from here. I remember the first time seeing and hearing one of the old time gospel groups. The Zion Harmonisers had come up from New Orleans and were playing at the Mariposa Folk Festival one Sunday morning, when it was still out on the Toronto Islands. They just blew me away. Any art that's inspired by belief seems to have something a little extra that draws you in. From the raw power of picto-glyphs daubed on a rock face; the orchestral might of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and the more inspired religious art of the renaissance. It's like the work transmits something of the divine. That's the feeling I get from really good gospel music. The people singing and playing are so devout that their feelings just shine right through. It's like they have no choice in the matter; they're so inspired that it pushes them to get up and sing. There used to be a stupid saying "You don't have to be Jewish to like…but it doesn't hurt" Well the same holds true for gospel; you don't have to be Christian to like it, and too be honest I can't see how anybody anywhere couldn't be moved by the pure energy and spirit demonstrated by these singers and performers. There's nothing quite like letting that elation wash over you. Sitting back in a chair (well if you can sit and listen) listening to music of that calibre is truly a religious experience, no matter what faith you profess or follow. Lee Friedlander and Joel Dorn have put together an eighteen track compilation on Hyena Records simply called Gospel Music. They have been very deliberate in their presentation of the material, and kept packaging, notes, and anything else they think that would distract from the music, to a minimum. You won't be tempted to pick up the CD case to check the booklet at any time while you're listening, because there is nothing to see. They want you to listen and get lost in the experience of the music. I have to say my initial reaction was "Where are the liner notes?" I wanted to know who these people singing were, where they were when they sang these songs if it was live, and what year it was recorded in. All the usual stuff we clutter our brains with when we're listening to music. The only liner note, is the note telling you there are no liner notes and why. From then on it's up to you to decide whether you can get out of your head long enough to let this music into your heart. If you can't than you should consider getting a chest X-ray to see if you're suffering from that problem the Grinch had with a heart two sizes too small. Even the names of some of the groups are enough for me sometimes: The Swan Silvertones, The Angelic Gospel Singers & The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Soul Stirrers, and The Consolers. In those last two you'll find all the description you're going to need about the nature of the music. There's consolation for those looking for affirmation of their belief, and for all of us, it’s the chance to have our souls stirred. Some of the greats are here: The Staple Singers and Mahalia Jackson have long been synonymous with great gospel music, and their performances are all you'd expect form them. But the real delights in discs like this one are groups you've never heard before. The Harmonizing Four's version of "Motherless Child" shows this group can live up to their name. I've always been a sucker for a great bass voice (I could listen to Paul Robeson all day) and with this song's bass lead it quickly became one of my favourite cuts. Back to back versions of the spiritual "This May Be The Last Time" (Mick and Keith sure knew where to grab some good lines and tunes) by The Staple Singers and The Original Five Blind Boys Of Alabama shows how a song changes from era to era and group to group. While the Staples play slow and soulful, The Blind Boys are all up-tempo revival style that pulls you out of your pew and gets you dancing. This isn't music to get intellectual about. It's not about anything rational or logical in either its appeal or its strength. Black gospel music is listened to with the heart and the soul. These people didn't perform for the labels or personal glory; they performed (and still perform) for the glory of what they believed in. You don't have to believe to be swept away by the maelstrom of emotion they generate. That's the beauty of genuine rapture; it comes through loud and clear no matter what the language, culture, religion or creed. Gospel Music is eighteen tracks of substantial arguments proving that point.

Canadian Election: The Native Vote.

2006-01-18T07:44:00.000-05:00

Can Phil Fontaine Deliver 63 Seats?

As the last months of Paul Martin's Liberal government were winding down a two very important series of negotiations were brought to a close. The first was the contentious issue of compensation and reconciliation over the residential school system imposed by the Federal government on the Native populations, and the second was the commitment of $5 billion dollars over five years by all the provinces and the Federal government to housing, health, and education for first nations peoples. The residential school system was devised by the Canadian government as a means of dealing with the "Indian Problem". The idea was to ensure future generation's assimilation into white society by taking children from their parents and dumping them into boarding school thousands of miles away from home. The schools were administered by whatever Christian church happened to be dominate in that territory, and proceeded to commit cultural genocide. All inhabitants were forbidden to speak their own language, they were instructed that the beliefs of the their parents (and their parents themselves) were evil, they were stripped of all personal possessions, and kept in Dickinson conditions. Supposedly they were being trained to be able to "fit in" but in actuality they were being conditioned to be low paying menial labour. The girls were set to work in the laundries and kitchens of the school, and taught basic house keeping skills. The boys were janitorial and gardening staff, and put to work in the kitchens as well. They were all taught either French or English and whatever form of Christianity those running the schools espoused. Naturally those in Quebec would have been predominantly Catholic and French, while the rest of Canada was mainly Anglican (Episcopalian equivalent). If this wasn't bad enough the children were also subjected to some of the most horrible systematic abuse imaginable. Punishments for speaking your own language were as extreme as being locked up naked in a cell, beaten severely, and anything else that could be devised to "beat the Indian" out of them. Of course there were also the nightly visits that so many of them were subjected to. Sexual abuse of both the male and female students by the staff was rampant. The churches obviously used these places as depots for those whose appetites made them unacceptable as leaders of congregations. There may have been some decent people amongst them, but they would have been the exception to the rule. These schools were in operation into the 1970's in parts of Canada, ensuring that generation after generation of people were turned into dysfunctional messes. The inheritance of these schools are the high incidences of sexual abuse on Native reserves, alcoholism, and a suicide rate that would cause a panic if it were among white people. The agreement reached late in 2005 had two key components; compensation and reconciliation. In some ways the later is the more important element. Following the lead of the Australian government, a truth and reconciliation commission will be formed to provide education and understanding about this long ignored item of Canadian history. It is hoped this commission will begin the process of helping to address the anger and resentment on both sides of coin. Both the First Nations people who suffered the humiliation of the schools and the Canadians of non-native descent need to understand the other's position. Many non-natives do not understand the implications of the residential schools and the long-term affects they had on whole communities. They resent what they see as "special treatment" for a bunch of lazy welfare recipients. If you have not suffered the stigma of sexual abuse, or even systemic emotional and physical abuse, you cannot understand what it can do to a person, let alone a whole generation of people. Ideally this commission will help to bridge this gap of incomprehension. If you live in Southern Canada, especially Ontario, the only reserve you probably have come across has a Casino on it and looks quite prosperous. Even on those reserves, and there aren't that many of them, once you get past the Casino, the prospect of employment is extremely limited. The further north one travels, in general, the worse conditions get. Housing goes from nice to adequate, from adequate to desperate. Recently a whole reserve in Northern Ontario had to be evacuated because the water system became completely corrupted, and it was impossible to live there. Health care facilities are primitive, with maybe a nurse able to come to a local clinic once a week, and to get anything beyond a basic high school education one would have to travel thousands of miles. This pattern is repeated in communities across Canada, from Baffin Island to New Brunswick. That $5 billion over five years that looks so large, begins to shrink when you think of the numbers of people and communities that it has to be distributed amongst, for health, education, and housing. Even considering we're talking about only those who are enrolled band members living on reserve, the numbers of people would be staggering. As it stands neither of these "treaties" has been ratified by any of the houses of parliament in Canada. The provinces will not be in a hurry to do anything before the federal government first passes the legislation through the House of Commons in Ottawa. In today's online web comment in the Globe and Mail Phil Fontaine, national chief of The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) addressed these two issues in light of the current federal election. As befits a man who grew up on the gritty streets of the North End of Winnipeg he was pretty blunt in his assessment of the situation. While making it clear that the AFN is a non-partisan organization, he also said there would be no way in the world they would endorse any party opposed to approving either one of these deals. If his calculations are correct, and there is no reason to suspect otherwise, he claims that the native population could swing as many as sixty-three seats (electoral districts) towards the party of their choice. In an election this close, those seats could be the difference between Steven Harper's Conservative Party of Canada getting the majority they covet, and having to deal with a minority government. In his article today Mr. Fontaine wasn't tipping his hand on how he was going to encourage natives to vote; all he said was that they will be looking for unequivocal support for the deals, and monitoring each party's response. This statement was primarily directed at Mr. Harper. Both the New Democratic Party (N.D.P.) and the Liberals would be supportive of these deals without question. But in the past members of Steven Harper's party have gone on record expressing sentiments along the lines of: "They lost, we won, tough luck" when it comes to native issues. They have opposed most of the new land claim treaties and what they call "preferential treatment". A large proportion of their core supporters are those who stand to lose most through native empowerment: oil companies, lumber companies, and others wishing to exploit treaty territories under dispute. The two questions that are most important in the equation of the sixty-three seats are, will they make a difference (are they seats that could go either way, or ones already conceded to either the Liberals or the N.D.P.) and two, can Mr. Fontaine deliver them as he says he can. If the AFN asks natives to vote for the candidate most likely to defeat a Conservative in a riding will enough of them come out to vote, and will they listen to what the AFN has to say. The AFN is made up of the chiefs of the various band councils across Canada. Their relationship with various communities has been rocky on a variety of occasions. The territories they represent elect the chiefs, but the turn out for these elections is often very low. Some of the councils are rife with nepotism and corruption, and have deeply divided their people. In other areas their actual right to rule is questioned. Electing of chiefs is as alien to a lot of First Nations peoples as the residential school system. It was a system imposed upon them by the government as a means of eliminating the power of the traditional chiefs who were seen as rallying points for discontent. Some people still refer to AFN chiefs with the derogatory term of Apple (red on the outside white on the inside) The AFN itself has often come under fire for being too much a tool of the oppressor. As recently as ten years ago a group of Mohawks went to Ottawa and trashed their offices to protest against their lack of support. Has Phil Fontaine managed to heal these wounds within his own community sufficiently to create the kind of voting bloc he claims he has? Mr. Fontaine has far more "street" credibility than any of his predecessors and appears to have far more backing from communities. He has shown that his is willing to be patient when it comes to dealing with the government on the larger issues, but at the same time will back local community acts for recognition. While predecessors would issue ultimatums to Ottawa, and than waffle when it came to local standoffs, Fontaine has taken the opposite approach. He knows when it's important to count coup, and when it's important to negotiate. While the AFN may not be able to deliver sixty-three seats in this election, their threat to do so is indicative of Mr. Fontaine's way of doing business. He'll negotiate when it's needed, but he's also prepared to go to war for his people when necessary. It's that attitude, and the fact that he's just delivered results as he has promised he would, that could bring a new player on to the Canadian political map: The Native Vote. Phil Fontaine has the instincts of a street fighter and the negotiating skills of a good lawyer. If I were Steven Harper I would not be taking him lightly. A maybe won't cut it for natives anymore in Canada, and they are now prepared to back that up with what looks like sizable political clout.

Martin Luther King Jr. And The Death Of The Civil Rights Movement

2006-01-17T08:21:00.000-05:00

I was born February 23rd 1961, which meant the New Frontier of John F. Kennedy was just a month old and the civil rights movement was still pretty much in its infancy. My first awareness of the radical changes happening was with the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in April of 1968. Even then the only reason it came to my attention was due to a family vacation in Washington D.C. in May of that year. I have memories of hearing snatches of long distance conversations between my father and the friend we were supposed to be visiting debating the wisdom of the trip. As with most of my childhood I have only brief glimpses of what happened during that trip: The Lincoln Memorial, The Smithsonian Institute, plumes of smoke over the downtown core where fires from riots weeks old still smouldered, seeing more black people on the streets than I had ever seen before, and being told not to bother locking car doors because "it would only make them angry". I had been told that President Lincoln had abolished slavery, and looking around at what I considered the vast numbers of black people, I had asked my mother if he had gotten elected because all the black people had voted for him. She said no, not bothering to explain in those days most blacks wouldn't have been able to vote anyway, and said that black people were a minority of the population. Even if they all had voted for Mr. Lincoln, she said, it wouldn't have been enough on it's own to elect him. A seven-year-old child sees what's in front of him and doesn't think of anything else. Coming from Toronto of the 1960's, with a population of less than 500.000, and very few visible minorities; the visual evidence of Washington D.C. was of a country populated predominantly by black people. I don't know what the actual demographics of Washington are, or was back then, but I'm sure there wasn't the black majority I imagined. Friends of my mothers had been part of a contingent of young Canadians who had gone down to take part in the Freedom Rides of the early sixties. So she had some first hand accounts to draw upon to help me understand the struggle that had been taking place in the country next to us while I had been learning how to walk. I don't think it's stretching an analogy too much to say at the same time I was beginning to grow up, so was the United States. Neither of us seemed to be in any hurry to rush matters. I didn't learn to walk until I was almost two (it probably won't come as any surprise that I was talking by one) and it took until 1964 for the Untied States to pass the Civil Rights Act. But standing up and putting one foot in front of the other is only the first step in the long process of covering any distance. The riots and the protest marches were the equivalent of an infants instinctual need for gratification. While the infant wants food and nurturing, people want freedom and to be treated the same as everyone else. You know "deep in your heart", as the song goes, that it's not right someone gets preferential treatment over you because of their skin colour. You see that happening and you act out against the injustice inherent in the activity. You don't have to think about whether it's fair one person can go to a school while another can't because of the colour of their skin. How many of the "accomplishments" of the civil rights movement in the sixties weren’t anything more than getting black people to be treated like human beings instead of a lesser species? The right to vote, the right to sit and eat where they wanted, and a lot of stuff that privileged people like that white boy from Toronto took for granted. When Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down the redress had only started. From sheer momentum alone the movement continued to advance his causes, but could not go any further. His death left a vacuum that to this day has not been filled in any credible manner. How much had really changed other than those basic rights being ceded? What has been accomplished by those who have come after him? Sure Black people could now go to school and eat anywhere they wanted; but how were they going to afford to pay the restaurant bill or overcome two hundred years of enforced ignorance to pass the entrance exam? It was like presenting a starving man with a full course banquet and saying help yourself, but sewing his lips shut so he can't eat. Affirmative action legislation is a helpful tool, but it only works for those who have already managed to cross over the gulf of historical inequity. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina revealed for the first time to all of us how wide that gap still remains. I would think (at least hope so anyway) that it must have shocked those who consider themselves leaders of the African American community even more so than guilt stricken white liberals. It's been easy to become complacent with the current status quo, and forget that millions of people have been left behind. For every general how many single mothers are there? For every doctor and lawyer, how many more janitors are there? For every university graduate how many high school dropouts? True there are white people in the same boat, but I'm willing to bet the ratio is far less significant than that among blacks. The prevailing image that came out of New Orleans was that the face of inner city poverty in America is still black, or at least a shade of skin darker than white. Social change came to a screeching halt in 1968. With the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy; the hijacking of the Democratic nomination for president from Eugene McCarthy into the hands of Hubert Humphrey, and the ultimate election of Richard Nixon as president. The Great Society programming that had been implemented by Lyndon Johnson in his presidency got washed away in the flood of Viet Nam and military spending under Nixon. (To be fair, the trend had started under Johnson, and caused his near defeat by McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary and his withdrawal from the race for president.) Although Jimmy Carter in his one term as President tried to bring the focus of the government back onto domestic issues like housing and education. His troubled presidency was either beset by scandal or having to deal with international troubles like the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the political upheaval in Iran that resulted in the storming of the American embassy and the infamous hostage taking. Since the Regan presidency social spending and government dictated social changes (never popular in the United States to begin with) have fallen into serious disfavour. Bill Clinton was far too obsessed with Bill Clinton to fulfill his promise, and his final term was hampered by partisan attempts to impeach him because he got caught with his fly open. With the support of a Republican House and Senate George Bush Jr. has continued the pattern of increased military spending and tax cuts at the expense of any social programs begun under Regan. Whoever succeeds Mr. Bush will be faced with a deficit of such mammoth proportions that the prospects of any great shift to spending on social programs happening in the near future should be considered nil. What this all boils down to is that aside from a few small initiatives on the state level there has been no significant effort made to improve the lot of the millions of poor Americans in the urban landscape. Since this has been the province of predominantly Black America since the migrations north during the twenties and thirties it means that there have been no societal advancements for African Americans of any great significance since the death of Martin Luther King Jr. In his speech the night prior to his death, where he eerily predicted what was too happen the next day Mr. King claimed like Moses that he had been to the top of the mountain and seen the Promised Land:

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." Martin Luther King Jr. April 3rd 1968

Martin Luther Kings Jr.'s vision of a Promised Land was one of racial and economic equality, with equal opportunity for all and special privaleges for none. His eyesight must have been damned good because almost forty years after that speech we're no closer to getting there then we were on that April night in Memphis Tennessee.

Interview: Robert Scott - Co-Author Of The Eldarn Sequence

2006-01-16T02:51:00.000-05:00

For the second time in less than a year I have had the good fortune to be able to conduct an interview with an author whose work I admire and respect. Earlier it was with Ashok Banker, author of the modern Ramayana, now it's Robert Scott, co-author of The Hickory Staff with his late father in law Jay Gordon. The Hickory Staff is the first book in a trilogy entitled The Eldarn Sequence, named for the world on which it is partially set. We also spend a good deal of time with the characters in the exotic local of Idaho Springs, Colorado. As I had said in my review of the novel, what made this work so special was that they managed to breath new life into a familiar genre: the stranger in a strange land theme. It was this, their characterizations and something about the freshness of their writing that captured my imagination and made me appreciate the book so much. When I wrote them to tell them I had written a unsolicited review of their book, and to request an interview, it was Robert who wrote back. It turned out that Jay Gordon was in the last stages of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and by this time could no longer type. Jay passed away on November 18th of 2005 having seen the first book published, the second on the way for final proof, and the third about to enter editing. We had initially planned this interview for when Jay was alive, but the disease had other plans and the end, to my regret, came quicker than I could get it together to send off the questions. In this interview Robert talks about where the genisis for this series came from, the way in which he and Jay worked together, a little about Jay himself, and of course some of the nitty gritty behind the creation of the work. I conducted the interview via email; sending Robert a list of questions to which he responded with answers. As I discovered with Ashok Banker's interview, author's don't need much encouragement to write, and Robert supplied bountiful answers for all my questions. So sit back and enjoy reading a storyteller telling the story of the creation of The Eldarn Sequence. 1) Well, let’s start with the usual biographical details. The first time I met Jay Gordon was in Boston. I was dating his daughter (now my wife), and Jay drove up from New Jersey to help her move into a new apartment. As a guitarist, I was always worried that something I lifted or carried would cut one of my fingers or crack one of my nails. I had a performance the following weekend and was gingerly lugging books, furniture and various sundry items – all the time hoping I would come through the day unscathed. For some reason, there was a moment when Jay and I found ourselves alone in the back of the moving truck. The silence was awkward; so, I took advantage of the opportunity to spot check my hands. Blushing, I confessed that I was a bit overzealous about my fingers and that I often felt like a character from a series of novels I had read back in high school. At that, Jay interrupted. Obviously relieved – we had something to discuss, after all – he said, ‘Thomas Covenant, Steven Donaldson’s hero.’ And so it began; we had known each other for about two hours at the time. Jay was a fascinating guy. A technology specialist from the early days of the personal computer and corporate network avalanche, Jay was a consultant who seemed to enjoy many things more than he ever enjoyed going to work. One of his most ardent passions was for epic fantasy, science fiction and horror stories. He had read everything and would troll through the bookstore every couple weeks to see if the next volume in any one of eight or nine different series had hit the shelves. We joked often about writing an epic fantasy series but never got around to it. When he became ill in 2001, it was apparent that we needed to get started. He had gone to scores of doctors and had entertained almost as many diagnoses. Things were not going well. The Hickory Staff emerged as something enjoyable that he could do, something to engage his imagination even as his body was breaking down beneath him. Jay never said as much, but I think he was thrilled to have helped tell this story. In the end, it was definitely about the journey. The fact that the book was picked up for publication was a wonderful, but unexpected windfall. 2) Why this genre of fantasy, what is it that attracted you to the displaced person(s) idea? There was never any question that we would write a traditional epic fantasy piece. It was Jay’s favourite genre, and he especially loved the stranger-in-a-strange-land stories he had been reading for decades. I liked the idea of working with malleable characters. At some point early in the process, I came up with the idea of creating people (and places) trapped between who they had been and who they would eventually become. In turn, the town of Idaho Springs, Colorado became a perfect starting block. The old mining town is nestled in Clear Creek Canyon, boxed in by the mountains with no room to grow. With Denver in the east and a scattering of posh ski resorts in the west, Idaho Springs is perfect. It's not a city, not a resort and no longer a mining hub. Crafting Steven Taylor’s character, it made sense to begin in such a place. While this theme doesn’t apply to every Eldarni character, creature, city or village, it is the lens through which we tried to view the story every time we stepped back to ask, ‘How are we doing?’ 3) I have a hard enough time dealing with myself when writing, how did you work with two people? Did one create a scenario, another write it and then the two of you critique it, or is it the old five word story game where you start and finish each other's sentences, but here the key is to make comprehensible? What was the process? When we started, neither Jay nor I knew anything about the publishing industry. We’d never written a query letter; we didn’t know how or where to find credible agents, and apart from visiting Stephen King’s house on Halloween (well, the street in front of his house, anyway), neither of us had spent much time with writers. We kidded one another about it, but we didn’t truly expect that we would get the manuscript read, never mind edited and in print. I was living in Denver at the time; so, I would write a chapter, email it to Jay and then wait for his notes, questions and critiques. That system worked well until Jay’s ALS progressed to the point where he was unable to type. He had lost much of the dexterity in his hands; so, we tapped his knowledge and ideas in marathon planning and research sessions. Jay was in a wheelchair at the time, and I think he welcomed opportunities to get out of the house, especially to the library or the diner where we’d sit all day, making notes and discussing characters. Our initial goal was to write the story and to keep it going until Jay passed away (thus the size of the damned thing). He was telling the tale of Hannah Sorensen and the Pragan Resistance, while I worked with Steven Taylor and the crew from Rona. The story lines rarely overlapped; so, early on, there was a great deal of planning but not many disagreements about what happened and to whom. When it became apparent that we would be sending bits and chapters out for consideration, we had to figure a way to turn two writing styles into one. This didn’t feel especially exigent – again, since we were expecting nothing but rejection slips. However, when we realized the entire manuscript was heading to London and that a honest-to-goodness editor was going to peruse it, we had to get serious about cleaning it up. The rewriting fell to me, but Jay was involved all along. Unable to type his ideas, he would read sections, mark places that needed to be addressed and then share his ideas during our sessions. I think we managed to avoid most disagreements, because we rarely wrote about the same characters at the same time. When we did, one of us was usually more invested in that group of players; so, the other generally (not always, by any means) gave in. Our writing styles and work habits were different, and we learned early in the process that working simultaneously on the same paragraph or – God forbid – the same sentence was the kiss of death. 4) You have your characters deal with some very serious personal issues, Stephen has never been motivated or resolute enough to do things, and now is forced to, and Garec is forced to come to terms with his skill as a killer. It's obvious you wanted this to be more than just an action/adventure series. Any specific reasons for the internal conflicts, aside from motivating the characters? Writing a traditional fantasy story, Jay and I needed to come up with a few things – hopefully subtle things – that would make the Eldarn books a fresh experience for fantasy readers. Our characters and their personal struggles were favourite drawing boards, ones we revisited often, especially when the draft copy felt like something we had both read dozens of times. With the project nearly complete, the richness of the characters and their development is one of the critical things on which Jay and I hung our hats. There is passion, mysticism, magic, conflict, and plenty of action; however, I believe the Eldarn books live or die based on the reader’s connection with our characters. When we started, neither Jay nor I had written much fiction. We established some rules that seemed to work, and we stuck by them, no matter what. I was surprised at how frequently one character’s evolution dictated what needed to happen in the plot. (I had read about those things happening but never experienced it firsthand.) Versen’s death (without spoiling too much) is a key moment, because without his murder, Brexan’s character would have continued to exist in his shadow. Brexan is a significant character in Lessek’s Key and The Larion Senators. Yet, she would not have emerged as a varsity player in these books had Versen lived. The same holds true for Garec, Hannah, Mark and Hoyt. They are all characters who evolve slowly but – hopefully – into memorable participants in an albeit, traditional, story. 5) All of your characters have depth to them, even the ones who are dead before we know them for long, what did you use for references for them? Anyone you know show up in the pages, or are they all just figments of your imagination? Jay and I wanted to craft characters who were interesting people first and heroes (or villains) second. They each needed to have something on their minds, some personal, non-plot issue plaguing them while they tried to keep their eye on the ball. The litmus test we used was to ask ourselves whether these people would seem two dimensional if we met them outside the pages of the book. And while we didn’t mould any characters from people we know, there are snippets of characters: physical features, idiosyncrasies, gestures and colloquialisms that – in hindsight – remind me of certain friends or family members. It was rarely deliberate, though. Well, okay, not often deliberate, anyway. 6) Did you know when you started out on it that it would be a trilogy? I can barely see past the first page of anything I'm doing, I can't imagine thinking three books in advance. No. For years I wondered what marathon runners thought about while trudging along for 26.2 miles. At 35, I decided to run the New York City Marathon (well, jog, crawl, hitchhike and eventually give up and wait for the Med-Evac helicopter). The night before the race, Jay and I heard from Victor Gollancz, our imprint at Orion Books in London. They had read The Hickory Staff and were interested in our plans for the series. Assuring them we had extensive notes for Lessek’s Key and The Larion Senators, I promised to e-mail a pair of outlines the following Monday, a mere thirty-six hours later. It was one of those wonderful stomach flops that even the engineers at the Disney Corporation can’t perfect. We had glimpsed a publishing contract for a story we scribbled over donuts and beer and we were about to lose it, because we didn’t have a goddamned clue what happens next. The following morning my wife drove me to the starting line. For the next four hours, I irritated marathoners with plot ideas, character flaws, potential paradoxes and bad metaphors. At 78th Street and Central Park West, I met my sister who gave me a hug and handed over my mini tape recorder. I spent about twenty delirious minutes telling the story aloud to the Upper West Side, typed the outlines that night and emailed the pages off with several hours to spare. I like to think that if the books ever do well, I might hear from one of those runners, someone who humoured me through Brooklyn or out along First Avenue. I kept the tape as well; although, it seems to make more sense after a long run. 7) Who if anyone has inspired your writing? Jay was a fiction junkie for most of his life. I know he was inspired by Steven Donaldson, Katherine Kurtz, Robert Jordan, Melanie Rawn and Raymond Feist. He is also one of the only people I’ve known to have read the Silmarillion from start to finish. Although he didn’t read Tolkien as much in his later years, Jay had been through the Lord of the Rings enough times to know even the most obscure characters on a first-name basis. He read hundreds of books; he had one with him all time. An avid sports fan, Jay would watch the World Series, the Super Bowl, the NCAA Final Four and all with a book open in his lap. He never minded traffic jams, waits for restaurant tables or long lines at the DMV. Jay was the quintessential escapist reader, and writers of traditional epic fantasy were his inspiration. For me, writing inspiration comes from a curious place. I started working on The Hickory Staff right after completing my dissertation. An unnecessarily complicated study of school principals and role-related stress, it was a monstrous document with enough bibliography pages to wallpaper my children’s bathroom. All the while I was working on the final draft, I imagined the published manuscript there on the shelves next to the non-fiction works of William Manchester. (Yikes, I’m blushing on the Internet.) About 100 years ago, I had a chance to travel as a concert soloist. It was a wonderful experience for a young guitarist, but most of the time I was by myself. William Manchester’s works kept me company for years, and I suppose that most days when I sit down to write, I wish I could scribble even a few paragraphs with the skill he would brandish over eight hundred pages. Now that I’m writing fiction every day, I’m still inspired by the sheer volume of his work and the discipline that went into his research. There are thousands of academics out there writing non-fiction, but for me, Manchester made his research read like a novel. His books (and Howard Zinn’s) remain the best history classes I’ve ever had. 8) Some of the creatures you have invented for the books are quite unique, especially the thing inhabiting Nerak. What did you use as inspiration for these ghoulies? That’s a tough question to answer without spoiling aspects of Lessek’s Key. However, there is a place near the end of The Hickory Staff where Mark Jenkins is wrestling with deductions about Nerak and Nerak’s abilities. Mark is convinced that most of the demons, monsters and creatures hunting the partisan group have a few key elements in common. He struggles to put his finger on it but by the time the book ends, Mark is certain he’s making headway. He discusses it with Steven and Brynne on the shores of the underground lake, but it continues to bother him throughout his time in Orindale. What those creatures have in common is a critical question that must be answered before the band of freedom fighters can defeat Nerak. These were enjoyable monsters to create. The fact that they all had something in common, something to help illuminate one of Nerak’s weaknesses made the journey more fun for Jay and me. Again, our goal early on was not necessarily to send this manuscript off for consideration. We were more engaged with telling the story, manipulating the layers and creating a wild ride for a willing reader. Having ghouls and critters with a subtle common denominator was something we did on purpose. We didn’t necessarily know when we would use it, but it helped pave the way for Mark’s character to play an important role inLessek’s Key and The Larion Senators. Like Steven’s mathematics knowledge, Mark’s deductions help the partisans decide how and when to bring the fight to Nerak. 9) Mathematics and Engineering have always been weak points for me (same with those types of problems you have Steven loving to solve) the magic in these worlds are based on certain principles. Were any of these principles taken from our sciences that people might recognise? Or have they just come from your fertile imagination. On that subject, Jay was our expert. He insisted that we have parameters within which Eldarni magic would be confined. And it was about confinement. I remember him saying how much he disliked books in which magic underwent a transformation just at the moment when the protagonist needed something more powerful or more insidious. Why hadn’t it been that powerful all along? How many sidekicks had to die before the square-jawed hero discovered that, in fact, he could level a mountain? Without spoiling Lessek’s Key, there is more than one mystical force at work in Eldarn. Jay and I were careful to establish specific ceilings for each. At the conclusion of The Hickory Staff, there is some suspicion among the main characters that greater powers have come into play, but we have yet to see the limits of anyone’s abilities, Nerak and the staff included. We found that the most challenging part about writing different kinds of magic over three volumes was deciding how much to expose and when. We didn’t want readers getting the end of Lessek’s Key and saying, ‘oh, they just added that ability, because they were in deep shit.’ We needed magic to evolve like a character, with glimpses of the future included in the text from early on. What are those neon signs Mark keeps seeing? Why didn’t the hickory staff shatter when Steven slashed that pine tree in the Blackstone Mountains? Have we seen the sum force of Nerak’s magic, and why didn’t it destroy Gilmour on "The Prince Marek"? How did Steven start that campfire when the staff was out of reach? These are all questions that eventually lead to a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the different forces at work in Eldarn. By the end of Lessek’s Key, most everything will have come into focus. Yet, there are a few threads that are not entirely explained until The Larion Senators. It wouldn’t be any fun to have everything worked out too early. As for the math, there is more of that to come as well, including an engineering problem that, if I had a massive federal or corporate grant, I would try to solve in my basement. In Eldarn, magic can pinch hit for an electromagnet. Here in Virginia, well, I just don’t make that much money. 10) Did you have any particular society in mind, cultural, historical period, etc. when you created the world of Eldarn. Jay and I established a few written-in-blood rules that we followed religiously. One of the most important was that people behave according to what they value. This rule had to hold true for any culture we created, because without it, readers would be less inclined to feel sympathy for the characters. In turn, I suppose there are aspects of Eldarni culture that are rooted in the most fundamental tenants of our western values, traditions, beliefs, myths and behaviours. Yet, Jay and I didn’t select a particular culture or time period to act as Eldarn’s template. Actually, we were deliberate about jumping around a bit. The architecture, the weaponry, the agriculture, the economics and commerce, and especially the shipping industry are all shadowy reflections of different time periods in western history. It presupposes the fact that Larion senators had been making trips back and forth for some time, but it also provides for 980 Twinmoons (about 135 years) of Nerak’s personal, dictatorial values to impact Eldarn’s citizens. Steven notices it in Orindale the moment he sees the Malakasian flagship, The Prince Marek. There is an astonishing incongruity between the technologies of war and shipping – two of Nerak’s priorities – and the technologies of Eastland farming or architecture, for example. 980 Twinmoons is enough time for Eldarn to forget many of the innovative technologies and resources the Larion Senate introduced from Sandcliff Palace. It is ample time for Nerak’s military and economic priorities to diffuse through the cultural fabric of the occupied lands. As well, it is ample time for the people of Eldarn to lose sight of what it meant to be free. Steven and Mark notice almost immediately that apart from the Resistance, Eldarn’s people act like a beaten people. Bringing them hope is a charge the partisan group will need to address before the end of the series.

DVD Review: Bigger Than The Sky

2006-01-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

Once, long ago, there was a young man who worked in theatre. He started at the age of twenty and kept at it until he was thirty-two, still no further ahead than when he started. Fortunately for him he was able to stop before he got bitter and lost his love and appreciation for the art form. One of the more beautiful things about theatre is it's potential to create magic out of nothing. I don't mean the elaborate sets of a Broadway style mega production when I say magic. I'm talking about an empty space, which can be filled with whatever the human spirit can imagine and recreate through the power of performance. It's the magic given to an actor at any level of development, amateur to professional, to become someone else. With or without costume and makeup the gift of being allowed to create a character is a magical experience for both the actor and the people watching. As an actor there is nothing more liberating than experiencing, for the first time, the sense of being someone other than one's self. The freedom that this allows is immense. One is able to give vent to emotions and ideas that might normally have been locked up inside, but thanks to words and ideas penned by someone else they are allowed to take flight. As an audience member witnessing this transformation there's the magic of make believe made real before your eyes. Going to theatre is like one giant game of "Let's Pretend". They'll pretend to be lovers; he'll be a king; he is the villain we get to boo; and she is the ingénue we all get to fall in love with. It's a fantasy world brought to life for your own personal enjoyment. Of course there is also that realization that this is "Live". It's the world of no second takes; only one view of the scene, no multiple cameras; nothing can be tweaked and saved in the editing room. Theatre is the original, What You See Is What You Get. As a former theatre actor I have obviously a certain amount of prejudice against film acting. It is a different craft from what is done on stage in a number of ways, but what has always bothered me is how little a performance is controlled by the actor. A director has you shoot a scene from various angles and in a variety of ways. Then in the editing room he literally pieces it together frame by frame. Your final performance in one scene could actually be taken from six separate shots. In my mind that's cheating the process. It also leads to what I would refer to as a Stars not actors school of performance. So many movie stars do not create a character. They act out versions of themselves; they get angry, they get sad etc. Those actors who actually create characters are categorized into something a step down from Stars as character actors. There are exceptions to the rule of course; Kevin Spacey and Viggo Mortensen spring to mind, but so many of them coast on their star power. Part of this can be laid at the feet of the American school of Method acting. It encouraged actors to use the techniques developed by the Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski to create a performance but omitted the key step of creating a character to portray the emotions. But it also revolves around the Star system that's always been a key to the film business. In their bid to attract the attention and money of the movie going public, the studios created the idea of larger than life figures that were more important than the role they were playing or the film they were starring in. People go to see a Tom Cruise movie today like they went to see a Cary Grant movie or Humphrey Bogart movie in previous generations. While the world of theatre may have its stars as well, they are less well known then their brethren and sisters in the world of film. They are renowned for their technique amongst the people they work with and the people who watch them on stage. Long before Maggie Smith made a career out of playing elderly, stern British matriarchs, she was one of the most highly regarded female Shakespearian actors of her time. Aside from The Prime of Miss. Jean Brody, shot in the mid sixties the majority of her film experience has come latter in life. What brought all this to mind was viewing a very remarkable small film last night on DVD called Bigger than the Sky. On the surface, a basic story of a nothing personality finding himself through being involved in a stage production of Cyrano de Bergerac; but along the way it evoked for me memories of the passion and invigoration which are part and parcel of the theatrical experience. As seen through the eyes of the novice Peter Rooker (Marcus Thomas) one is guided past the surface stereotypes so often associated with theatre, to find the kernels of truth that resides at the heart of the art. Aided and abetted by Michael Degan (John Corbett of Northern Exposure fame) and the beauteous Grace Hargrove (Amy Smart), two vastly more experienced actors, he has his eyes opened to the magic inherit in the world of theatre. John Corbett's Michael is a jaded actor who's reduced to playing out being an actor and forgotten why he started in the first place. Although the idea of the novice reinvigorating the bitter experienced actor is slightly clichéd, the chemistry between the shy and introverted Peter and the flamboyant Michael breaths life into something old. For although Peter may envy Michael his talent and his exuberance he knows that he will never be him. He needs to be able to find his own way through his insecurities and doubts. The movie places a strain on our credibility by having Peter, a rank amateur, cast as the title character in Cyrano de Bergerac, but in the context of the film it's a perfect analogy. Cyrano hides behind the deformity of his nose, making jokes, playing the fool, and being the good soldier. But all the time he holds his real emotions in check, feeling that because of the nose he is not worthy or deserving of love, and is too embarrassed to act otherwise. Peter at the start of the movie is a non-entity whose existence is barely noticed by those in his life. He hides within that shell, because almost any time he steps out from within it he is shot down. Like Cyrano Peter finds reason to push out from under the shell. For him it's the realization there is something that makes him feel alive, and gives him a feeling of accomplishment like nothing else has ever done. It's not just the work; it's also the feeling of being accepted as a part of a group for the first time in his life. He's taking part in an endeavour that is bigger than him which not only allows for personal satisfaction, but the realization he can make a difference and be appreciated by others. It's a simple tale devoted to simple truths, which after all are the realest ones. The manner in which this movie depicts the simple truths about acting and theatre wonderfully evoked all my fondest memories and made me miss what once was. Perhaps those who watch Bigger Than The Sky who lack a background in theatre will not appreciate it as much, or might look on it all with a sceptical eye. While it's true that some of the types may be exaggerated for effect, in essence it is accurate. Having worked with people as diverse as inmates in a Young Offender unit, young children, professionals in all aspects of the field, and lifers (people serving a life sentence for murder) and seen them all go through a similar process in their own way; I can only praise the people involved with this film for the accuracy of their depiction of theatre's magic. I have vivid memories of staying up into the wee hours of the morning painting a backdrop for the last play I worked on. I still remember my feelings of pride and accomplishment when seeing it hung on stage and illuminated by the lights. It was only a small detail, probably barely noticed by the audience, but it was part of the magic of the performance. It was my imprint on the show and it made it special to me for that reason. That's the true magic of what theatre can do for all of us if we are willing to take the chance.

Pain, Morphine, and Lies

2006-01-14T12:11:00.000-05:00

The problem with having an acute illness is that every so often it reminds you of your limitations. You can be marching along for weeks and months on end, and then, all of sudden, you're bedridden. In my case it's a chronic pain condition that debilitates me and necessitates continual medication to allow me some semblance of a life. Unfortunately the medication I'm on, morphine, is looked upon by some doctors as more dangerous than the physical condition you could be dealing with. I had not realized how fortunate I'd been until this past month. I had been with the same family doctor for close to thirteen years and she had seen me through numerous illnesses and a variety of treatments. Back in 2001 when it became apparent that the pain was extreme enough to be affecting my abilities, she started looking for a combination of meds to help me cope. Of course we started on the low end of the narcotics field, Oxycocete, then gradually developed a dose of morphine that allowed me to be functional. Morphine comes in two forms; quick acting low doses, or time released high dosages. By seeing how many of the 10mg pills I was being forced to take in a day, my doctor was able to figure out a long term dosage that would work. Once you acclimatize to your dose this system is far healthier for your body and for cutting down on the slim chances of addiction. It maintains a threshold where the pain is pretty much always under control. On the occasions it peaks you can take one of the 10mg pills to bring it back into control. I've also not limited my treatments to drug therapy. I've been a patient in the Kingston General Hospitals pain clinic since 2003, where the specialist I work with has been using trigger point pain block injections to try to eliminate the causes of the pain. The problem he's been having is managing to get at the root cause of the damage. The focal point is in the vicinity of my prostrate, which makes it one of the most inaccessible parts of the male anatomy. He's had some success with providing temporary relief to some of the topical pain points, but because of the nature of the beast, they always flare up again because the centre remains untreated. I'm his favourite guinea pig, in the best sense of the word, because the incidences of male pelvic wall damage are very rare: so rare in fact that I was only his third patient of that type. The other form of treatment I've been working on is psychotherapy. The same centres of the brain control memory and pain. It's how we learn what is safe, and what is unsafe. You touch a hot thing and remember the pain so you won't do it again. Unfortunately it also means that memories could potentially be the stimulus for your pain. If, like me, you have suffered traumas in the past, those memories can be expressed through the remembered pain of the events. Through as system known as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) my therapist and I have been going through my memories of the trauma in a manner that allows me to finally rid myself of reliving them as falshbacks. So far it has had no direct affect on the pain, but has helped me significantly in other ways. So that leaves me still dependant on morphine to even get out of bed and do the things I'm able to do. The gratitude I have for this drug knows no bounds. Although I'm unable to work at a job, I'm able to write on a daily basis, with something close to coherency. I can take short walks, and enjoy my life to a certain degree. Of course it's still severely limited but much better than any alternative. This last point was driven home quite forcibly in the last week. My family doctor closed her practice in October of 2005 to go into teaching. Kingston is experiencing a chronic shortage of family doctors so my wife and I considered ourselves lucky that we were able to hook up with a family practice clinic. But from the get go there were warning signs this was not going to be the right place for us. Mysteriously my medical files never were forwarded, while my wife's were. I phoned them in the third week of November to book an appointment to renew my prescriptions only to be told that I couldn't be seen until January 6th. Fortunately, my pain doctor did me the great favour of renewing what I needed over the phone. Then on the morning of January 6th the clinic phoned to cancel my appointment and rescheduled it to the following Tuesday. That too was than cancelled until the next Friday. What this meant to me was that I would miss two days of medication. By the time Friday rolled around I was bedridden, unable to move because the pain had begun to get out of control. When I was finally seen by one of the doctors he turned out to be someone who would didn't believe in prescribing morphine. In the end I ended up spending eight hours in an emergency room so I could get enough pills to carry me through to my appointment next week in the pain clinic. Hopefully my doctor there will be willing to take over prescribing my medications. It should not be his responsibility, but I seem to have no other choice. When pain is allowed to escalate past a certain point it takes a substantial amount of medication to bring the level back down to manageable again. It once took two days of intravenous injections every three hours to restore the balance. Thankfully I hadn't gone too far this time, and just a little extra dosing managed to restore the balance. It's a horrible thing when your well being is dependant on the whims and prejudices of other people. Why is it there are doctors who refuse to treat a patient with the same medication they have been taking for three years? Hospitals have no problem using morphine as pain medication, or sending a patient home with a prescription for morphine after they are released, so why are there doctors still allowed to practice who refuse to recognise its benefits? The whole addiction myth has long since been disproved. If you are in pain morphine is not addictive. I have been easily able to stop taking it on many occasions by properly through properly weaning myself down to zero. There have been none of the symptoms commonly associated with withdrawal. Having been down the road of stopping various addictive behaviours I was anticipating all sorts of problems; sweats, chills, cramps, and the rest. But because my body no longer needed the drug for relief of pain, it was easy to rid myself of the need to take it. As far as I was concerned I was put through living hell for two days by the bigotry and antiquated ideas of an incompetent doctor. It makes me wonder how many people are now needlessly suffering from pain that is eminently manageable. As a nurse in emergency said to me last night: "It's amazing how people who have never experienced pain can "know" so much about treating it"

Uncommon Courtesy And Sweating The Small Stuff

2006-01-12T10:42:00.000-05:00

No matter what anyone says, have you ever noticed that it's the small stuff that causes all your problems? Richard Carlson can tell you all he likes, Don't Sweat The Small Stuff, but most of the time you don't have any choice in the matter. It just piles up without you noticing until one day your dam bursts. That's the problem with the genuine small stuff; it's the inconsequential shit that happens on a daily basis to everybody. Being cut off in traffic, someone walking and talking on their cell phone and running into you, a door left to close in your face, cars blocking intersections so you can't walk across the street, drivers making right turns without checking for pedestrians on their right side; the list could go on forever. What makes all these things so annoying is that they all come about because somebody isn't thinking. Well, maybe they are thinking, but it's only about themselves. You can call it what you want; lack of awareness, preoccupation, or rudeness. The reality is, most people act like there's nobody else in the world but them. Have you ever been in a public place where they provide both seating and standing facilities? You and the people you're with are seated at a table. The next thing you know a whole crowd of people, with their backs to you, are standing pressed up against your chair. They have plenty of room to move away, but they don't. If you happen to say something to them, they look at you as if you were the rude one. Imagine what must be like for people in wheelchairs. I've actually seen people prop their butts against the back of a wheel chair because they haven't been paying any attention to what they've been doing. It would have been wonderful if the person in the chair had moved out quickly enough that the leaner fell on their butt. Courtesy is such an old fashioned word that it sounds quaintly archaic nowadays. Somehow the notion fell by the wayside in our rush to be free of the constraints of the past and the rebellion against the repressions of etiquette. What everybody seems to have missed out on was the difference between the two. Etiquette is a code of behaviour designed to differentiate one class from another. It defines how you're supposed to behave at the dining table, how to treat those who are higher and lower in rank than you, and thousands of other inconsequential nuances of behaviour. The only people etiquette matters to are those awaiting the resurrection of the British Empire. Courtesy has no rules or regulations. It's simply being aware of those around you and extending yourself enough to accommodate some of their needs. The only demand it places on a person is that they not think only of themselves. Is that asking a lot? It doesn't seem like it should be, but it must, given the manner so many people treat those around them. It's almost like it has become cool to be rude, judging by the behaviour of those who jeer at the people they cut off. It would be nice, sort of, to say it was limited to young people, in the hopes that they would grow out of it. But there seems to be no age limitations on rudeness. Young, middle aged, old, male, or female; it makes no difference. Rudeness is something that truly crosses all lines of race and sex. It's universal in application and practice. It's gotten to the point that when one does experience a rare act of courtesy you feel like giving the person responsible a medal. Each day we go out and experience constant barrage of indignities; an assault that eventually can leave you reeling. Sometimes it doesn't make any difference whether it's directed at you or you just observe it happening, the result is the same. You are left feeling frustrated and angry by the wear and tear on your nerves from feeling like you're involved in a constant game of chicken when you go for a walk. So when someone tells you not to worry about the small stuff in life, what exactly are they talking about? Do they never have to go out in public and deal with ordeal of just being in the world on a day-to-day basis? They say don't take things personally, but when the rudeness is directed at you, whether intentionally or not, it's almost impossible not to. With common courtesy grown exceedingly uncommon, it's becoming harder and harder not to feel the world piling up on your shoulders. Civility and decency seem to have fallen into disfavour, resulting in the small stuff becoming too large to handle.

Dr. Hoffman, Ken Kesey, And LSD

2006-01-11T15:20:00.000-05:00

Wow! Talk about synergy and synchronicity man! It's like the stars aligned in just the most cosmic of fashions, and the universe opened its soul for all of us to step inside. It was right there for all to see too, in that most uptight of places The Globe And Mail on line today. There they were; like an invitation from the cosmos to remind us of how to open our minds and bare our souls; two articles from two different countries working in conjunction. First, there was the man who started it all. I mean, he unlocked the secret of the stars for us over in Switzerland, and he, Albert Hoffman, turned one hundred yesterday. Now here's the real mind-boggling thing; at the same time the grandfather is being celebrated, the original vehicle of consciousness expansion is being resurrected. Can you dig it! Ken Kesey's original School Bus is being restored and put back on the road. That's right, the vehicle that carried the Merry Pranksters across the old U.S.A from 1964 to 1969; spreading the truth about truth, and teaching us to expand our minds, has risen from the dead. It made its last trip to Woodstock in 69, and then was laid to rest. In 1990 it was given its final reward and pushed into the swamp out back of the Kesey farm where it could finally achieve pure oneness with mother earth. Those of us who never experienced "being on the bus", but only read about it through the eyes of Tom Wolf in Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, still most likely think of the bus named "Furthur" as our initiation to the psychedelic. With the most famous driver in literature at the wheel, Neil Cassidy, (the real life basis for Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's On The Road) and a fridge full of LSD spiked drinks, they set out to film themselves and America. Dr. Hoffman discovered Lysergic acid diethylamide-25 (LSD) in 1938 while he was experimenting with the medicinal properties of a fungus. It wasn't until 1943 that he accidentally became the first human subject for testing. He spilt three drops on a finger during a laboratory test and experienced the first trip. He also experienced the first bummer (bad trip) a few days latter when he deliberately ingested a larger amount. Due to the drug's ability to exaggerate inner problems and conflicts, bad trips are usually a reflection of some inner conflict or problem. What Dr. Hoffman hoped was the drug would be useful as a means of treating and diagnosing psychiatric ailments like schizophrenia, and never foresaw it having a recreational potential. Still to this day he abhors both the ban on the drug and its abuse by people looking to get high: "The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug." He continues to advocate for the revoking of the ban on the grounds that it is not addictive and has vast potential for use in treatment. In the 1950's Ken Kesey picked up extra money volunteering his services as a drug tester. This was how he was introduced to LSD. Somehow or other he was able to smuggle a supply of the drug out of the lab and begin using it on his own. While working a night shift as an intern at a psychiatric institution he began taking doses and observing the patients as they slept. It was from these observations that his most famous novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was born. It seems only fitting than that the bus was paid for from money he earned from that novel. The bus was to be a grand experiment with living and creating while stoned all the time. There were casualties among those involved in the form of bad trips, people's insecurities coming to the fore. If you were unable to deal with facing your own demons this type of experience would have been shattering. The image that bus projected of freedom and creativity carried across the years and fuelled the drug culture of the sixties and the seventies. Even though Kesey himself advocated going beyond drugs in the mid-sixties; that it was time to take the next step in self-exploration and growth; the influence of the bus persisted. People would read Tom Wolf's book and revel in the descriptions of the wild parties with the Hell's Angels and the Grateful Dead and ignore the grim realities of the bad trips and hospitalizations. They also failed to take into account how quality could vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. While Kesey and his cohorts were ingesting what was a pure LSD, when people whose scruples weren't as pure got their hands on its manufacture, there was no knowing what you were taking. In latter days one of the key ingredients, in what was being sold as acid, was Strychnine. The first clue you would get to how badly doctored the dose had been, was the size of your stomach cramps. No one knows what long-term physical or neurological damage heavy ingestion of LSD have caused, or could potentially cause. Psychological problems have been well documented but there have been no studies on what the effects of base materials like Strychnine could have on the nervous system. Having known people who have contracted diseases of the nervous system like Multiple Sclerosis latter in life, after having ingested LSD on a regular basis for years, it makes me wonder. Does the drug only work on the brain or does it have more far reaching effects when taken in large doses? Ken Kesey and Dr Hoffman had a lot in common. They were both researching the potentials of LSD. Dr. Hoffman looked on it as a tool that could be utilized in a clinical setting under the supervision of medical staff. Kesey was experimenting with looking at the world in different way; liberating the mind from the shackles of convention and training. Like the beats of the 1950's, Kesey unwittingly created a romantic persona everybody wanted to emulate. Not having the access to the quality of LSD that Kesey did, or the self-assuredness needed to ingest it in large doses, the path he thought he was blazing towards freedom became littered with those not ready to face their own demons. It's hard to attach blame to Kesey, as he never advocated or documented this experiment; others were responsible for creating the myth. Like his compatriot Nobel shouldn't be held accountable for today's suicide bombers, Dr. Albert Hoffman shouldn't be held to account for his invention of LSD. What was meant to stay within the hands of doctors and clinicians became available to the general public through bathtub chemists and profiteers. Abuse any psychotropic medication and there is bound to be trouble. Ken Kesey and Dr. Hoffman both saw a potential for using LSD as a means to a specific end. Neither of them was advocating its use as a means to get "high" or "stoned". Not with standing Tim Leary's advocacy to "Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out", no drug is a cure all for what ails anybody or the answer to society's problems. Given the nostalgia and the hoopla that's bound to be generated by the resurrection of "Furthur", the original magic bus, there's something to keep in mind. She may have represented a generation's dream of freedom and self-expression, but some dreams end up being nightmares.

Dr. Hoffman, Ken Kesey, And LSD

2006-01-11T09:55:00.000-05:00

Who Would Want To Be An Addict And A Criminal?

2006-01-10T07:33:00.000-05:00

There are parts of my life that I'm not proud of; parts that I wouldn't tell anyone about except those I could be guaranteed wouldn't look at me funny for the rest of my days. Even though most of it's long in the past, and I have reached a certain level of internal peace on a personal level, they are not events I'm going to be trumpeting from the roof tops. In recent post I've alluded to some nasty things that happened to me during my childhood and how that led to behaviour on my part that would at best be called anti social. But the details are nobody's business but my own, and those who had direct involvement in the matter. I will sometimes cite my own case as an example of how things in this world are not as ideal as they should be, but I don't consider myself, or my behaviour at the time, as anything special or interesting. It was just another sorry tale of somebody making the wrong choices when push came to shove, and proving too weak to resist temptation. Escape from pain and fear are the hardest temptations in the world to resist. If you were to scratch the skin of many an addict, you'd find someone who was running away from something in their past they didn't want to deal with. The absolute hell that you go through when you finally confront those dark places in your soul is nothing you'd want to wish on anyone. In the last fifteen years or so, I've gotten to know a number of men and women who have served a great deal of prison time. Some of them have been "lifers", people who were in jail on murder charges but since been released. They will spend the rest of their days on parole, knowing that if they make one small mistake, they can look forward to finishing their sentence. Some of them had served ten years, some fifteen and some even longer, but all of them are just grateful for having survived and being given a chance for quiet. They don't seek attention; in fact that's the last thing they want. After more than a decade where everyone knows your whole life; where people can watch you go to the bathroom and shower; and the concept of privacy is as alien as freedom, who wants the spotlight. Some are thrust into the spotlight because of their notoriety, or because they have done some amazing thing to reform themselves, but for the most part they are left alone save for having to report to the police station and their parole officer. These so-called hardened criminals and violent men just want some of the quiet that they deprived themselves of through their own actions. The one thing that is consistent about anyone I've known who has done long time is that the last thing they want to do is talk about what they've gone through. As a very short timer my experiences pales in comparison to theirs, but I share the same reluctance to speak, except, as I said before in broad, general terms. The person who is eager to speak about what they did, and how and why etc is usually viewed with mistrust, and as someone who is probably bull shiting. Anyone who needs to talk about what they've done that much is trying to make themselves out to be something they aren't. Why would you want to boast about having a criminal record? Why would you want to boast about being addicted to drugs and alcohol? Why would you lie about such things? What kind of asshole goes to great lengths to convince people that he is all of those horrible things? Especially when those of us who have been in some of those hells, wish with all of our hearts it never happened. An author name Jerry Frey has made himself a small mint out of telling about his life of crime and addiction. If he wants to put himself on display like some sort of freak show for the public to look at that's his own business. One can only wonder at the people who want to read it, but like they say: there's no accounting for taste. But what raises my ire is the news reported over at The Smoking Gun.com that Mr. Frey may have not only exaggerated the incidents portrayed in his book, but completely fabricated them. Of course Mr. Frey and his lawyers have denied this accusation and threatened the folk over at The Smoking Gun with all sorts of legal trouble if they published their story. The Smoking Gun seems to be certain enough of its research and facts to risk it and has gone ahead and published their story anyway. In the litigation happy world that we live in now, being confident enough to publish in the face of a threatened lawsuit is testimony itself to the legitimacy of their claims. It's one thing to exploit yourself like a cheap hooker to turn a quick buck, it's another altogether to fabricate the means to that end. If these accusations are true and his book is a mix of lies and exaggerations; Jerry Frey, his publisher and anyone else complicit in advocating this book as factual content, have a lot to answer for. One wonders why, if Mr. Frey considered it so important to reveal his soul, he first tried to peddle this as a work of fiction. According to The Smoking Gun article it wasn't until his current publisher suggested it would be better as a work of non-fiction that lo and behold it turned out to be just that. Where were the fact checkers for this publisher on the day they accepted the manuscript? It wouldn't have been too hard to do, as The Smoking Gun has done, turn up an arrest report that contradicts what Mr. Frey refers to as the pivotal scene, sorry, moment, in his life of crime. Of course now that Mr. Frey claims to have gone around and expunged all his criminal records, because they are nobody's business but his own, (a bit rich coming from the man who has made a fortune telling everybody about them) it will be hard to prove or disprove whether they existed or not. With no proof to either substantiate or refute his statements, all the witnesses to his so-called crime sprees seemed to have died, it looks like the credibility of those involved will be what decides the truth of the matter. The interesting thing about Mr. Frey is that, based on how he's depicted in The Smoking Gun report, his current behaviour has a lot in common with that of an addict. He believes he's the centre of the universe, that nobody else's problems are as important as his, and that he's completely justified in everything he does. If a man wants to pretend that he has a sordid past, he's perfectly entitled too. It's sort of a pathetic way of garnering attention, but too each their own. But there's a difference between talking yourself up in a bar to impress the locals, and writing a book about it. That sort of fraud is insulting enough as it is to the countless men and women who have legitimately reformed after serving time. But to compound the matter by claiming to have been an addict and have some sort of secret to recovery is not just insulting it's close to being criminally negligent. I don't care if Mr. Frey is telling the truth about his life or not, but to reduce recovery from substance abuse addiction to the simple catch phrase of "Hold On" is inappropriate and misleading. It may stop you from taking a drink or sticking the needle in your arm for a while, but it does nothing to fix the behaviour that caused those symptoms. You never actually lose the physical cravings; they just get easier to deal with. Ask anyone who has successfully stopped smoking cigarettes; they'll tell you what it's like. It's been eleven years since I've taken a drink, yet last week I was walking down the street and passed a liquor store and felt an actual physical craving in the pit of my stomach for a bottle of wine. I could remember, ever so clearly the exact sensations and tastes of drinking wine, and my whole body craved it for one tiny moment. Eleven years is an awful long time to just "Hold On" You need something a little more substantial than that. Now I'm not a big advocate of Alcoholics Anonymous for my own reasons, but the key thing is to seek help from a therapist of some kind or another. As an addict in recovery you are not going to be honest with yourself. You've been lying to yourself for years; why's that going to change now? You cannot throw off years of conditioned behaviour without outside help. Have you ever heard the expression "a dry drunk'? It refers to people who've stopped drinking but still act like the same person. They're the ones who keep falling off the wagon because they haven't done anything to address the reasons why they were drinking in the first place. Simply stopping is only the first step in a long arduous journey. Not only is Mr. Frey's claim misleading, it is insulting to all the men and women who have done the real work required to free themselves from the chains of addiction. Unlike the substances we used to abuse, there's no quick fix involved here; there never is to real problems. There are a lot of troubled people in our society. People who have had run ins with the law, and problems with substance abuse. Very few people who have gone about the business of trying to rehabilitate and recover have ever felt the need to write a book about their lives or their struggles. The majority of them just want to forget it ever happened or they regard it as nobody's business but their own. Mr Frey has written a book where he regales his reader with tales of his misadventures and problems with drugs. The book has been a big success with the middle class women who watch and worship Ophrah. They are as far removed from the world of drugs and crime as one could possibly get and still be living on the same planet. They've been titillated by his descriptions of carnage and self-destruction, and thrilled by his redemption. He's a real life desperado there for their reading and listening pleasure. Isn't he such a sensitive man because he's revealed all these intimate details of himself? Reading his book allows them to show how compassionate they are because they are able to forgive him for the misdeeds of his past. But I want to know about his misdeeds of the present. Who's going to hold him accountable if this all turns out to be a lie? Who is going to apologise to all the real people out there who have been ignored by society for years as they've struggled to rehabilitate themselves for letting this man steal their dignity by masquerading as one of them? Whose going to help all those people he's duped into believing he knows what he's talking about when it comes to addiction recovery? I started out angry when I was writing this article, now I'm just sad. If this was all lies, what kind of pathetic life has this man had up to this point that he felt that he needed to pretend to be notorious? There are many people out there who would give anything to have those moments back in their lives that took them across the line into criminal behaviour. It is simply beyond my comprehension why anybody would publicly pretend to have been down that road. There's nothing glamorous about crime and drug addiction. To see Jerry Frey being lionized for his book is bad enough; to have it turn out to be a pack of lies would only serve his champions right. His book's trivialization of the people who have made a real commitment to change, is more criminal than anything he claims to have done.

Death In The Streets

2006-01-09T08:34:00.000-05:00

The body count mounts on a weekly basis and politicians seem helpless to do anything about it. They talk about it; throw money into Royal Commissions; and even tighten the laws. They've even had some success, as the death toll each year is less and less, but lives are still being lost at an alarming rate. They can talk all they want about social-economic conditions; the variety of reasons behind each occurrence; but nothing changes the fact that people are dying on a daily, if not more, basis. This intolerable situation must be stopped. The question of course is how? Everybody has their own answer: enforce existing laws to the maximum, change the laws to impose harsher penalties, and, of course, look at the social economic climate that creates the circumstances that allow these deaths to occur. Some people say that if you took the means out of the hands of people, than the death rate could be eliminated, but, given current societal conditions, that's probably impractical as well as impossible. Nobody who owns or drives a vehicle right is very likely to surrender ownership, or give up their right to drive, just on the off chance that it might save some lives. The right to drive and own a car might as well be written into the constitution of North American culture. Vehicular ownership has become a modern inalienable right. What did you think I was talking about, guns? Guns are petty ante in Canada when it comes to being a cause of death compared to the carnage caused by cars and trucks. As of 2004, according to Statistics Canada, vehicular deaths outnumber homicides by almost 5 to 1. Bill McCauley, spokesman for Statistics Canada, is quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying: "We don't call them accidents, we call them crashes or collisions. Most of them could have been avoided" Drunk driving of course causes forty percent of the fatalities among drivers, while nearly a third of the fatalities among passengers is caused by a refusal to wear a seat belt. In other words, what looks to be about 70% of all traffic deaths are preventable. That translates into roughly 1900 of the 2730 driving fatalities in 2004 in Canada were because someone had broken the law. But driving deaths aren't sexy. You don't get the same photo op. posing at the twisted wreckage of a pick-up truck on some back road as you do posing with sub-machine guns. Nobody raises a stink when a somebody gets off with a fine for a drunk driving first offence, even though your chances of being killed by someone like them are five times greater then you being gunned down. If there were anything that just might be considered an equal, if not greater, sacred cow, to the gun in the United States, it would have to be the car. In Canada, where we don't have the history associated with armaments, a driver's licence holds pride of place in a person's wallet over a weapons permit, allowing cars to rule the roost. In most parts of North American society the obtainment of the driver's licence marks the first right of passage into adulthood. Most jurisdictions grant this first symbol of maturity to its citizens at the age of sixteen. After some basic instruction, and familiarization with the laws governing the roads, this small square of plastic with your picture on it grants you the right to control close to a one thousand pounds of metal and glass, propelled on four wheels by an engine with the power of over three hundred horses. Leaving aside all the innuendo about males and compensation for sexual impotency (how much thrust does your engine have), you put any person inside a midsize or larger vehicle and I defy them to remember their circumstances. It's one thing to be driving in a compact or small car and see the road whizzing by right outside your window; it's another all together to sit in genuine Corinthian leather comfort with the road no more then an annoying buzz on your soundtrack. When you are as distanced from the road as much as modern vehicles allow you to be, it is far easier to forget that there can be potentially fatal consequences from one moment of inattention. With people now driving anything form reconditioned battle-wagons (Humvees) to massive pickup trucks and turbo charged S.U.V.s in order to make the drive to work in a little more comfort, the problem is severely exasperated. We may not be able to kill ourselves as easily behind the wheel of one of those vehicles. But anyone driving a small or compact car probably can't help experiencing a moment of panic when they see one of those monsters showing up in their rear view mirror. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that in the case of an argument who the winner will be. The status that comes with owning one of these vehicles far outweighs the any other consideration. Why else would you own something like a four-wheel drive, eight cylinder, all terrain vehicle for picking up the dry cleaning? The car companies, of course, pander to this by producing vehicles that have less to do with road awareness, and more to do with style, comfort and image. Now, you wouldn't want your government to have any control over things like status and style, (At least no one who's been around recently. Pierre Trudeau had a certain panache that probably would have made him an acceptable style tyrant) so there role in this has to come in somewhere else. The laws need to be changed so that there is zero tolerance when it comes too careless and drunk driving. Anybody whose driving is clearly at blame for an accident shouldn't be allowed to drive. If it was caused by, what can be proved as, negligence, than their licence should be revoked immediately upon conviction. No exceptions. No compromise should be acceptable when human lives are at risk. In Canada, where any prison sentence of more than two years results in doing time in a federal penitentiary, any drunk driving should be include a sentence of more than two year and permanent loss of the right to drive a motorized vehicle. Any drunk driver that ends up killing somebody else should automatically be charged with manslaughter. In fact any driver whose carelessness results in someone's death should be treated in the same manner as any other person charged with a killing. If their lawyer can prove mitigating circumstances that reduce their culpability, so be it. But in the case of a drunk driver, where they committed the crime the second they climbed behind the wheel of their vehicle and started the engine, there should be no allowances. Obviously they're circumstances where a driver is placed in a position where the inevitable is unavoidable. Lawmakers will have to make very clear definitions on what should and shouldn't constitute an avoidable incident. Police officers are already conversant in figuring out the circumstances of a collision; who's at fault and what, if any, traffic violations were committed. They would continue to follow their normal procedures, but now lay different charges. But for some reason our lawmakers lack the will necessary to bring new laws onto the books concerning vehicular misconduct. At the risk of sounding cynical it would almost seem like they are willing to sacrifice a couple of thousand lives each year rather than implement laws that might prove unpopular. But what they fail to understand is that the majority of drivers would have no problem with a zero tolerance attitude towards careless and endangering driving. Since they are the ones sharing the roads with the danger, they have the most to gain from better protection. You'd think that a society that expresses concern over the senseless death of people through gun fire and other forms of violent crime, would have laws in place for activity that claimed five times the number of lives. But according to our current laws, a life lost to a drunk or reckless driver is not as valuable as someone shot down in the road. If a body ends up dead on the street it shouldn't matter how it ended up there; the punishment needs to be equal.