daly's dilemma-to blog or not to blog

little screamerton

2008-08-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

Little Screamerton is five years old. Surfer-boy blond hair, very large pale blue eyes, pug nosed, he is the picture of sweetness. He is adorable. And he is screaming like a fire engine racing to a four alarm blaze. Large droplets of water leap from his eyes. He must be losing weight with such fluid loss. I am amazed. Streams of mucus hang from his nose and flow out the sides of his wide open hollering maw. He looks like he is being burned with hot coals and poked with a stick.

He wails himself into a spasm of coughing, the coughing escalates to gagging until Screamerton's barely digested breakfast erupts in a volcanic stream, landing as a grey puddle by his feet. Little Screamerton has autism spectrum disorder. His worker, who wishes to remain nameless (her real name is Nameless) looks at me with a silent plea for mercy. Or alcohol.

She reaches for the handy wipes and prepares Little Screamerton for a cleanup trip to the family room. "Oh, for the love of God...", Nameless exhales, exasperated. "John, you wouldn't happen to have a fifth of gin in your bag, would you?" She has brought Little Screamerton into the shopping mall, for lunch and to "socialize" him. This is the heroic work of a community support worker.

Nameless has taken on this challenge, and years from now her name will be put forth for sainthood by the Pope. The child bats away offerings of food with one hand, and with the other he pulls the strings of snot, like taffy candy, from his mouth and nose, with a kind of grace that is counterpoint to the howling sounds coming from his perpetually open pie hole. Then, for split second, he stops and watches something in the distance, something that has distracted him from the sensations that torture him, his large blue eyes, pools of water and sorrow, are staring and he is silent. He is a heart breaker. Little Screamerton will break your heart.

But he will also break your balls, and so the crisis is created for the well intended worker, Nameless. Him or me; in the end Nameless must decide. She repeats that she feels badly for this child. She is chanting this like a mantra. I try and jolly her with stupid commentary and steady suggestions that she better take care of herself because no one else will.

The child goes to school, supported there by another worker, and he spends three days with Nameless, swimming and skating, trying to pass time in the presence and company of others, but those others are hard-pressed to accept this caterwauling snot and shriek production machine into their community . Passers-by look at Nameless, their faces scrunched in judgment and disapproval. You can fairly see their thoughts take shape, in those cartoon thought balloons, inflating above their heads. What the hell is going on with that child? Why the hell would that woman bring that child to this place?

Shit, you can hardly blame them. Much. The child looks entirely typical. There is nothing that would identify him as being severely disabled and disadvantaged. Little Screamerton has no words. He cannot speak to name the things or feelings that torment him. Is it the smell of the food around him? The sounds of footsteps reverberating on the hard surface of the mallway? The multi-coloured lights of the greasy food stands in the food court? We're guessing.

Community social service workers do a lot of that. We wonder and speculate about what the "behaviour" of those we support means. Because in our world communication is everything. We are pretty expert in this way. But there are things that are not made better. Even with communication. Little Screamerton has no words to tell us what is comfort and what it just more pain. He has a little video toy that he pokes and prods with a tiny pencil. This appears to sooth him. Nameless is doing her best. I admire her. She will deny, to the death, her sentimentality, but she's attached to Little Screamerton, and it's not hard to see why.

He looks like he was raised by wolves, he's wild, he hollers incessantly, he blows spittle bubbles, and then he reaches over to touch my beard with his sweaty, sticky, smelly fingers and I am instantly infatuated. But I don't forget, even for a moment, there is nothing I can do for this darling boy. I have reached that place in my life and in my work. The truth is a bitter pill, but it holds the only medicine that will sustain us. I wish Little Screamerton and his loyal well meaning caregiver Nameless the very best. Long may they run. But it will have to be in the other direction. Howling all the way.
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willie dog

2007-01-31T09:42:00.000-08:00

Willie was a honey-coloured cockapoo dog. Sweet and trusting, happy and curious (look at his expression, head tilted to one side, wondering what my brother Ted was doing), zany and excited to be alive, was Willie dog.

I was asking Margaret, the other night, how old Willie was. As far back as we could remember, Willie was bounding about the Vancouver Island homes of Ted, and his late wife Joanne. Like a pinball, Willie would run zig zag across the yard when he spotted his humans returning. Inside the house, Willie was a lap dog, but only if he really knew you well.

He loved car rides, he loved to romp and grab something with his mouth for a good shake. An animal loves us with few conditions. Food and water, exercise is an add on option, depending on the breed. They are as much a part of your family as any other, sometimes (truth be told) we feel more warmly toward our fur-bearing companions than we do our slightly less hairy relatives.

The picture, above, was taken when the first of this winter's snows fell, unexpectedly. Though Willie's body was full of cancer, he ran about the yard, crazy as always, and enjoyed himself. He lived almost a year longer than the vets said he would. Ted emailed me this morning to say he had ended Willie's tough time.

Willie lived a long life. He was loved alot.

Margaret, who just came in the door, says Willie was "...a darling..." She said this with real affection. My brother Ted and his children have had many losses to suffer through these last few years. They will weep for Willie, I'm sure. And their tears will not be wasted.

Tears and grief are the price we pay for the opening of our hearts. Willie, like all our loved ones, was a precious gift, and like all our loved ones, the gift is impermanent. Willie goes to join the others on their mysterious journey. Joanne will be delighted to see him (if this is what happens out there in the midnight beyond...).

We add him to the list of those we will miss.
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open letter to "workin' stiff"

2007-01-30T16:26:00.000-08:00

One of my readers sent me an email last week. The reader signed their email "Workin' Stiff". First, I want to say thanks, Workin' Stiff, for reading my blog. Workin' Stiff sent something that was purported to be "secret" material, specifically a memo from a higher up at Community Living of British Columbia (CLBC) directing those in receipt of the memo to track the dollars saved when disabled individuals are moved from residential facilities (group homes) to family homes, or what's called proprietary care.

Workin' Stiff went on to suggest there may something odd or suspect about BCGEU (British Columbia Government and Service Worker's Union) President George Heyman's involvement in this process. But I think the movement from the group home care model to a the family care model has been going on, in the light of day, for some time.

These things are happening, more or less, in the open. When I say this, I mean that anyone, any worker in the community living sector, unionized or no, can find out about these trends by reading at their union's website or attending the annual general meetings at their agencies, or examining the entrails of a sacrificial goat.

The thing is, Workin' Stiff, we are the sacrificial goat.
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Let me give this matter the usual sunshine and light Johnny Maudlin treatment. Here is what I've learned, over 25 years in the direct service of individuals with disabilities, and over 53 years as a human type being:

- The disabled have diminishing value in a larger community that is fighting, dog and cat-like, for the ever smaller baggies of money coming back to us from our duly elected governments.

- When you come to understand, each and every day, that so-called typical children and old folks are being forced to wait for medical services, including emergency care, then it's becomes ever more clear what fate awaits adults with mental handicaps and their caregivers.

- We are now housing the disabled. Not much more, and in the case of folks suffering mental illness and/or addictions, sometimes much less.

The smaller and even larger agencies that deliver services to the disabled are making deal after deal after deal with the devil. And the devil comes in many disguises. Flexible services. There's a devil. Sounds great to provide flexible services, except when you realize flexible services means every consumer and family member are out for themselves, in a brutal competition for a slice of smaller pie.

There is a race to get what you can for your family member, and, generally speaking, family members are interested in their own convenience. So they want workers to come and spell them off for an hour or two in the evening, and they want agencies to provide transport to and from day programs, they want tailor made services, and they want all of this for less.

If this means workers need to work two, or even three jobs to make a living, that's the worker's problem. The head of CLBC, Doug Mowles, has been grinding his ax on the skulls of unionized men and women as long as I can remember.

The last time service providers and unionized workers might have stood up to draw attention to the growing chaos in service delivery to the disabled, all parties stood down. Agency heads were not about to draw the disfavour of those who hold power in government or in the government's sock puppet, so-called community based Community Living of British Columbia (CLBC).

The leadership of the BCGEU flat out lied to workers in the community living sector. They promised to lead us into a strike action to focus the attention of employers and the community at large. Hell, we never even took a strike vote. When push came to shove, our union leaders moved sideways. Those of us who have made community living our career are now one decade into a compensation downward spiral. The things we fought for, in the past, have been handed back, and without as much as a peep from the sabre rattlers at the BCGEU.

As Sister Millie, the last real tough union broad I know, puts it, we in community living are doomed to "...suck at the hind teat..." Coming up to one year ago, Carole Taylor, British Columbia's finance minister, extended her hand, in peace, to big bad labour, and in her hand was the lubrication of a $4000 one time signing bonus. George Heyman and the workers in community living could not bend over fast enough.
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The outcome was predictable. The rot is so deep now the house might has well come right down to the ground. Staffing shortages are the norm. The goodwill of workers and managers in this field of endeavor has been exhausted. Despite the return of statuatory pay for casual workers who work on holidays, those workers are often choosing a day off from work. Avoidance is the new dance of choice for community social service workers. When the boss calls, we run in the other direction, as fast as we can.

So, Workin' Stiff, there is only one move left to turn a sinking ship to safer waters. At least there is only one honest and honourable move: cut existing programs and staffing levels to a sustainable level. Take those unfortunates on waiting lists and place them back inside some kind of centralized service facility. That would be an institution.

Because what we have now is thousands of little institutions, where the disabled are warm, yes, and fed, but bored out of their minds waiting for something to happen. And nothing is. There is no longer consistent forward motion toward the goal of full inclusion for adults with disabilities. We are smack dab in the middle of the big stall.

Of course, what I'm suggesting won't happen. Agency heads will continue to "yes" when demands are made to intake individuals needing service. Workers will continue to try and remember when they could predict what their duties would be, from day to day, but we won't be able to. Because those running the show have accepted that chronic and unhealthy rates of change are the reality.

Maybe something will happen to changes things for the next generation of workers and individuals in community living. But this generation is done. Like dinner.
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busted up body, embattled spirit, holding the line on dreams

2007-01-29T16:20:00.000-08:00

Even with my eyes closed I can see how fortunate I am. Born into my good fortune, in a northern country where the air is relatively fresh and the people are relatively free. I try to watch the amount of complaining I do. These days there is much talk about our carbon "footprint". How much crap are we scattering onto the Mother? We should be aware of our bitching and moaning footprint as well.

What follows is a report, then. I know that the folks who read here are living the same life I am. I know you know. You know?

Most days I spend at least three hours behind the wheel, transporting my clients here and there. It can feel like much more than three hours. There is something about watching the traffic snake out in front of me that can lull me to sleep or invite my darker thoughts. It's related to exhaustion. It takes energy to stay civilized and keep the dark thoughts at bay. After awhile behind the wheel I lose focus. It might even be the fumes that surround me.

These days, as far back as I can remember, when I get out of the car, my body registers all the stiffness stored in my joints. Stiff from sitting too long. Pain knifes into my lower back. My elbows and shoulders are inflamed from lifting too much weight at the gym. The amount of weight I lift is a good and a bad thing:

It's good because it shows me I am still fighting back against the inertia and gravity that are taking me down. It's bad because I am causing damage to an already busted up body. I feel the pain from the outside in and from the inside out. My feelings are always a mystery to me. Always.

I know my feelings, sometimes, by the cravings they trigger. I've been craving carbohydrates. That's a sure sign I am depressed. I am depressed, as near I can tell, because I am loaded to my back teeth with unexpressed rage. I can't let the rage out safely, so I stuff it back down. Down. Depression.

And what is the cause of such rage? If I truly knew the answer to that question I might make more progress converting that rage to a more productive energy. My gut says something innocent that came to this world with me, when I was born, has been murdered. This violence enrages me. And so I have a compulsive need to know about violence all around me. I am amazed and fascinated by conflict and violence.

I am listening, this moment, to Neil Young singing "Flags Of Freedom Flying". My friend, Doug Lang, made me a collection of contemporary protest music. Listening to these songs just after Christmas inspired me. I received a tremendous uplift and I was catapulted deep into my own fantasy world of imagining. I began to write a short story called "Welcome To Goodle, USA (Weapons Are Strictly Prohibited)" It's not quite finished.

Doug may have some idea what a marvelous gift he has given. These songs feel to me like I am taking water after a long long dry spell. I am emotionally parched. This is the embattled spirit. This writing may be nothing fancier than my own cave art. Maybe it's a kind of folk art. I am a working man. The pain and disappointment I feel are the pain and disappointment of a working man.

I don't know what I expected of the work a day world of adult men and women. I had no idea how much of my energy and true spirit I would have to submerge and swallow back. I had no idea what the real loss of childhood innocence looked like. It's an ugly thing, the coal miner's trade off of self and soul for money earning.

I despise some of the folks I work alongside of. But there is no one I despise more than my own self for my inability and failure to find a way to integrate who I am with what it is. And, as we all know now, it is what it is.

Tomorrow is another day. I count my blessings. No one shot at me today. No one raped any loved ones I know. I have a shelter that is warm. I only want to turn my fatigued sense of gratitude to a recyling project. In this fortunate shelter I am surrounded with bits and pieces of things that remind me what I have been collecting and what I have been forgetting. It's time to take out the junk. One little step at a time.
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johnny we hardly knew ye

2007-01-29T06:08:00.000-08:00

I found this video, on YouTube. I think it's extremely rare. It's the only video I've ever seen of John Lennon being interviewed just days before his assassination in 1980. I remember that when Lennon died, I thought he was, at 40 years of age, an old man.

Now looking back, he was still quite boyish. Beatle fans will enjoy the references to Magic Mystery Tour, and Lennon's partner, Paul McCartney. Lennon is asked if there is a song by McCartney that particularly impressed or influenced him.

Lennon replies by referring to Paul as his "brother" and saying it's hard to choose one song from someone he has known and worked with since he was 15.

goodbye gump worsley

2007-01-27T22:56:00.000-08:00

Lorne "Gump" Worsley passed away on Friday, January 26th, 2007. He didn't look much like an athlete, but he backstopped the Montreal Canadiens in their glory days. Legend has it that he smoked cigarettes between periods. He looked just exactly like a guy you might sit beside in any tavern in any town, anywhere. Brushcut and round face, deadpan expression, he never wore a mask until his last season playing in net.

When I was maybe eight years old I gave a speech about dinosaurs for some Parent-Teacher's Association evening at my grade school, St. Joseph's Elementary, in Montreal's West Island suburb of Beaurepaire.

The Gumper was there, sitting in the front row. He must have been doing some community outreach stuff for the Habs. I was telling the audience that dinosaurs have brains that weigh two pounds. I looked down at the front row, and Gump Worsley was asleep.

Rest in peace, Gump Worsley.

little screamerton

2007-01-27T07:26:00.000-08:00

Little Screamerton is five years old. Surfer-boy blond hair, very large pale blue eyes, pug nosed, he is the picture of sweetness. He is adorable. And he is screaming like a fire engine racing to a four alarm blaze. Large droplets of water leap from his eyes. He must be losing weight with such fluid loss. I am amazed.

Streams of mucus hang from his nose and flow out the sides of his wide open hollering maw. He looks like he is being burned with hot coals and poked with a stick. He wails himself into a spasm of coughing, the coughing escalates to gagging until Screamerton's barely digested breakfast erupts in a volcanic stream, landing as a grey puddle by his feet.

Little Screamerton has Autism Spectrum Disorder. His worker, who wishes to remain nameless (her real name is Nameless) looks at me with a silent plea for mercy. Or alcohol. She reaches for the handy wipes and prepares Little Screamerton for a cleanup trip to the family room. "Oh, for the love of God...", Nameless exhales, exasperated.

"John, you wouldn't happen to have a fifth of gin in your bag, would you?"

She has brought Little Screamerton into the shopping mall, for lunch and to "socialize" him. This is the heroic work of a community support worker. Nameless has taken on this challenge, and years from now her name will be put forth for sainthood by the Pope.

The child bats away offerings of food with one hand, and with the other he pulls the strings of snot, like taffy candy, from his mouth and nose, with a kind of grace that is counterpoint to the howling sounds coming from his perpetually open pie hole.

Then, for split second, he stops and watches something in the distance, something that has distracted him from the sensations that torture him, his large blue eyes, pools of water and sorrow, are staring and he is silent. He is a heart breaker. Little Screamerton will break your heart. But he will also break your balls, and so the crisis is created for the well intended worker, Nameless. Him or me; in the end Nameless must decide.

She repeats that she feels badly for this child. She is chanting this like a mantra. I try and jolly her with stupid commentary and steady suggestions that she better take care of herself because no one else will. The child goes to school, supported there by another worker, and he spends three days with Nameless, swimming and skating, trying to pass time in the presence and company of others, but those others are hard-pressed to accept this caterwauling snot and shriek production machine into their community .

Passers-by look at Nameless, their faces scrunched in judgment and disapproval. You can fairly see their thoughts take shape, in those cartoon thought balloons, inflating above their heads. What the hell is going on with that child? Why the hell would that woman bring that child to this place?

Shit, you can hardly blame them. Much. The child looks entirely typical. There is nothing that would identify him as being severely disabled and disadvantaged. Little Screamerton has no words. He cannot speak to name the things or feelings that torment him. Is it the smell of the food around him? The sounds of footsteps reverberating on the hard surface of the mallway? The multi-coloured lights of the greasy food stands in the food court?

We're guessing. Community social service workers do a lot of that. We wonder and speculate about what the "behaviour" of those we support means. Because in our world communication is everything. We are pretty expert in this way. But there are things that are not made better. Even with communication.

Little Screamerton has no words to tell us what is comfort and what it just more pain. He has a little video toy that he pokes and prods with a tiny pencil. This appears to sooth him. Nameless is doing her best. I admire her. She will deny, to the death, her sentimentality, but she's attached to Little Screamerton, and it's not hard to see why.

He looks like he was raised by wolves, he's wild, he hollers incessantly, he blows spittle bubbles, and then he reaches over to touch my beard with his sweaty, sticky, smelly fingers and I am instantly infatuated. But I don't forget, even for a moment, there is nothing I can do for this darling boy. I have reached that place in my life and in my work.

The truth is a bitter pill, but it holds the only medicine that will sustain us. I wish Little Screamerton and his loyal well meaning caregiver Nameless the very best. Long may they run. But it will have to be in the other direction. Howling all the way.
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the MEANING of life

2007-01-25T09:36:00.000-08:00

This bit of writing won't tell you what life means. I have no idea what life means. It may mean nothing. Or something. But I know this: sometime between God's demand that Abraham sacrifice his only son, those spectacular Sunday afternoon gladiator shows in downtown Rome, and the Jerry Springer era, the human race has taken a turn for the meaner.

And I must confront you, straight away, if you think this is not so, then you are a self-involved ostrich with your head up your ass. Any man, woman or Jack who thinks we are not on a mean downward spiral is deluded and willful and needs to grow up.

How was that for mean? Pretty good?

Would Simon, of American Idol approve? Why do we tune in, in locust-like numbers, to watch Simon disparage desperate ghetto dwellers hoping to hit a home run out of their depressing lives with a song or dance? Why do we clench our steering wheels, grit our teeth and dream of the ways we can exact revenge on...

The list is long, isn't it?

I think the measure of how we really feel, and think, is found in the uncensored voice of the subconscious mind, breaking through the lid we try and keep jammed shut. Igor the Id. That's the real me. Reg E. Mental. The self talk is where it's at. That's how we really feel. We are racist, sexist, money lusting monkeys, banging the ground to mark our territory, and you know what?

We don't value or like children either.

That's right. You read it right here, on Daly's Dilemma. We don't like children. We have children as a way of experiencing ourselves as parents. It's the supreme act of self indulgence. That's why we park them in front of the televison except for the prefunctionary ten minutes a day when we're actually in contact with them, listening, half asleep and distracted, to what they are experiencing.

Our governments kill, wholesale, and we cannot find the outrage or compassion to resist or take down the sociopathic killing committees. Why is that? Because we are the sociopathic killing committees.

But it's always the next guy, right? I'm ok, but that guy over there...he's not.
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So that's the mean truth. As I see it. And the very worst, very most damning piece of evidence that what I write is spot one came this week, in the NHL, when the Eastern Conference team owners voted down the Western Conference teams owners and ensured I will not get to see the Montreal Canadiens, or Toronto Maple Leafs play the Vancouver Canucks next season. That is fucking mean, man!

How do we change this? Can a maudlin mean man become a happy and healthy man? I think yes. It starts with eye contact. Even if you're wearing a veil. We look one another in the eye and concentrate. Think about what you want to be asked, and ask that of another.

Say good morning and how are you to the folks you encounter working in those terribly low paying service jobs. Wipe the god damn grimace off your gob while your waiting in line to buy that unneccessary thing and think on things you're grateful for. Anything. Pissing without pain. That's something to be grateful for.

Your overfull belly. Your warm body and the shelter you live in. Speak out against unjust wars. Write a letter to the editor demanding that sex trade workers in Vancouver be guaranteed safety, in memory of their murdered sisters, and as atonement for our hand in those murders.

Decide not to have children if you realize you have not grown up yourself. That would make you a saint, in my opinion. The ways to be unmean are legion. Every time you hear your own voice saying something mean, talk back to it. Tell it, with as much love as you can muster, "Stop that, this instant, Igor, and think a nicer, kinder and gentler thought..."

Have a nice, non violent day. Really.
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january man (crawling from the wreckage)

2007-01-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who has coined this term: a bad case of the "Januaries". Fucking eh! Let's talk about this. I'll talk, you listen. And bear in mind I generally won't waste my time, or yours, writing about material that I deem to be less than universally relative. As in you can relate...

Understand so far?

Both of my eyes feel like they need to be sent to a spa. Separate spas. Each eye is so itchy and sore and wants so badly to close that I am beginning to suspect they need a good cry.

Well, there is no such thing as eye spas, so let's examine what my eyes may need to cry about, or over, or for. On whose behalf should mine eyes weep? For little Johnny Maudlin, of course...

Little Johnny Maudlin, who, just like little Margaret and Mark, and Ted and Ann, and Bruce and Davy and Doug and all the people Johnny would love if only he could find the time he's lost...

Do you see how I lost control of that sentence? I lost control of my own life just the same way. I went too fast. I spent too much. I said yes so many times when I really wanted to say no. And now my eyes, both the right eye and the left one, are sore and exhausted and they fill with water but the water won't spill over.
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How do we lose control of something so precious as a life? Is there a manual I was supposed to read? The Bible, perchance? Did it have the answers? Pish. And posh. And piffle. The Bible, like the Koran and all the others is just pages gathering mold and rage, collecting the madness that comes seeping out of the skulls of impotent potentates everywhere.

How did this happen? And why must I make this passage each and every goddamn January, with the pelting rain that turns into mist by late afternoon, through which I race homeward, to crawl under a blanket, like my life itself is on the line, and read The Godfather's Revenge, as if it were a good healthy shot of heroin, something to make the pain of this fucking dull soul deadness recede.

How did my soul die? Is it truly dead? Wait a minute, while I check for it's pulse. There was a poem, when I was a child, a school child, called Rocking Horse Winner, with a line about the walls that cried, "Money."

And that, my dear friends of dark rainy January, is how I murdered my own soul. In the pursuit of sickening things that only weigh me down and now I'm drowning and my eyes, the left eye and the right eye, are sore and they itch and they want to close or cry.

And my cell phone! Shall we speak of my cell phone? My cell phone rings, not with messages of love and fun and adventure, but with messages: can you work here, can you work there, can you work everywhere Sam I am?

My boss calls me on the cell phone, and he does not pay for the access. He is a desperate bastard who can only hear, in his mind, the sounds of the ideas about what it is he NEEDS! And he needs to call me on my cellphone and ask: can you do this, can you drive there, can you drive here and there and do this and do that, Sam I am?

And I want to smash the sad look off his face and I want to hammer my cell phone into silver jewelry and wear it around my neck. Why, do you remember why, I needed a cell phone?

Because you had one, you bastard! And I had to have what you have...

Now the sound of it makes me want to rush to the bathroom and puke. I just changed the number, by the way, and cut the world off and out. So that I can think, in peace, for a moment.

Think about what?

Think about how I got from brown hair and brown eyes to grey hair and red eyes. So fast. If I sit down, in my own quiet living room, and actually concentrate, can I be twelve again? Flexible in my body? Flexible in my belief? I took this ship into these troubled waters, and I am in the wheelhouse and I will take it to other waters. On that you may rest assured.
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an open letter to my brother mark (montreal:mission accomplished)

2007-01-21T09:45:00.000-08:00

From Mark to me, via email:

We saw your plane blast overhead last night, at least I'm pretty sure it was. It flew over our house at about 6:10 and there were no other planes before or after, heading west at any rate. Pretty funny to think you're up at 25,000 feet and we're down here.

The kids pondered that for 10 seconds and went back to the TV, to watch Breakdance to whatever that film is called! Coldest morning yet: -22.

Dear Mark

The plane stayed in the air and that's enough to make me breakdance at the end of the ride. It was a bumpy bastard, but then I am a bump intolerant traveller. I was sitting in the second to last seat, on the aisle, thanks to Allah. Margaret tells me that if you sit in the tail section you feel the bumps more. Who am I to argue with Margaret?

They also say (the all knowing "they") that in the event of a crash, the tail section has the greatest chance of remaining intact. That was a tiny comfort 32,000 (and climbing to 34,000 feet, according to the Captain...)

We watched "The Queen" during the flight. Helen Mirren is so talented. It made me feel better about my own emotional/communicative constipation. I must be part of the Royal Family too:

John: I say Mark, aging is a spot of bother, what?

Mark: Piffle. A stag hunt would be just the thing, no sense pondering the imponderable, what?

John: Quite right.

The young female East Indian child in the seat in front of me put on quite a demonstration of child-like imagination, bounding up and down the aisle, engaging the flight crew in cute conversation that pushed me to the edge. I want silence up above, so that I can tune in to the subtle sounds that signal the coming or going of rough air.

Montreal was, as it always is, a flash. Boom; there. Boom; home again. The trip to Montreal is essentially the long distance version of crossing the street to stop in for a coffee and chat. Mission accomplished. I feel caught up with you family folk back there. My sense is that we all remain better at working than at taking our leisure, and there's nothing special about that. May the passing of time help us to focus on the flowers.

This image kind of penetrated my slight disorientation though: you, Mark, wrapping spidery-legged Julien in your lap, when he came in from outside, red cheeks aglow. Little boy, you call him. This moment is your treasure. I know you know that. We don't speak of it, but I know you know what you have. As do I. Until next time. Be well...
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orange ball sinking in the sky, suspended for a moment, that's all

2007-01-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

Walking to Mark and Isabel's home from the train station the sun was low and behind thin grey clouds. An orange ball, suspended. This visit is coming to an end. Last evening was spent with dear old friends, as was today. So the talk was close and the most made from a fleeting opportunity.

If we have dreams, even small dreams, and simple plans then we are alive. Where there is life there should be hope. If there is no hope something is wrong. I am blessed. I have hope and I have some simple plans and dreams.

This past year I have struggled to come into some kind of acceptance or understanding of what it means when time continues, and carves a story on my face, regardless of my grief about the thing. This resistance to the passing of time is just the same as complaining about the temperature of the water. Swim or don't swim, get in or get out. There may be fifty more lifetimes or fifty thousand, but this is the one I remember. And sometimes I can't remember this one.

I must have done something well, because love is reflected back, like sunlight, orange and pastel colours, suspended in the late afternoon, evening is coming, West Islanders are returning like a flock of birds, to the nest.
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finding ross allen

2007-01-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

Ross Allen was my brother Ted’s best friend. Tall and pale, freckled and red-haired, I remember Ross always grinning. Ross was great at guy things: hunting and fishing and building tree forts.

If I close my eyes I can see Ross standing in front of me, a head taller, reciting the classic fable Aladdin in French. A sense of delight shines in his eyes. Ross had just learned the story in French and he found something amusing to do with the newly acquired knowledge.

He spoke the words in French but added a perfect imitation of the familiar quack talk of Donald Duck. Donald Duck reciting Aladdin in French. He made me laugh.

Ross and Ted and their friends were two years and several steps ahead of me. I watched them from afar. I admired them. They seemed to do what they pleased. They rode their bikes to far away places, like Johnny’s convenience store, where they bought red licorice and 10-cent cokes with the money they earned collecting empty pop bottles. The bottles were left by the “workies” building the houses that were popping up like mushrooms in early-1960’s suburban Montreal. I was not usually invited to come along.

Ross joined our family one summer for a vacation in the rolling hills of Vermont, where we rented a farmhouse. We went woodchuck hunting one evening just before sunset. Ross shot a groundhog from a great distance. At least fifty yards. The groundhog was on the run and Ross was standing. Not an easy shot to make. His handling of the weapon seemed effortless. I thought Ross was magic.

Our families lived in the little town of Beaurepaire in Montreal’s mainly English-speaking area. The Allen’s modest bungalow was directly across York Road from our home. The Allen’s yard had Pyracantha shrubs and the little orange berries that arrived in the fall were hard and just right for flinging at the other kids in our after-school games of cowboys and Indians—or as they are probably called today, cow-management and First Nations persons. Yes, it seems to me, now, to have been a simpler time.

It was time I recall as being bathed in the golden light of an endless summer, a time without trouble or sorrow. It was a time that certainly had it’s share of both, as we would soon find out, but the mind is like a painter and memory colours the canvas in a ways that make us feel better about where we’ve been…

One stormy evening in the autumn of 1966, I was lying in bed listening to rock ‘n roll on my six-transistor radio. The sounds I was hearing were coming from Buffalo, New York, and the studios of legendary disc jockey Joey Reynolds. Reynolds introduced us to the music of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band and the pride of Thunder Bay, Ontario, crooner Bobby Curtola.

The signal was part static and part rhythm and blues and it sounded like it was being beamed from the other side of the moon. Listening to the radio in bed was a safe and comforting ritual, but it was going to be the place where I was fated to learn, for the first time, the harshest kind of life lesson…

I heard Ted come running in through the front screen door, crying out in a terrified voice, “Ross is missing!”

Ted and Ross and some of their chums had built a fort at one end of Dowker’s Island, in the middle of Lake St. Louis, part of the mighty St. Lawrence River. The small island was in the middle of the lake, straight across from Beaurepaire.

Ross had boated to the island to go duck hunting with a friend, and when one of the boys bagged a bird, Ross set out alone in a dinghy, wearing hip-waders, to fetch the corpse. The waves on that normally taciturn lake could be pretty fearsome when the winds came up. Somehow, the little boat tipped and Ross fell out. His hip-waders filled up. Even though he was a competent swimmer and the water wasn’t very deep, the straps on the waders were criss-crossed over his shoulders and I guess he just couldn't get them off. He went down.

That’s the way it was in 1966, in Montreal and everywhere else…in our world, at least. A little hard to believe in these times of over-protected, over-organized kids who wouldn’t know what to do if you put a ball in one of their hands and a bat in the other. A 14-year-old kid from a typical middle-class Canadian neighbourhood told his mother he was going hunting. On a school night. With a shotgun. In a boat. On a big lake. On a dark and wild night.

Harriet Allen likely warned Ross to be back in time for supper. Not even a hasty: “Don’t forget your life jacket!” She knew his outdoorsman father had taught him well. She had faith. And not in a million years would any of her contemporaries have accused her of being an unfit mother…

Some of the neighbourhood men joined Ross’s father, Ned, and they went out in boats onto the choppy water that wicked night. On Dowker’s they picked up Ross’s friend, George Chiasson, who had been stranded for hours, shivering and soaked to the skin. It had been so dark, he reported, that he had not even seen what happened to Ross. He could only point the searchers to the place where the duck had fallen.

At our house no one slept, even though there would be school in the morning. I watched my mother looking out into the black night through our kitchen window, praying a Hail Mary. A few hours later, a police car arrived at the Allen’s, its flashing lights illuminating the pelting rain. For a second I was sure I was looking at red-haired Ross getting out of the cruiser. He was wearing his familiar bright yellow rain slicker.

I screamed: “It’s Ross!” But it wasn’t. It was his older brother, Dave wearing Ross’s raincoat. Hours later, Ned Allen walked in from the night, and he stood dripping in front of his wife and Ross’s brother and two sisters: “We’ve lost our boy.”

Our world changed. It sounds trite, but our childhood was over.
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The morning after Ross was lost, the traffic reporter from Montreal’s leading English AM radio station, CJAD, volunteered his helicopter to join in the search. The city’s English-speaking community was small and intimate then, as it remains to this day. I remember the reporter saying, as the chop-chop sound of the rotors whirred in the background, “There’s no sign of 14-year-old Ross Allen, but we’re not giving up hope…”

Ross’s boat turned up later that first day, a few miles east of where he had tumbled overboard. Hope was abandoned.

In the long days that followed, I often walked down to the lake shore and stood on the small boat launch at Angell Bay, staring across at Dowker’s Island. Waiting for Ross to come home. Death was something unfamiliar and unacceptable. It was like a cloud had arrived and blackened the sky. I stood there, on the dock, and looked through the haze for some kind of sign. The smell of burning leaves filled the air. Lake St. Louis no longer sparkled invitingly, the scene of so much of our summer fun. It looked deep, and dark and ugly.

I must have been in a dreamy child-like denial, because after about a week of my vigil my father sat me down and said: “John, Ross won’t be coming back…” My mother cried. “I can see him at the front door, that big grin on his face, asking ‘How are you today, Mrs. Daly?’”

On November 3, the very day a memorial service was to take place, Ross’s body was found. He had been in the water for almost a month.

For years afterward I dreamed I was searching for Ross Allen. In many of these dreams I was airborne, flying over the dark-green brackish water of the big lake. My quest continued up some unknown non-existent river, looking for signs that Ross was alive. I was not in an airplane. I had the power to fly. This was my wish. To have the power to rise above death and change it’s dictates. I never, ever saw Ross in those dreams. This is the power of death, and life, making themselves known.

When I could not locate Ross on the water I dreamed he had somehow survived and was alive, but was badly injured and permanently altered, hidden in the shadows of his home at 61 York Road. Still, I could not see him. And now I was no longer sure I wanted to.

And then the dreams stopped.
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Every January or February I leave the cold rain of my home in Vancouver for the much colder whipping winds of Montreal. I go there for a taste of “real” Canadian winter. It’s getting harder to find that taste. As often as not, these last few years, along with the snow and cold there has been rain and receding snow drifts, revealing the buried piles of dog shit that were, in the past, not seen until spring.

On my last trip, my oldest brother Mark and his son Bryan and I drove up to the Lakeview Cemetery. A few months earlier, Mark had been there with Ted, who was visiting from Victoria, and Harriet Allen, now residing in an old-age home not far from the house where she and her family once lived.

The grey granite and black marble gravestones pushed through the freshly fallen snow. Mark thought he remembered where Ross’s monument was, but we couldn’t find it. We drove back down the slope to the cemetery administrator’s house.

The man inside was helpful, friendly and concerned beyond what we might have expected. “What a tragedy,” he remarked, as I described the death of young Ross. He went upstairs and found an old ledger, from 40 years gone by. He set it down on top of his desk and when he opened it the spine broke.

His finger traced up and down the pages, scanning the entries handwritten in fountain pen. I asked Mark when Ross had died. Mark thought it must have been late September or early October 1966. It was hunting season. This information helped. The caretaker’s finger settled on a name: Ross Frederick Allen. He went back upstairs and brought down Ross’s file. He taped one of the three documents to the inside of the file so it would not fall out and be lost forever.

The date of Ross’s death was written this way: October 11-November 3, 1966. Those long sad days when we imagined and longed for an impossible outcome. I don’t think I noticed the colour of leaves that autumn. I don’t remember any colour that was not funereal.

The caretaker went to his computer and located Ross’s grave, in a section of the cemetery called Resthaven. “I can take you there,” he offered. We drove back up the hill and the caretaker motioned to a stone sitting between two green shrubs, in the second row back from the road. “There,” he pointed. He said Ned Allen had purchased four plots, and that Ned was here too, beside Ross, but his place was not marked.

I trudged through the snow, leaving footprints, and turned into the sinking sun and bitter wind to face the stone. Ross Frederick Allen. After all these years I’d found him…

I stood there and felt as if I was remembering another lifetime. I had to really try to conjure a picture of Ross in my mind. There he was, only faintly, reciting Aladdin. Even today I can hardly see him. There is no challenging time, or what it does to our bodies and minds and memories.

Ross is more than forty years into his peaceful dreamless sleep, beneath the frozen ground and a blanket of white. Even the sorrow is gone, or maybe it’s sleeping too. There is a certain light, at dusk, in Montreal, and it helps me to feel, in my body, what remains of childhood’s wonder.

Ross is in that place, safe and dry and smiling.
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deep thoughts (on a montreal morning)

2007-01-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

In Montreal, the snow has ended, the sky is clearing and the temperature is minus 13. Here are my Deep Thoughts:

Deep Thought #1: On nostalgia and rekindling past relationships

I am less nostalgic when I come to Montreal. My agenda is a simple one: renew my relationships with a few family members and friends, try and relax a bit and watch the wheels go round and round, old Johnny Lennon style.

The conversations are mostly not profound. If one is expecting profound conversations from working folks, busy raising up family and keeping bread on the table, one is bound to be disappointed. In any case, I am English, as is my brother Mark. We are incapable of profundity, beyond noticing what a complete (deep) asshole the driver in front of us is.

My brother's wife, Isabel, is much better with steering discourse toward more intimacy. It's good. We dined at an Indian restaurant last night, and besides suffering third degree burns to my mouth, it was pleasant. Altough I must confess I responded to Isabel's innocent queries about my personal world as if I was on the stand defending myself against a murder charge.

Perhaps I am guilty of letting some things die. Like the flowers in my garden. But I came here, to Montreal, as a way of sprinking a little water on those flowers.
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Deep Thought #2: Those wacky Iraqis

When those wacky Iraqis say "...heads will roll...", you can take them literally. What is it with these fucking savages? Can they not kill their enemies with a nice clean bullet between the eyes?

Yesterday they hanged Saddam's half brother and pulled his head off in the process. And, of course, we're all outraged. As for me, it just reinforces my isolationist desires. If these people want to bend and chop and fold and mutilate and spindle and twist and turn one another's heads, then, by all means, fill your boots. Fill your boots with heads.

I'm sure the parents and other loved ones of the 3000 dead American soldiers are basking in the glow of their pride for this newly created beacon of Middle Eastern freedom, Iraq. But never lose hope, because George Bush is sending more Marines to settle the thing down.

Shit.
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there's cold, and then there's cold (minus 11, snow just ending)

2007-01-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

I can just now feel my fingertips again. I am Nanook, of the West. The snow today was feather light. Clearing the driveway took only half and hour. And the falling snow filled in my work behind me.

Just now I've done the back porch. I stopped with the job nearly done, because my gloves had become useless against the frigid air. In 24 hours Montreal has been transformed from global warming poster city to slightly south of the North Pole.

one year after the bcgeu capitulation (community living suffers)

2007-01-15T07:46:00.000-08:00

I'm here, in Montreal. Outside the snow is falling. I have some time on my hands. I'd been thinking of doing an update style post, sharing my observations of life in community living (from a worker's point of view) as we approach one year post contract signing. Our current collective agreement will remain in place until after the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Our bonus dollars, I suspect, are spent. Mine are, that's for sure. We voted, in significant numbers, to accept a substandard agreement; one that would ensure staffing shortages would be a fact of life for years to come.

Though community social service workers gave the leadership of the BCGEU slightly less, at about 80%, if memory serves, endorsement for the bonus dollars for CBA improvements trade off, the record shows we took the money and turned our backs on the work we do and the folks we serve.

This proves we are not saints. Maybe that's a good thing, because the stereotype of care-givers as endlessly patient and selfless Fred and Florence Nightengales needed a bullet, and badly.

In residential care and in day programs, the problem of hiring and retaining staff has worsened. There are trends developing that paint, in broad strokes, a bleak picture. For instance:

In the past, workers coveted the day program positions; the Monday through Friday, 8AM to 4PM hours, that allowed for weekend living. Not the case anymore. I won't name my sources, but I trust them. I work for two agencies, one of them the largest in British Columbia. The larger of the two agencies chose to boost the hiring wage, on their own and without government funding, to 17.22 an hour.

The smaller agency has been unable and/or unwilling to do this, and so they are paying 14.36 an hour. In both these agencies the practise of paying overtime has become the norm. This is the only way shifts can be filled, many times, when workers take vacation or call in sick.

Workers are calling sick more frequently and I think with less pangs of conscience than in the past. Here's what I mean:

In the past workers would use "sick time" when we were sick, but also for a mental health type break or if we needed time for other personal or family business. I think worker's felt some guilt when using sick time inappropriately, but now the attitude is every man and woman for him/herself.

Workers no longer believe their employers have the resources to take care of them. The predictability of a daily/weekly schedule is mostly gone. Many of us spend hours on the road doing transport from home to day program and back again. So now workers are looking for positions in residential care where there is, at least, greater ability to predict what your shift will look like.

But even in the agency where the higher wage is being offered, the shortage of staffing has gone from critical to more critical. I know of many situations where workers are left to support as many as four individuals on their own, putting the workers and the individuals they care for at risk. Not to mention the reputation of agencies charged with responsibility for the staff and the residents.

This is the legacy of the leadership of the BCGEU. George Heyman and Chris Johnson knew, when they negotiated an agreement that would not address recruitman and retention issues, that the outcome would be chronic staffing shortages and that this would become the new normal.

They promised to lead us in a fight to regain funds that might have improved the facts on the ground, and they broke their promise. The men and women who manage the agencies were not about to paint targets on their chests by defying the obvious intentions of government. I am aware of only one executive director who was vocal in her public statements of opposition to the agreement signed on March 31st, 2006.

In the end, though, it was the workers, themselves, who sold out. You and me, brothers and sisters, who took the immediate money and turned away. We're living with the consequences and will be for years to come.

monday, january 15th, 2007 (montreal:snowing and minus 8)

2007-01-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

These notes are from yesterday, January 14th: One year ago, here in Montreal, it was raining. This morning it's not. Everything outside is pale green and beige and grey and brown. Are these the new colours of winter?

The children (my nephews Julien and Antoine) remain changlings: squabbling, whining, foot stamping, fighting the idea of leaving their virtual world, in front of video and computer screens, for the world of outdoors. Once outside and on our walk through the woods they require only a stick and chunk of ice to make their amusement.

This is their perogative. They refuse to comply, they are disinterested in the plans of the adults. They are rigid in their attention to those things they wish to attend to, then more flexible than any adult; but only when they are ready.

Julien stands in the hallway and pulls on a bright red hat with two black horns poking out of the top. Yesterday evening he used an ear hair trimmer to remove his eyebrows, enhancing the "Omen" effect.

Julien's first tongue is French, so when I tell him he looks like "Satan", he looks confused, for a second, and then corrects me; "No. I'm seven."

there's a slight ding in the wing (hopefully it's not too large)

2007-01-14T06:34:00.000-08:00

Flying is getting easier as I get older. There is some kind of fatalism on the rise. Not a morbid thing, but an understanding that if I want to go and see some things and spend time with some people I care about I will need to fly.

I've never really been terrified of flying. If you're really terrified you can't get aboard the craft. I'm a white knuckle flyer. I interpret even the slightest bump as evidence me and my fellow travellers are about to pay back the borrowed time we've been living on.

Sitting on the tarmac in Vancouver, the voice of the Captain announced, over the crackling sound system; "Ladies and gentlemen, we are just having some maintainance done. There is a slight ding in the wing. Hopefully it's not too large and we can get going soon..."

My imagination takes over. A slight ding, eh. I see that ding opening as the plane groans against the forces of air pushing against it. I close my eyes and begin to chant: "Let go of all attachment..."

I'm almost embarrassed to admit this. When I say attachment, I mean to life. And it helps. I repeat this, over and over and over again, with deep breathing, until I can feel my fingers release their grip on the armrests.

I got here. And I'll write more when my fingers thaw out. I was just walking in a lovely Monteal West Island moonscape, but it's cold as hell. Everything is brown and grey and hard as a rock. The ice is formed and ready to receive the long awaited white blanket, expected tomorrow. It's minus 9 degrees, and holding...

la belle province c'est moi

2007-01-12T09:15:00.000-08:00

For my ignorant bastard readers, "la belle province c'est moi..." translates: I am the beautiful province. Which translates: I am going to Montreal, to visit family and friends. I will be leaving Canadian winter, westcoast version; deep blue skies and snow-covered ground, for Canadian winter, eastern version; deeper blue skies and hopefully snow falling from heaven.

I'm looking forward to it, although I am a nervous flyer. This is because no matter how hard I flap my wings I can never seem to levitate. Should anything happen, while I'm up there, or more specifically, while I am coming down from up there, I want my faithful readers to know my last words will be (directed to the person sitting beside me, who will be shrieking "Mommy!":

"Is this how you show your bravery as Arabs?"
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time out (side)

2007-01-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

I was talking on the telephone, yesterday evening, with my buddy Charlie, a Montrealer. He said the colour there is green. It was cold outside his home when we spoke (about 9PM his time); about minus 15. Outside my home it was 0 degrees and the snow was falling.

This morning the colours were wonderful. A mauve, orange, pink and purple horizon above snow covered North Shore mountains. All the hardwood trees are spidery and frosted and the firtrees (the three still standing) are decked out in white as well. It's all very beautiful. We are likely to have this weather for the next few days. Its a welcome interuption to the dark, wet gloomy winter.

I asked Charley if he thinks some Montrealers, the elderly and folks who have a tough time with the cold and ice and snow, will welcome the coming of The Great Thaw. He said they might and he is one of them. The picture up above this post was taken outside our home.
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a bold new plan for iraq?

2007-01-10T18:20:00.000-08:00

I'll leave it to the military experts to analyse the "new plan" George Bush has just unveiled for ending the sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq. 21,000 troops into Baghdad and a 30 mile circumference of the city, and 4,000 troops to Anbar province, where Bush says Al-quaida is planning to launch their take down of the so-called existing elected democratic government of occupied nation.

Past efforts to squash the insurgents, in Fallujah most memorably, succeeding in dispersing the enemy, who carried on their campaign elsewhere. Bush is an odd man, to understate the thing to the power of infinity. He stressed, toward the end of his speech, that 2007 will be blood splattered, but we must stay the course, or the Islamists will gain ground in their intended war against all that is free and....

Fuck!

Stay tuned for the colour red and God help the young Americans who are dead men walking.
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blown away!

2007-01-10T06:18:00.000-08:00

The winds keep coming. More trees have fallen. The one pictured above fell on Dead Beatle Gord's lawn. The sound is familiar now. The whoosing, whining and keening of a gust strong enough to push your car around if you're on a bridge top. The streets are littered with fir bits, like green snow.

And speaking of snow, there are 5 centimeters of it on the ground outside the window, falling silently. Nothing strange about that. It's the dead of winter. And speaking of blown away, dead:

This evening George Bush Jr. is going to announce his bold new plan to settle the sectarian violence in Iraq. He's going against the grain, sending more soldiers when the majority of his citizens want the soldiers home. Nothing strange about that, either. George Bush is a sociopath, and a sociopath is interested in only one thing: satisfying his own needs.

(Tree root system from upended giant fir in Stanley Park)

(Downed tree outside community centre in Burnaby, BC)

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god help us all, the spiders are stressing out!

2007-01-08T17:11:00.000-08:00

Readers of this blog will be duly impressed, I would think, with my deep concern for the plight of humanity. I can't shut up about the plight of humanity. I can hardly sleep because of the damn plight of humanity. That's how sensitive I am.

I'm not alone. ICU News (Ltd) freelance journalist, Gino Capucino, is also a lover of all things human. He is nearly a saint. His love is so large he has to book two seats on the airplane when he flys. And his love extends beyond his own species.

Gino has sent me a stunning mini-documentary, done by the National Film Board of Canada, proving conclusively that spiders, yes you read correctly, spiders are exhibiting some of the very same coping and other maladaptive strategies as people, in their effort to adjust to increasing violence and the loss of the BC Place dome.

Please watch this short film. And then take a moment to ask God to help the least of his creations; the Inky Dinky spider.

kill me once, shame on me, kill me twice, shame on you

2007-01-07T19:57:00.000-08:00

The war in Iraq is not going well. And it's not going to get better. So let's abandon that kind of bullshit thinking, alright? George Bush Jr. has decided to send another 20,000 young Americans into the breech, in a last ditch attempt to settle Baghdad.

In his desperation to turn the Titanic (which is still sailing, although already sunk, if you can feature that) Bush has now been sending sign up documents to the families of dead soldiers.

It's going to be interesting to see how the Democrats, now holding a majority of seats in both the Congress and Senate, react to Bush's bold plan to kill as many young Americans as he can while he still holds power.

here come old flat top (bc place detopitated)

2007-01-06T14:06:00.000-08:00

The seven signs of the end times just keep revealing themselves. Yesterday, with a huff and a puff, Jehovah or Allah or Christ, or whomever, blew a hole in the roof of BC Place. So...that's Stanley Park, and BC Place...

Here's a wee video of old soon-to-be old flat top flapping in the wind. Maybe Elton John can write a song, like Candle In The Wind, in memory of the dome.

Last night, at about ten minutes to 11PM, Margaret and I had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap (we were reading, but I can only read for 30 seconds before my brain settles. OK, it shuts down completely) when out the window we heard the very same noise that awoke us the dark middle of the night before Christmas, when Stanley Park was assaulted by the wrath of the Mother. It was a howling ghost freight train, rolling down Canada Way, making the chimes sing.

We flew to the window and threw open the sash (I'm not kidding) and watched with amazement as the gusts bent the trees over like long-haired hippies in maximum security prisons. We saw the light flash of two blown transformers. It was literally awe inspiring. It was also over in about ten minutes. Those winds, as reported this morning, we steady between 60 and 80KPH. The gusts would have been close to or in excess of 100KPH.

At the top and bottom of this post are pictures of BC Place Stadium, post unscheduled renovation. I also put a picture up showing the dome before it was beheaded, for a comparison. The management claim the roof came down in a controlled "deflation" after the initial tear in the fabric. I think their pants are on fire!

the ugly death of saddam hussein (a new york times editorial)

2007-01-04T17:42:00.000-08:00

January 4, 2007

Editorial

The Ugly Death of Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein deserves no one’s pity. But as anyone who has seen the graphic cellphone video of his hanging can testify, his execution bore little resemblance to dispassionate, state-administered justice. The condemned dictator appeared to have been delivered from United States military custody into the hands of a Shiite lynch mob.

For the Bush administration, which insists it went to war in Iraq to implant democracy and justice, those globally viewed images were a shaming embarrassment. Unfortunately, all Americans will be blamed, while the Iraqi people are now likely to suffer still more. What should have been a symbolic passage out of Iraq’s darkest era will instead fuel a grim new era of spiraling sectarian vengeance.

The ugly episode shows why Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is never likely to produce the national unity government that Washington keeps demanding and that Iraq so desperately needs.

Mr. Maliki is now scrambling to extricate himself from the public relations disaster. Yesterday, his office announced the arrest of a guard who allegedly took the unauthorized video. But the fundamental blame belongs to Mr. Maliki, who personally orchestrated the timing and circumstances of last Saturday’s execution.

Mr. Maliki ignored pleas for delay from Washington and the legal niceties of Iraq’s Constitution. He rushed to deliver Mr. Hussein’s death as a holiday gift to his hard-line Shiite constituency, especially followers of the radical cleric and militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, who were allowed to chant abuse at the condemned dictator while he stood at the gallows with the noose around his neck.

Mr. Maliki’s usual cheerleaders, President Bush and Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, have distanced themselves from this repellent spectacle. Yet the Bush administration again finds that it has little credibility to lecture anyone on the basic dignity due to detainees. The Washington Post reported yesterday on an internal F.B.I. investigation that revealed a pattern of deliberate taunting of the religious beliefs of Muslim prisoners at Guantánamo.

As Mr. Bush prepares his latest plan for Iraq, he must face up to bleak realities. As of January, 2007, Iraq lacks an army capable of standing on its own. It lacks a justice system that puts the rule of law over political expediency, while its police force is dominated by sectarian militias and thugs. Most crucially, it lacks a government committed to protect the rights and personal safety of all Iraqis.

Most Americans, whatever their view of the war, understand that the rule of Saddam Hussein brought a murderous curse and untold suffering upon the Iraqi people. Mr. Hussein has now gone to his grave. But the outrageous manner of his killing, deliberately mimicking his own depraved methods, assures that his cruelty will outlive him.

i meditate on a song ( a final word on bob dylan)

2007-01-01T14:24:00.000-08:00

This one is for Muddy67, upon my graduation from Bob Dylan University (or Community College, if you prefer, Mr. Muddy67). I have spent as much time with Dylan as I care or need to, for now. Seeing him perform here in Vancouver, October last, inspired me.

Why?

On one level because he is a 66 year old man doing just what he wants to be doing in this world, and doing it with excellence. From my point of view that's a light I am happy to be tanned by. Hearing his music, live, was some kind of nourishment. And, finally, I have finished reading his book of interviews, and found words that even Muddy67 (a critic of the man) ought to find worthwhile.

Muddy67 has commented that Dylan has an unmet responsibility to the younger generation. Dylan would argue against that idea vehemently (or half-heartedly, depending on the occasion, or not at all, depending on his mood), but perhaps there is some truth to the notion.

Here is an exchange between Bob Dylan and Mikal Gilmore, a Rolling Stone reporter (who, by the way, is the brother of Gary Mark Gilmore, a convicted killer executed by the State of Utah in 1977). Mikal Gilmore was asking Dylan about his Love and Theft album:

Dylan: For starters, no one should really be curious or too excited about comparing this album to any of my other albums. Compare this album to other albums that are out there. Compare this album to other artists who make albums.

You know, comparing me to myself (laughs) is really like...I mean, you're talking to a person who feels like he's walking around in the ruins of Pompeii all the time. It's always been that way, for one reason or another. I deal with all the old stereotypes.

The language and the identity I use is the one I know only so well. I'm not going to keep comparing my new work to my old work. It creates a kind of Achilles' heel for myself.
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Gilmore then asked Dylan about his reaction to the attacks of September 11th, 2001...

Dylan: One of those Rudyard Kipling poems, "Gentlemen-Rankers" comes to mind. "We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth/We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung/And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth/God help us, for we knew the worst too young!"

If anything, my mind would go to young people at a time like this. That's really the only way to put it.

Finally, Gilmore asked Dylan if he saw any "hope" for the future, given the situation they found themselves in post 911...

Dylan: I don't really know what I could tell you. I don't consider myself an educator or an explainer (editor's note: unlike Dubya, who is a "decider"). You see what it is that I do, and that's what I've always done.

But it is time now for great men to come forward. With small men, no great thing can be accomplished at the moment. Those people in charge, I'm sure they've read Sun-Tsu, who wrote The Art Of War in the sixth century. In there he says, "If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of one hundred battles..."

"If you know yourself and not your enemy, for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat. If you know neither your enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

Whoever is in charge, I am sure they would have read that.

Things will have to change. And one of those things that will have to change: people will have to change their internal world.

Well, God bless you Bob Dylan. Thanks for everything. I just love the way Dylan is true to himself. He references his own folk wisdom roots, he references poetry when thinking hard about things he is being asked.

And he gives a Dylanesque tweak to power when he says he's "...sure they would have read...The Art Of War..." He knows damn well meatheads like George Bush will not have read this kind of ancient wisdom, and he's suggesting they better.

Let's let the poet, the balladeer, the seer for his generation, take us out with his performance of Mr. Tambourine Man, from a Brussel's concert in 1995.

ring out the old, ring in the new!

2006-12-31T15:26:00.000-08:00

In 2007 I resolve to work less and play more. This will not be hard to accomplish because I am fully workaholic and a reduction from 70 hours a week to 60 hours a week does not qualify as landing a man on the moon giant leapism. A dull boy I am when I only work. So less of that. My attempt at quitting the second job was a good learning, a good practice. I noticed a few things. That may be all one can hope for in this life. To notice a few things.

In 2007 I intend to notice what happens when I work less. If we work in an addictive way, if we are trying to alter something, what is that something?

This coming year I will make peace with the Canadian Tax Bastards. This will be a harbinger of coming peace between the Palestinians and Israel. My relationship with the taxman is just about as troubled as that.

And less attention to all that is twisted in this world. Like Saddam's neck. That was pretty twisted. He had as swinging a New Year's Eve as is possible. Yeah, I know it wasn't New Year's Eve. But it was as close as he was going to get.

Less attention to conflict and violence is what I am resolving. This will be harder to realize than the reduction in hours working, because I am attracted to conflict like a moth to a flame. I have no idea why. It can't be because I think I'm going to learn something new. There is nothing new in conflict and violence. Same damn thing since we were clubbing one another in the cave.
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I have been imagining the green leaves of a big fat tree dancing and shimmering in a summer breeze. I want more of that, in my imagination and in my real life. There are so many lovely things to notice in this world. The sound of music, the feel of the air on the skin, cold or warm.

The feel of water on the skin. Simple things. Colours. Vibrant colours and muted ones. The taste and smell of the food we eat. The lines around the eyes of old friends and loved ones. The smooth skin of young folks, waiting for time and experience to draw on that canvas.

The way we look forward to things and the way we choose to do that, for the most part. So that's called hope. I am hoping for good experiences in 2007 and passing that wish along to you too...

then fall caesar (saddam hussein is dead)

2006-12-29T19:44:00.000-08:00

Behold the quality of advanced and evolved Western style democracy. Tie a rope around a man's neck, strap his arms behind his back and drop him down. His neck snaps. He strangles. Watch him swing. Dance around his body, chant a happy song. Saddam Hussein is dead.

A Christian co worker of mine made this brilliant observation, upon hearing of the despot's fall into the darkness: "He started it."

Fuck. I guess it's ok then. "Love and mercy...", sang Brian Wilson, is what we need tonight. But not tonight in Iraq. Tonight there is only blood and revenge. And in Texas a bandy-legged bantam bastard has payback for Hussein's attempted hit on his father.

This has been a tale, in the end, of warlords: Hussein, Bush and Bin Laden. One down and two to go. This is what violence brings. Anger. What a wasted opportunity. This might have been a moment to show a path other than an eye for an eye. We're savages in suits. And neckties.

One of the new American puppets, an Iraqi security official who witnessed Hussein's execution described Hussein as having died with "...fear in his face..." Bullshit from a puppet. Saddam Hussein refused to wear a hood. He was the only man on the gallows without a hood. There is a word that describes the look on his face, and it's not fear. It's impassive.

VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED!: Here is a link to a video of Saddam's execution, taken with a cell phone. If you like violence you'll be pleased. Saddam was taunted by Shites in the witness group, who invoked the name of Muqtada Al Sadr, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shite muslims.

Saddam answers his tormenters by mocking them, repeating Al Sadr's name with a sneer, and then he asks, "Is this how you show your bravery as Arab men?" One of the executioners pleads for quiet. Saddam prays, repeating the phrase "God is great, all things come from God, and long live the mujihadeen..."

The trap doors opens and Hussein falls through it...

where have all the dictators gone (gone to graveyards everyone)

2006-12-28T23:52:00.000-08:00

When will they ever learn? When will we ever learn? This is nothing to celebrate. There is loose talk of the many Iraqis who are lining up to pull the switch and watch Saddam Hussein take the big plunge.

This, for some reason, leaves me feeling deep blue. Where is the great democracy? This guy will have to deal, one presumes, with a higher power down the line or over the rainbow, but what about mercy? Where does that start? When does that begin.

Reports are that Saddam may die this weekend, the whole sorry thing given a hurry up so as to fool...

Who? Who will be fooled by his speedy execution? His victims? They already know whatever they know. Or maybe they know nothing at all. It sickens me. All of it. The war, the killing, the revenge, the righteousness on every side.

All the death and dying and we are no closer to peace of any kind. This man's death will only make that distance greater. It saddens me.
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interview with bob dylan

2006-12-27T11:33:00.000-08:00

I'm home sick today. Got that? I don't mean I'm missing my home. I mean I am not at work, because my stomach wanted to empty at 5AM. So that's the scene. And to while away the time, on this cloudy day after the day after Christmas, I am pleased to present this interview with Bob Dylan, in four parts.

Dylan was staying in a trailer part outside of Toronto. It was 1986. He may have been bored, so he invited in a documentary film producer and allowed the guy to tape their conversations. The fellow was Christopher Sykes.

While Dylan considered (and often rejected) Syke's probing, he drew a pencil sketch of the film maker. I've just finished reading The Essential Bob Dylan Interviews, and this little four part set is a reasonable representation of the man who has spoken to us since 1966, when the snare drum crack of Like A Rolling Stone startled us awake.

Just a regular guy, Bob Dylan is, with a strong sense of irony and humour, as bemused about our interest in him as we are curious about where his muse comes from and what it all means...

Bob Dylan-Part One

Bob Dylan-Part Two

Bob Dylan-Part Three

Bob Dylan-Part Four

president ford dead at 93

2006-12-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

Former American President Gerald Ford has died at Rancho Mirage, in Palm Springs, California. He was 93 years of age and had been failing for some time. He'll be remembered for these words; "Our long national nightmare is over...", spoken upon pardoning Richard Milhous Nixon, whose resignation led to Ford's brief presidency.

Ironically, he may also be most remembered for his marriage to Betty Ford, whose work on raising awareness for breast cancer research, and whose battles with alcoholism and drug addiction caused her to found the Betty Ford Centre.

Ford was on the Warren Commision into the assassination of John F. Kennedy and was a director of the CIA. Watching the news coverage brought back many memories of a passage of American history that may have marked the beginning of a descent into the cynicism that is so wide spread today.

His was also a time of very large haircuts for black men, like Billy Preston, seen here with President Ford and Beatle George Harrison...

Gerald Ford seemed a good and humble man, in counterpoint to many of the characters who shaped his times. A lessor known part of his story is that he was one of the many victims of President Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct. In the picture below Clinton is shown pulling Ford in for a quick game of tonsil hockey while a flattered Ford puckers up.

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this is democracy- iraq style

2006-12-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

Saddam's death sentence has been upheld by the so-called Iraqi appeals process and he is to be executed within thirty days. His trial and this system of justice has been nothing short of a fraud, from the outset. This is what nearly three thousand young American boys have bled out for on the sands of Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq by the USA and Britain has now been discredited, by a majority of people both in North America and in Europe, not to mention the nations that are natural enemies of western imperialist states.

The goals of the regime change have not been reached and will not be reached. There will be no democracy in Iraq, at least nothing that remotely resembles democracy as we know it.

But the United States of America has installed a puppet government that will now hang Saddam Hussein and provide the Sunni insurgents and Al Qaida with a new martyr. What has been learned?

Apparently nothing....

a child's christmas in wales

2006-12-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

I hope these links work. This fellow could write, oh my lord he could write. The first time I heard this audio (it's Thomas himself) I was dumbstruck by the beauty. Here is A Child's Christmas In Wales, by Dylan Thomas, in two parts:

A Child's Christmas In Wales (Part One)

A Child's Christmas In Wales (Part Two)

papa's got a brand new bag (r.i.p. james brown)

2006-12-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

And it's long and rubber with a zipper down one side. Gone to join the heavenly jam, his was a man's world. What a voice. Rest in peace. James Brown.

But do not despair the dancing king. I have decided to try and fill James Brown's shiny shoes. Here is my first performance. Long live rock 'n soul!

twas the night before christmas

2006-12-23T08:40:00.000-08:00

And all through the house...

Actually it's the morning before the day of the night before Christmas, and Margaret and I are about to depart for Vernon. We will increase our chances of a white Christmas, therefore, by approximately 3.548399%.

I won't have access to my email address book, so let me take this opportunity to wish my very faithful small band of regular readers a most happy and relaxing and affordable Christmas. May the day by merry and bright, and if it's green, well, what the hell, get out there and cut the lawn, maybe fire up the barbeque.

Margaret and I have both been quite crabby during this lead up to the birthday of baby Jesus. But it's never too late to turn that around and locate the serene feelings down deep inside, just below the shortbread cookie fat storage tanks, slightly to the left of the mince tart remnants...

Ah! There they are! No! That's not them. That's an apple pie crust. Where the fuck did I leave my serene feelings?! Margaret, have you seen my god damn serene feelings?? Ohhhhh! There they are. Yes, I feel calm and grateful now, everything is just exactly as it should be, and we are all just exactly where we should be, god bless us everyone!

singing in the rain (here comes the solstice)

2006-12-21T06:22:00.000-08:00

Waiting for the wind to howl again last night in Vancouver, the re-united but unfortunately no longer alive Dead Beatles blew out of town having done their part to warm up the Myles Of Beans patrons who came out to see local singing group Chalice and Blade. A decent time appeared to have been had by all. And I want to say thank you to the few work pals who came by to catch a tune or three: Sister Mildred of BACI, Sister Angela, formerly of BACI, lately of MAPCL, and Sister Leona, survivor of Montgomery, a candidate for sainthood if the right palms can be greased at the Vatican.

All this trance channeling of deceased Liverpudlians has left me sort of tapped out, I confess. This is what happens when an empty vessel is filled with the musical spirit, the music is played and the vessel is empty again. That seems to be part of an explanation and it will have to do until I have a bath and rest my brain...

(Later that evening...)

OK. The water was fine. And, yes, real Dead Beatles take a bath. I'm re thinking the empty vessel descriptor. It seems a little morose this close to Christmas and the Burrard Street Bridge. What I am trying to say (and describe) is the after feeling; two weeks of pretty dedicated rehearsing leading up to a first real live performance of music in maybe ten years was bound to leave a little let down mood in it's wake.

I'm exhausted, but happily, if I can claim happiness (fleeting) in my emotional repetoire. The experience of reconnecting with a friend that I knew in what really does seem like another lifetime was just grand. Dead Beatle George (aka Gord Kearney) was a musical mentor then, thirty years ago, and he is still.

I was pleased to hang on to my guitar throughout our set, and my leg stopped shaking about four songs in. Gord and I sang four of our own songs, and those were warmly received. It was great to sit in the audience and hear all the members of Chalice and Blade (having caught Mojo's solo set last month), with their folk stylings and intricate four part vocals.

I have to tip my hat, again, to Mojo, lead singer for the group, who drives the music with his rythmn guitar, his forceful energy and his obvious involvement with the music. His trademark headsweat towel at the ready to mop up the moisture after songs is evidence of the effort he donates to the Chalice and Blade project.

And, once again, it was fun just to be out and about. The big winds did not arrive in Vancouver, but the rain was coming down in sheets, making the candle lit inside of Myles of Beans a haven for this solstice celebration. It was good to shoot the breeze with work pals who came out, and good to swap musical ideas with Sue, of Chalice and Blade, about possible venues for folk music in the future.

It was a bit tough to hear without monitors, but I caught the sounds of our harmony singing coming back through the air. It was and remains a good blend. Our songs were well received. By the last song, a Kearney original called Easy Street, I finally felt myself in the music, and that promises good times to come.

I'll end this little post with a note about the illusions encountered preparing for and participating in the Myles of Beans show...

There is something timeless about music. That's known by anyone who plays or listens. When music is flowing it can transport us. This past couple of weeks while working out our tunes I was somewhere between 18 and 35 in my mind. That makes sense, because those were the years I learned to play and played most intensely.

It was dear Margaret who helped to bring me back to present day reality when she asked, as I was hustling out the door to work the other day, if I had remembered my "blood measures..."

Blood measures?

For a moment I thought I may have skipped a transfusion. Then I understood Margaret, who suffers from half brain morning syndrome aphasia, meant blood pressure medication. It's clear that 18 year olds don't need blood pressure medications or any other measures. But I do. I am a lucky man, for the music and Margaret and much more.

the stanley park massacre

2006-12-20T06:29:00.000-08:00

Lower Mainlanders are adjusting to the reality that Stanley Park is now disabled. We are contributing money to the Buy-Stanley-Park-A-Giagantic-Wheelchair Fund. All of a sudden we all love Stanley Park.

It's embarassing.

Most of us would buy a condo at Prospect Point if we had the scratch and developers had the itch. OK. I am overcompensating here. I am actually sort of sad and disturbed at the destruction of Vancouver's "jewel".

That's another thing: everyone is referring to Stanley Park as the "jewel" now. You'd think Stanley Park was Princess Diana for God's sake! Maybe Elton John will write a song called Goodbye Stanley Park. Here will be the lyrics:

Goodbye Stanley Park
Though I never knew you at all
You had the grace to stand there wooden and so forth
Like a bunch of very large trees

Goodbye Stanley Park
Now you are de nuded and bare
And all the reporters and talking heads
Are acting like they care

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a bunch of big trees in the wind
Never thinking for a moment
Of all the dead trees made into condos

And I would have loved to have walked through you
But I was busy earning a fucking living...

If anyone can help me with the last two lines I'd appreciate it. I am too overcome with grief to continue. I am going to go and buy some flowers and put them by a fallen tree at the entrance to the park.

OK. I am overcompensating again, hiding behind cynicism because I'm actually getting a little fearful the end of the world IS nigh, and the fact that another windstorm is being predicted does not help. This one is going to arrive outside my door at 4AM tomorrow morning. What's with the late night hours and these windstorms. They have a problem sleeping so that have to wake everyone else up too? Or what?

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merry christmas warren (from the deep and dark december series)

2006-12-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

Time Magazine has just voted you most insufferable and self aggrandising Canadian for 2006! Congratulations!!

Johnny Maudlin to Warren Kinsella

Still obsessed with me, eh? Go change someone's bedpan and fuck off.

Warren Kinsella to Johnny Maudlin

My interest in and attention to Canadian political pundit and hack Warren Kinsella is a reliable barometer of my spiritual condition. That said, I'm not a well man this last few days. Let me tell this tawdry tale in hockey terms:

Warren Kinsella is a sort of Bryan Marchment-Wayne Gretzky combo clone. Marchment is a notorious assassin, given to open ice borderline cheap shots, catching the opposition coming across the blue line with their head's down, knee on knee hits intended to do damage.

And in comparing Kinsella to Gretzky I'm afraid I am not suggesting Warren possesses the skill set of The Greatest to ever play the game. Gretzky was also known as a bit of a whiner, a crybaby who would beak off to the nearest referee if he thought he'd been unfairly targetted by another player.

Warren Kinsella is a lobbiest, a campaign manager and a regular contributor to Canada's right of centre National Post newspaper. As a writer/journalist he is a solid third line center, if you like, who can be counted on to score maybe ten goals a season, with occasional power play or penalty kill duties thrown into the mix. Not a lot of flash, but he insists on wearing pink skates so that everyone in the god damn barn has to look at him.

Johnny Maudlin, on the other side of the arena, is a clubber, a minor league player who could have been a contender and when he (me) is not well, cruises up and down the blogosphere looking to lay a two hander across the ankles of other cyber entities.

I know Warren Kinsella only as a cyber creature, having encountered him in the small corner of cyberspace that is occupied by Canadian political blog junkies. Kinsella has earned a reputation as a kind of skinless individual who likes to dish it a bit, but get's pretty cranky if the dish is pushed back across the table into his face.

Fair enough. He appears to be human. I came upon Kinsella when I was surfing the net, a new blogger looking to see how it works, and I enjoyed Kinsella's bitch battles with other bloggers, particularly one nasty ongoing one he had going with an Ottawa chap who has since left the world wide web. I was basically a third man in, and probably should have been handed a lifetime suspension when I took my first sucker punch at the back of Kinsella's balding pate.

I sent off some emails, mean-spirited as hell, telling Kinsella what I thought of his act. One of the things that makes Warren Kinsella interesting is his habit of swinging at any pitch (mixing metaphors, I know, so suuuueee me Warren!) thrown or not. Kinsella did the right thing, told me I was an asshole. I actually appreciated the reminder. I forget sometimes.

Time passed. Recently I noticed something on his blog that annoyed me. This is one of the symptoms of my illness. The illness, by the way, is a kind of boredom-depression thing, and when I squeeze my head into that space, my vision becomes tunnel, to understate it.

It doesn't matter what Kinsella wrote. Who cares? It was none of my business. Well...maybe it was a little of my business. I am, afterall, a reader. I sent an email, once again, and that email is quoted at the top of this post. As is Kinsella's reply. He was not wasting words. He's not entirely clear about what I do for a living, though.

The only bedpan I empty, these days, is my own. I responded to his email. This was basically, returning to the hockey parlance, a wee shoving match. Kinsella reacted to my two hander across his pink skates with a two hander of his own and skated away. I followed him up ice and took another swing....

I don't like you because you are dishonest. You are a con man - you pretend to be friendly and then attack. I suspect you have acquaintances who would tell me I am right. Don't write anymore. Life's too short for the likes of you.

Warren Kinsella to Johnny Maudlin

This guy is pretty good, actually. I mean, my own father one time said I reminded him of a con man he knew and did not like very well. And dishonest? I am dishonest on more levels than Kinsella can count. The other thing he got right is the bit about acquaintances. It's subtle, but brilliant. Notice he didn't say "friends"? Because he knows I don't have any! Shit, it's almost like he's psychic.

Actually, it's more complicated than that. I am, you see, Warren Kinsella's doppelganger in cyberspace. He has a few. I remind Kinsella of himself. I am convinced of this. I am right about this. And, in the end, it doesn't matter. I have been a badly motivated dry drunk son of a bitch on the Kinsella file and I intend to make my first New Year's resolution right here:

I shall never darken Warren Kinsella's door again. But, one more time, for old time's sake, let me hold up a mirror so that the Prince of Darkness can practise that witchcraft and analyse my Christmas message.

All the best, Warren

Johnny Maudlin to Warren Kinsella

I think only a big man (me) would afford Warren Kinsella the last word. Here it is...

Piss off, loser.

Warren Kinsella to Johnny Maudlin (December 19th, 2006)

we're proud to know you, jesus (the deep and dark december series)

2006-12-16T09:25:00.000-08:00

My brother Mark called from Montreal this morning. He said he thought he might need to send a rescue party for me, having heard about Hurricane Lennon blowing through here the previous night. I told him the greatest damage the wind has done is to some wonderful old trees in Stanley Park, and my fellow Lower Mainlanders are behaving well at the hundreds of new four way stop intersections.

We have another inch of snow on the ground too. Mark said it's sunny and seven degrees in Montreal. So the end is nigh, it looks like...

One way and another (I can't recall how) our conversation took a turn toward race relations. Maybe I said even the Chinese are handing the difficult driving conditions well. Just kidding. And, for the record, the only two angry drivers I observed breaking the four way stop protocols were white and brown; one white male and one brown female. The brown female was the worst criminal, because she gave me a dirty look while speeding out of turn, through a lightless intersection at Kingsway and Willingdon.

Mark said he was getting pissed off with Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar, the unfortunate fellow who was turned over to American authorities by Canadian authorities on suspicion of terrorist activities. The Americans then handed Arar to the Syrians and the Syrians tortured Arar trying to pry a confession from him.

Arar maintained his innocence, was eventually released and is now seeking compensation for his suffering. He will be compensated, to the tune of many millions, but he also wants apologies and firings of individuals whose decisions led to such terrible outcomes for him.

Mark described Arar's "sour face", and said he was getting sick of seeing it and hearing this man's incessant demands for justice at all levels. This, then, led to a comment about the recent decision, by a judge in Ontario, to have a Christmas tree removed from the lobby of a government building because it may be offensive to non Christians.

And covering it all was Mark's feeling that the real "reason for the season", the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, has been paved under with rampant commercialism and the annual buying frenzy.

It was alot. Let me see if I can add anything useful or sensible to the conversation...

I understand what Mark describes as "racist" feeling. I've long believed that folks who deny such feeling are either self unaware or outright liars. Only a saint does not have strong reactions to matters which define us and separate us.

My face is white. I come from a clan of other white-faced humans. I was raised on the idea that Jesus Christ was God and Canada was a nation comprised of white-faced English and French speakers.

Indians (they were not called First Nations) lived at the Calgary Stampede. I knew this from looking at the postcards my Dad brought home when he went West of Ontario on business. So that was a long time ago. That was before September 11th, 2001, when history began.
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Then there was a sudden overwhelming knowledge that another religion, called Islam, was out there in the world, and one of it's proponents, Osama Bin Laden, seemed a resolute believer that many of us ought rightfully die for our violent actions against other Muslims in the Middle East.

Oh dear, oh dear, as my dear old father used to mutter under his breath...

Five years of American led war followed September 11th, 2001 and now we have come (in the majority) to understand that the goals of the war against "terrorism", particularly as that war has been prosecuted in Iraq, have failed. We may not say it (outloud) but perhaps the failure of our war-making against radical Islamists has convinced us we had better get our Christmas trees the fuck out of government buildings so as not to further annoy Osama Bin Laden.

Or maybe our sensitivity is not entirely motivated by negative and fearful feelings. Perhaps what is essentially great about the idea of Canada is expressed in the notion that we want everyone to feel welcomed here. In the future the conduct of some of our cultural/religious celebrations and the outward symbols of them may need to be determined by democratic means.

How is that done in a country that presumes the separation of church and state?
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In the meantime folks like my brother Mark feel some kind of partially defined longing. Mark mentioned that he thinks too many Christians are "ashamed" of their faith. We might thank George Bush and the other "born again" people, who seemed happy to slaughter Muslims in the name of Jesus, for the shame ordinary and humble Christians harbour.

And we may thank Osama Bin Laden and the other savage Muslims who adhere to their bent codes of violence for the revulsion we feel at the mere mention of the word "Islam".

The Muslim folks I know and interact with are, in the main, shy and reluctant to be drawn into political discussions. They keep their feelings to themselves unless I make an effort to draw them out. I make that effort because I want to know what they think and how they feel.

They feel, among many other things, the natural association and gathering together impulses any other group. They tend to be more committed to one another than we white folk are. They tend to be more committed to their cultural traditions than we white folk are.

We white folk are committed to commercialism and consumerism. That is our culture. I don't want to feel hateful towards people who are different than I am and I understand it if some Muslims feel a certain sense of satisfaction for the ass-kicking a Muslim insurgency has handed Uncle Sam and his pals.

None of that means I think I ought to toss out my Christmas tree or feel funny when I say the word Christmas. I think I'll make a point of smiling at my Muslim neighbours and wishing them Happy Christmas next weekend. Or maybe I'll just wish them good morning or good evening.
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dead lennon blows into british columbia

2006-12-15T16:31:00.000-08:00

Wo! Talk about making his presence known. At exactly 3:40AM I sat bolt upright in my bed, listening to the howling wind, watching the trees bend over and back again, and began singing Love Me Do. Oswald was singing along. He didn't quite get the words right, but he's a cat.

I knew immediately dead John Lennon had arrived. Blowing a hole through this plane of existence caused a major storm of sub cosmic proportions right across the southern part of British Columbia. You can read about the storm here.

Not since the bed-in for peace has Lennon caused such an uproar. I was glad though, because I'd been worrying his holdup at inter galactic emmigration might put the kibosh on Wednesday's Dead Beatle's re union.

It was quite the display of power, I must say. I lay there, growing more near-sighted by the second, singing in a nasal voice and generally feeling filled with the Mersey Beat. When I finally dropped off again I dreamed of rising flood waters, deviant sexual practises and flying guitars. Lennon/Maudlin and Harrison/Kearney will continue pre concert rehearsal this weekend if Lennon/Maudlin is able to navigate his way to the West End of Vancouver now that every second intersection is operating as a traffic lightless four way stop.
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christmas is a fun holiday (the deep and dark december series)

2006-12-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

Readers may remember last summer's appearance here of the Big Man From Brooklyn. He's back today to talk to us about Christmas and changes that seem to never end. The Big Man longs for the traditions of yesterday. Christmas stamps.

He's not the most articulate speaker, but he's got heart. He get's a little animated on this tape, so mind your speakers, turn 'em down, and if there are little kiddies in the room, put your earphones on or send them off to bed.

The Big Man justs wants us to remember that "...Christmas is a fun holiday..." So leave it alone, already.

george harrison arrives in west end-lennon in limbo

2006-12-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

ICU News (Ltd) has obtained a picture of the dead Beatles rehearsing in Vancouver's West End for their upcoming Myles of Beans performance. The photo shows a fully formed George Harrison, now residing in his temporary host pod, Gord Kearney, happily singing a tune that will be performed on December 20th.

John Lennon, on the other hand, has been held up in Limbo, where his marijuana conviction in his last life appears to be causing travel problems. ICU News (Ltd) understands that Lennon's spirit is expected to be released later this week and will fully arrive in host pod Johnny Maudlin sometime over the weekend.

Not a moment too soon, according to our uncover reporter Gino Capucinno. Capucinno snapped the picture of dead Beatles Kearney and Maudlin at work. Note the clarity on the face of Harrison/Kearney while Maudlin/Lennon appears to be lost in some sort of blurry out of phase neither-here-nor-there place.

ICU News (Ltd) has an audio clip from the recent rehearsal. The blurry Maudlin was having obvious trouble following instruction, much to the amusement of the more progressive musician Harrison. Harrison can be heard coaching Lennon: "It's a B flat minor there, Johnny, followed by a..."

Maudlin, who was distracted with attempts to psychically intervene in Lennon's inter galactic visa controversy, did his best to concentrate on Harrison's instructions, but his head eventually began to vibrate and he left the rehearsal muttering, in Lennon's distinctive Liverpudlian accent: "Fookin' B flat minor, muther, they're trying to crucify me!!"

Finally, readers can see, with a comparison between the first photo and one of Harrison toward the end of his last life, the similarities between Harrison and Kearney are unmistakable.

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the measure of a man (for papa paul)

2006-12-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

Margaret and I drove out to the Delta Funeral Home Sunday afternoon to pay our respects to Paul Palylyk. He was "Papa" to eight grandchildren, husband to Dorothy, father to Doug and Nancy, friend to many and remembered for his 83 years long life.

Paul drew a good crowd. There were at least one hundred men and women and children gathered in the parlour, sipping coffee, eating little sandwichs and talking the small talk that is talked at these gatherings. I made my way across to say hello to Paul's widow, Dorothy, and his red-eyed daughter Nancy.

Dorothy said, stoically, that she had many good years with her husband and he had been sick for some time, so this had not been a shock. It was a good run she said. I asked an obviously distressed Nancy how she was doing...

Nancy look ravaged and said, "...you know how it is, it comes in waves..."

I do know how it is. Been through these passages now. It does come in waves; of feeling and remembering. Part of grieving is an involuntary review of a lifetime spent knowing and trying to know someone. And trying to know ourselves in their reflection.

Our fathers are now in heaven. Hallowed be their names.

At 1PM the gathering moved into the chapel and we took our seats. A family friend read some thoughts about Paul; his passions (family, fishing, golf and bullshitting about politics...) and told a lovely story about a pidgeon who decided he would come and stay with Paul and his family. The adopted shit-hawk sort of bird-footed around after Paul while he puttered in the garden and workshop and such....

Two of Paul's old work buddies came up to the front. The first speaker had a very impressive head of toupee and made a whistling sound when he crowded the microphone. His tribute was affecting in it's honesty. Little snapshots of a man at his work, doing what he does, screwing up from time to time (has anyone stayed out of that column?) trying to leave some kind of legacy in this big impersonal world.

Old men are their own legacy. A generation is leaving us.

The second work buddy kind of hauled and limped his old body up to the front. He said this was the second funeral he had been asked to say some words at, and it was an honour. He told more stories of Paul Palylyk's working life, how he had been liked by everyone, and how that was unusual.

Paul started a monthly meeting of retired Vancouver Airport fire fighters. What a great idea. Men should not let themselves become inactive or isolated. Men need the company of other men, and perhaps this monthly gathering of old work chums was one of Paul Palylyk's most important legacies.

The second elderly gentleman said as much: he said the meetings would not be the same without Paul.

When the speaking was done Paul's son Doug rose to his feet and in a voice thick with feeling thanked everyone for coming, and said simply, his voice now breaking, his Dad would be missed. Doug then said if no one else had anything to add we would retire to the parlour for some socializing and sandwich munching.

About halfway down the pews in the small chapel a tall grey-haired fellow stood. He said that he, like Paul, was Ukrainian and Paul had told him, a long time ago, this little bit of truth, and that is was absolute proof of Paul's Ukrainian heritage:

The Plains of Abraham is the name of the Jewish Airforce, Paul said.

Everyone laughed. The greater wisdom of this old gent's last word was this, I think:

Let's laugh, and eat and drink. Let's raise our glasses to the life of a good man. A good man will be missed. Laugh and be glad we knew a good man, and then get ready to remember him with your body. Every heavy foot-fall, when it feels as if you are marching through mud, every unexpected tearful recall, every odd moment when it seems wrong the world goes on without your loved one, this grieving is remembering. The seasons of grief are all seasons now.
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funny little artist man and dead musicians coming back across the universe

2006-12-09T22:37:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a week. The Bob Dylan discussions, kicked off by Muddy67 and Doug (Duke) Lang made me quite glad to be a human with an ear on each side of my head. And two eyes for reading. Of course, the trance channeling of the dead Beatle, John Lennon, has been sort of exhausting, and even physically painful sometimes.

Lennon seems to be trying to re enter this plane through my lower back. The ache is significant. It must be those national program spectacles he favoured. Touching a nerve. It's all in a good cause if he makes it through by December 20th.

I have it on good authority that dead Beatle George Harrison is only three million light years away now, and complaining that there is not such good Indian food on the flight.

In celebration of a good week, where even a broken E string peg could not defeat the returning music, I am pleased to offer my readers two visions of paradise:

- In this first vision of paradise, you have crossed the River Styx and now find yourself at Madison Square Gardens. Before you, on the stage, are Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roger McGuinn and god himself, Bob Dylan. They are sharing the singing of Dylan's masterwork, My Back Pages.

Eric Clapton picks the notes that build a screaming solo. You will be willing to breathe your last breath if you trust this will be your reward. Also note that the Old Trickster, Mister Zimmerman, is sort of forced to tow the party line a bit, and sings his part of the song very much like...Bob Dylan. Turn your volume up and your cares and worries down....

- In the second vision of paradise, you are still gone, but you have settled in, and the smell of a million zillion hashish joints is not bothering you at all. There is smoke all around you, but through the smoke you see god, up there on the stage (you are in London) and he is playing his guitar. He is singing his masterwork, My Back Pages. Again. Minus the other giants this time.

It is slow and soulful. It's so good you begin to feel sick and the stage goes out of focus. But if you are patient it will come back into a sharp re frame. The silly old artist, sly fox, sounds as if he has tired of his 15th mask and has removed it. He could be only 26 years old again. Time leaves. Close your eyes and listen, and like Muddy67 reminded me yesterday, be glad we were born when we were born, with ears on the sides of our heads...

You are suprised at how badly god is playing the lead parts on his accoustic guitar. But to whom shall you complain. If god wants to play badly, let him play. Badly. And then he takes the guitar off and picks a harmonica up from the top of his amplifier. He plays his harp and dances about. This silly old artist dances a kind of sexy dance, all loose and comfortable in his body.

He blows the notes and waves toward the other angels in front of the stage. He looks like he may be a little drunk. Warmed up and ready for eternity.
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icu news (ltd) special report: beatles to re unite at burnaby coffee joint!

2006-12-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

It's auspicious (Jesus, I hope I spelled that right) on this, the 26th anniversary of John Lennon's tragic death, that ICU News (Ltd) is breaking a story so important that once broken it will be impossible to put together again. So pay attention, we're only going to break this story once:

Two of the four Beatles are going to come together and play music on the evening of Wednesday, December 20th, 2006, at the Myles of Beans coffee house in Burnaby. As shocking as that may sound to some of you, the real heart stopper is this: the two Beatles playing are not the live ones, Paul and Ringo, but the DEAD ones, George and John!

It's a miracle, I guess you could say. ICU News (Ltd), as always, has the inside track on this one and has been granted exclusive rights to a broadcast of the performance, which is expected to be seen by...several folks who happen to stop in for a coffee or to catch the main act of the night, Vancouver's own Chalice and Blade.

The logistics of the dead Beatle's performance, for reasons too complicated to go into here, are hard to explain. It seems that the wandering spirit's of the deceased Liverpudlians somehow "tuned in" to the essential elements of Chalice and Blade's vocal blend, and decided to ride that vibration right back onto this particular plane of existence at this particular time.

ICU News (Ltd) has obtained an audio recording of John Lennon's disembodied voice, eerily chanting words to the effect of "fookin' hell, Chalice 'N fookin' Blade eh? George, let's slide on down..." Lennon goes on to say, on the tape, that he hasn't played since being shot in the back on December 8th, 1980, and he has "...fookin' callouses the size of exit wounds..." from practise with his old mate Harrison.

Lennon moans, from beyond, that listeners will be surprised to hear dead Beatle George's new lighter sound, more reminicent of summer days on the beach than the sitar and slide guitar stylings that were his trademark last time around. Finally, Lennon wanted to assure Beatle fans that whatever Harrison has up his sleeve, he (Lennon) is "...fookin disappointed..." with recent developments on the planet and will likely do his best to rain on George's happy parade.

Lennon promises the rain will fall in two part harmony, though.

Mark it on your calendar, Beatle fans, and come early to guarantee your seat. You may not want to sit too close to the stage, the Fabs are not smelling all that great, for obvious reasons.

muddy67 and the duke discuss bob dylan

2006-12-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

Doug (Duke) Lang and Muddy Waters 67 have been contributing some lovely and thoughtful comments about my Bob Dylan-related posts. Dylan happens to be my current obsession. Here is some of their exchange:

MUDDY WATERS 67

I'm glad you told me it was Masters of War (the song I posted here previously)-I would have never have guessed it from that performance. It sounded like a garage band version of All Along the Watch Tower which also would have been appropriate.

However, Bobby has been eerily silent on the Iraq war. That is not being responsible as an elder is it? He is true to himself and keeps his own counsel to be sure. He's also my hero but I would hold him accountable to be available for at least the youth who are desperate need of an adult that speaks truth to power like he once did...

"DUKE" LANG RESPONDS

Masters of War, With God On Our Side, It's Alright Ma,A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, The Times They Are A Changin', North Country Blues, Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll, Ballad Of A Thin Man, Only A Pawn In Their Game, Blowin' In the Wind...

There are ten examples of Dylan's footsteps in the world of politics and social conscience. He made his. Everybody's got to make his own. As for the youth, his work is there. Part of the trouble with being political is being imprisoned by the literal. You get good enough at anything and they start fitting you for a postage stamp.

Dylan has always been more mythic, allegorical, subtle, masked, elusive, a master of re-invention. He not busy being born is busy dying, and Dylan has always been remaking himself. Miles Davis did it in jazz. One step ahead of the frame job. These men are/were artists, not slaves.

"It's just that I ain't got no watch an' you keep asking me what time it is."

Miles was asked once why he stopped playing ballads and he said, "Because I love them so." No one named Bob Dylan ever lived in Hibbing, Minnesota, and nobody named Bobby Zimmerman ever played the Cafe Wha. When we speak of Dylan at all, if we get him, we ought to think twice about expecting him to act like one person.

I do like his sly asides on his radio show. "In the United States of America we build 237 new prison cells every single day. I hope we can keep up." I recommend Alias Bob Dylan (Revisited) by the Victoria guy, Stephen Scobie. Post-modern criticism finally catches up with the notorious masked man...

MUDDY WATERS 67

I’m not sure if I totally agree with those observations, although they are well argued.Those wonderful tunes he composed were written by a young man in his 20's about a very different time (although they are, in a sense timeless as all great art is) to a very different audience.

I think the audience is the significant factor here, because this generation, our children, have been disenfranchised and robbed of the opportunity of hearing their own tell truth to power. My 17 year son is parched and thirsty for someone to speak to him because there are no Dylan's or Beatles or Keroacs in his cohort.

The most rebellious and counter cultural music out there is Rap, whose main concern, it seems, is to consider the jigglings of the female buttocks as they put on jeans. He therefore listens to my music.

I don't remember listening to Glen Miller (other then for pleasure) to get a sense of the 60's. Glen Miller seems so quintessential 1940's generation, and spoke directly to their collective feelings with or without words. I guess (as I move through my own logic) it would depend if Bobby could speak to the issues and hopes and dreams and fears of baby boomer kids.

He hasn't tried, which may be an act of wisdom or maybe an act of indifference. He could, I think speak to the act of war as an elder-that is within his grasp, and whether he likes it or not his responsibilty.

Chomsky has spoken non stop since the 1960's about war and continues to do so with an informed and wiser voice-he speaks continuously to young people on campuses who pack his talks. I think its disingenuous of Zimmerman (Bob Dylan's name by birth) to affect some posture that is indifferent to the image and role he clearly defined and sought, and which still clearly defines him in he minds of millions...

A note from Johnny Maudlin:

When Margaret and I went to see Dylan in Vancouver in October I was surprised to see a very large percentage of the audience were young folks; maybe between 20 and 35. I say this to suggest that Bob Dylan, in his fashion, is accepting responsibility, if not as a "spokesman" then as an elder artist, for the content of his art...

"DUKE" LANG WRITES:

Neil Young is doing some of the things being asked of Dylan. There are a lot of songs at this link worth a listen. Stuff that young people might get something from, too.

http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/lwwsongspage.html

The music business has become so conservative that we're just not hearing (or learning of) much 'folk' or 'topical' music, and Neil's Living With War page tries to address that in its way.

Folks like Pol MacAdaim, Christy Moore (elder), Dick Gaughan, Steve Earle, David Rovics, Tom Pacheco, Jim Page, Rodney Crowell (of late), Damien Dempsey, Eliza Gilkyson...these are a few of the artists I play on my radio show whose work addresses the times we're living through now.

To get their music, though, you need to go through their websites. It's rarely in stores, rarely
on the airwaves, but it's out there.

MUDDY 67 GETS THE LAST WORD (for now...)

Of course don't follow leaders was a quintessential 60's position, especially in the New Left. The authorities always assumed that some Soviet commie was leading the Yippees or antiwar movement, but that wasn't true in the sense they were familiar with.

Dylan is trying to have it both ways here: with that "It aint me your looking for babe" stuff, and then making pointed political statements, singing at rallies etc.

Perhaps he felt uncomfortable with a Pete Seeger role. Seeger was not ashamed of being a lefty or a folkie, but Pete Seeger is drawing from a different cultural reality then Dylan. Dylan also tried to channel Woody Guthrie, who had no problem with identifying with poor working Americans, unions and New Deal politics.

Dylan is much more beat then 60's. He had more in common with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Keroac then JohnLennon or Abby Hoffman. He's more urban than rural. That much is fairly obvious. Urban beats were more ephemeral and restless then, say, country or folk musicians who are tied to a particular soil and community.

Dylan was post modern before there was a post modern. That why I find his latest renderings of folk blues and early post war country so artificial sounding. He is so very much a product of the post World War 2 dislocation that confronted America. Dylan affected a working class leftist depression era unionist and agricultural worker persona and took it uptown to the beats.

Zimmerman's (Dylan's name by birth) roots are lower middle class merchant with small c conservative values of the mid west US. Blend that with the explosion of the 1960's and we have the uniqueness of Dylan's art.

The song "The Times They Are A Changing" is a song for us. Boomers. Because the times were changing, and he had his fist on the nerve endings of the electrifying impulse. That song doesn't work for boomer's kids in the way that lyric was intended. The lyric was meant for that period 1962-63.

I think Dylan is a wanker for not being more conscious about his role in our society and for trying to fob off his responsibility in that way. Again the beats were about refusing to fit into any proscribed social roles (I like aspects of this) which in some ways seems morally and ethically lazy.
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A final note from Johnny Maudlin on this matter:

It is a testament to my long friendship with Muddy67 that I would allow him to call Bob Dylan, who I am presently in love with, a "wanker".

another good old guy passes on

2006-12-06T19:33:00.000-08:00

My sister just called to say her former father-in-law died on Sunday, of complications following heart surgery. Paul Palylyk was 83 years of age He was a good guy, liked to shoot the breeze about politics, he got a big kick out of that.

He used to greet my eastern commie brother Mark, a Quebecer, with an opening line that went something like: "Mark, what's going on in the damn province of yours...?" Mark would flinch just a little, because the last thing on earth he wants to think or talk about is politics.

Mr.Palylyk's heart was in good place, though, you could just tell. He was a conservative when they were still progressive, an ex- military man who did his part for his country.

The ending of my sister's marriage to Paul's son Doug, my former (always) brother-in-law and the death of my own parents have resulted in way too much distance these last years. We rarely see extended family. I guess there is a part of us that thinks we go on forever and can catch up later. It's a funny illusion, that one.

I didn't know Paul Palylyk well, but I was always happy to see him, always glad to shake his hand and talk family and nation a little bit. These old guys are leaving us now and soon we will be moving on up the line.

That's alright. We'll all have a big old barn burning bullshit session on the other side, when the pressure is off and politics is always a hot topic. Rest in peace, Paul, your loved ones will miss you alot.
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masters of war (the iraq report)

2006-12-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

Here is a link for the just released Iraq Report. This is the effort of James Baker and a few others, commissioned by President Bush to get his ass out of the sling. The report is one hundred and sixty pages long, in PDF format. I think I'll read the conclusions and recommendations sections, maybe print them out, read them before I fall asleep and see if I can trigger another panic attack.

It a sad statement to admit a report that announces four years of war and thousands upon thousands of deaths have been wrongheaded inspires a good feeling. But it does. A better feeling. The first step, it is said (by many wise voices) is to admit that we are beaten. One way or the other. By circumstances, by our own egos, by our own violence.

The main points of the Iraq Report will be these:

- a staged hand over of responsibility for security from American to Iraqi military forces. Sooner than later. The report and the politicians will not use these words, ever, but they(the Americans) are getting ready to pull out of Iraq, having blown their war load and fucked those people very thoroughly.

- A real push to get a settlement between Israel and the Palestinian people. The thinking is, of course, that the deep and burning abiding hatreds and resentments attached to that beef will always flare up and spread fire around the Middle East. Obviously peace between Israel and her neighbours has eluded us. This is President Bush's last and only hope for a positive legacy.

- Direct talks between the United States, and Syria and Iran. This is a great idea. Reference my comment about starting with the basic humility of a simple admission of how fucked we are, these parties (the Americans and their enemies) must sit down at a table and look one another straight in the eye and begin. If the first exchange is filled with mutual hatred and revulsion, so be it. It has to start somewhere...

It seems a good time (for a good time call...) to present, along with the Iraq Report, this rare clip of Bob Dylan singing Masters of War at the 1991 Grammy Awards. Bob Dylan is my hero. He would say I should not have a hero, and I should watch the parking meters. That's fine. I am choosing to have Bob Dylan as a hero because I have grown to love his complex projections, via his music, into my world.

He is simply just grand.

I have read a lot about this particular performance. The first Gulf War (daddy Bush's war) was raging and Dylan knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to play this song as he was being given a lifetime achievement award.

Knowing all of that, knowing that it was an important moment, Dylan sang the song the way he wanted to sing the song. Altered and updated in a way that has become his trademark. Having recently read much more about Dylan and about the history of folk music I have come to understand that the constant changing of the way songs are sung is essential to the genre.

Dylan is true to himself. Think about that for a moment. How many folks do you know, including yourself, who can stake that claim? I can't. Not with any consistency. To thine own self be true.

Dylan said, about this performance, when asked why he slurred the words of the song so badly, that he had a cold. No deeper meaning there. Watch as he is given his award by an obviously excited Jack Nicholson. Bob Dylan is a mass of energy and movement. He always has been. He cannot stand still. He searches for the words he wants, in his way. I think you will enjoy the ones he found to offer in this moment.

Most significantly, Bob Dylan made an unmistakable statement against war. He could have sung Like A Rolling Stone, or something more contemporary. He did the responsible thing. He spoke out.

we are all canucks (the deep and dark december series)

2006-12-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

That's the bad news. Here is the good news: Margaret is still very good at summarizing material that thousands of hockey fans and legions of sports writers struggle with...

At the conclusion of Monday's 4-0 loss to the Edmonton Oilers, I told Margaret that the Canucks are not playing again until Friday. Margaret responded, "Good."

a nightmare before christmas (the deep and dark december series)

2006-12-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

...this writing is dedicated to those who have the good manners to admit, in their heart of hearts, or their heartless hearts, that the world (like the Bee Gees told us in the late sixties or early seventies) "is a bad place...a terrible place to live, but I don't want to die...

It's for those looking to find their hearts in the darkness. And for those who wake in the midnight hours with many questions. Here are some I asked myself, just a few sleeps ago...

It was the nightmare before Christmas and all through the condo not a creature was stirring. Bastards! I awoke with that old familiar feeling, it was 3:36AM, and I began an inventory...

I had a searing pain in my chest. Was I:

- having a heart attack

- dreaming I was the character in the Marty Robbins song El Paso;

Something is dreadfully wrong,
for I feel a deep burning pain in my side
Though I am trying to stay in the saddle
I'm getting weary, unable to ride...

- clinging to life having been shot by Margaret, who has now gone back to sleep, happy with a job well done, slumbering peacefully by my side

I lay back against the pillows. A sweat was starting to form on my brow. I felt as if I'd swallowed a Presto log, then chased it down with a butane lighter. Well, if it's a heart attack, I told my disoriented self, I best get to the bathroom because I've read the bowels and bladder release at the moment of death, so the bathroom would be the appropriate last stop on this pointless journey. If it was good enough for Elvis...

I made my way there, unsteadily, dropped my stylish nearly new flannel pajama bottoms on the floor and sat down on the throne to make my final pronouncement. My body had absolutely nothing to say, save the tinkling of a few frightened piss droplets. The twenty five pounds of undigested meat were staying right where they were, lodged in my colon, joyously festering and contributing their toxins to this midnight trial.

The pain in my chest was coming and going and the condo stunk of rancid chicken fat from last night's dinner. Margaret had asked me to pick up some Reynold's wrap and I had failed at even this simple task. So the stink was my fault. Too.

The hounds of coming Christmas hell had been released and were racing about my brain, sharp nails clawing and scratching at all those locked doors, baying and howling, demanding my attention. These dogs are named, in no particular order: Remorse, Guilt, Loneliness, Despair, Faithlessness, Shame, Fear, Self Pity and Indigestion. They are my own creations (though I dare say you will recognize them, in your case their names may be different) fed not so much by my bad deeds in life as by my failure to do good deeds and finish the hard work life has asked of me.

I don't mean hard work as in writing a great novel, either. I mean hard work as in being a good father or brother or lover or friend. Maybe I was being too tough with myself. Maybe not tough enough. I wasn't directing the panic attack, my adrenal glands were.

In any case, in this moment I am remembering, and in the moment I am remembering I was in the grip of the nightmare as it waltzed me about the cold night .

Wrestling with memories and wrestling with the consequences of choosing not to remember. Now and at the hour of our death. This is a good prayer to say. This is the only prayer to say, if death is on my mind. I just want to leave this world the way I came, with empty bladder and bowels and peace of mind.

I don't sleep like a baby because I have a guilty conscience. Not because I murdered anyone. The only thing I've killed are the flowers in my garden (with love and respect to Doug and Bly and the Spanish poet who wrote the lines I am borrowing from...)

I have left my body to fend for itself, even though I've known for at least fifteen years that my unexercised and badly fueled vehicle will turn on me with great angry aches and pains and tsunamis of hormones and toxins that might have been burned away in the gym. It will turn on me and run me down, just like it's a totally separate thing from my spirit.

In the wrestling with the weight on my chest, between 3:36AM and 4:15AM, I swear, to God I guess, that I will be a better boy, I will eat only light green things and I will visit a family member, if not my own then someone else's, if I live to see morning's light.

Finished in the bathroom I staggered to the living room and wrapped myself in blankets. More awake than a man should be at this hour, I sat under the blankets and turned on the light. Margaret's steady breathing sounded in the bedroom. The cat was purring, curled by Margaret's head. I let them both be, oblivious to my suffering. This was my very first new good deed. And I expect to be paid for it.

I picked up the book I'm reading; The Flags Of Our Fathers- about the six very young American men (boys, just boys) who raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima in February of 1945. Three of those boys and thousands more were cut to pieces by the machine guns of the Japanese soldiers who dug in and fought to the death (real death not imaginary) on a barren island made of ancient volcanic rock.

It's my strength, not my morbid mind, that instructs my hands to reach for this reading in a tough lonely moment. Reading about those boys, their lives before they took up the gun, their normal lives in Norman Rockwell's America, where folks sat in the evening on their porches and said hello to passers-by on shady streets, it was reading these things that gave me comfort and peace until I settled back on the couch and slept.

War. Why would reading about war time and young men who were devastated by war bring me peace? I have no idea at all. Maybe it was their ghosts come calling. Maybe this battle with the demons in the dark is the closest I'll come to Mount Suribachi and I'm glad when I get to the top.

My father fought the December demons. Many of us do. The long dark days of December are no friend to those who have had their flesh and spirits wounded by the hounds nipping and tearing. There was a time when I would drink and smoke until those hounds passed out at my feet. I can't do that anymore. Now it's hand to hand combat, and if I have even an ounce of good sense, some serious investment in gym time and healthy eating as winter deepens.
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like it or not-politics matters

2006-12-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

Watching the Liberal Party of Canada elect their new leader in Montreal this morning. It harkens back, for me, to those fabulous Sixties, watching the Democratic conventions, those rollicking affairs where hippies were being clubbed on the streets of Chicago.

It's been a most exciting race, and as of this moment it looks as if dark horse third place candidate Stephane Dion will shock the world and claim the crown on the fourth ballot. I was hoping for Bob Rae because I am thinking in terms of who can defeat the Harper led Conservatives.

Dion, though, is an honourable man and a genuine leader in terms of the environment. One way or another, I am convinced that politics will continue to matter in Canada. What choice will we have to affect the outcome of matters if we remain disengaged and terminally cynical?

margaret's excellent lament for winter's loss

2006-11-29T18:52:00.000-08:00

The second coming of the snow appeared to be falsely advertised. Margaret, whose special skill is noticing when she has been sold short , began to say, as we crawled home along Broadway, "It won't snow. They lied to us!" This deep disappointment, this child who did not find a pony under all that big pile of horseshit, is not unprecedented. It's very precedented.

On the streets of Dallas, by Dealey Plaza, on another November day, so long gone now, when word began to circulate that the young President was shot, folks exclaimed, "They shot the President." Those were the young President's young wife's first words, matter of fact. They've killed my husband!

They. Those fuckers, always just waiting to take something away from us. Margaret, in her way, loves the snow. Not as much as she loves our cat, Oswald, but she loves to see the power of weather. Like most of us, she likes to watch the snow fall, likes the cozy feeling and she must have looking forward to one more evening. So was I.

But Margaret and I must learn to let go of the snow and the cold. Tomorrow the rain will be a Vancouver fact once again. By this time next week we will likely be bitter green again. While we are letting go, here's what I learned in November winter school 2006:

- There are surprises yet to come. This winterland was unexpected. There was no expectation of it so it was sweeter still.

- The hint of snow is just as wonderful as the fully blown storm. Margaret and I were shopping on Saturday, and we came out of the stores to find the air had cooled and we could smell the snow. That suggestion, in the sniff of the air, that snow may be coming, was just as pleasurable as the snow when it arrived.

- Don't wait for other people to spread the winter cheer. Spread it yourself.

Vancouverites are a little anxious from two weeks of unexpected happenings that come from the sky. We did not expect that there would be panic for clean drinking water two weeks ago. In fact, there was little or no panic, but there was the hint of panic. There was also that odd good feeling of knowing there was one conversation going on and it wasn't hard to get in on it. All you had to say was: water.

Yesterday (which is gone for sure) was special. Margaret will get over the loss of the second promised snowfall. I'll pour her bath tonight. That will be unexpected. Then we'll wait. Until next time. The trick is to forget you're waiting. Time goes faster that way. Then. Presto. Logs.
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frankie lee and judas priest (just as rare as vancouver snow)

2006-11-29T18:07:00.000-08:00

Put your mouse right on over here, and then point, and then click on the blue word click. The one you just passed. Yeah, that one. Then sit up straight and learn from the master. Here is Bob Dylan singing "Frankie Lee and Judas Priest", a song as rare as Vancouver snow.

It's a decent video. You can see this old bluesman in his finest hour, cracking a hint of a smile. It warms my heart, it makes me glad to be alive at the same time he is. It helps me let go of Vancouver winter, as the freezing rain falls outside my window.

And I swear by all that is holy, if you watch the video all the way through, including the good parts where someone stands up and the Dylan disappears, you will witness a miracle. Right at the end of the song, as he comes to the moral of the story, he steps back from the microphone and becomes thirty years younger.

Watch and tell me if I'm wrong.
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and now vancouver returns to it's regular programming

2006-11-28T18:49:00.000-08:00

The weather man says Vancouver will be returned to the cold swamp of regular November misery come tomorrow evening, when the coming snow will change to rain. My mood is halfway there. Today I drove out and about, down the side of the hill into Port Moody and the vista was almost impossible to believe. It looked like a set from Narnia. I pulled the vehicle over and snapped the photo, up above.

This house could be made of gingerbread, gum drops stuck to the roof and the effect would be complete. Great gobs of icing sugar covering the trees and hedges. Perfection. It's been a remarkable couple of days here. In the morning I spread salt on the ice that covered the agency parking lot. Out of the sun the cold was biting. It's been twenty years since we have been blessed with the cold and deep snow and sunshine all at once.

It's come and it's going. It's minus 11, right now as I write this, and the temperature will begin to climb over night as the mass of moisture moves in from off the coast. Only moments. That's what we get. The first slap of fridgid air, on the face as you walk out your door in the morning. The first whiff of snow in that air. The first flake floating from out of your dreams and into the sky, slowly to the ground.
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who swiped the snow spirit?

2006-11-27T09:14:00.000-08:00

For the second time in two weeks Mother Nature has slapped Vancouver stupid. It was the Pineapple Express that punched us below the belt, poisoning our water and sending hundreds of thousands of caffeine addicts into involuntary detox when Tim Horton's could no longer provide a single single.

We survived, humping camel sized bottles of water from store to home, boiling tap water for tea and praying to our Golden Calf for deliverance. Yesterday we took deliverance of about 40 centimetres of snow and this morning we are moving about (those who survived) most gingerly indeed.

The schools are shut. The shut in's have been shut further in, locked in their closets while their minimum wage caregivers loot the jewelry drawers. The Sky Train is running only 32 cars, and those are being pulled by tiny reindeer. Those famous narrow Vancouver sidestreets, the ones where cars park on both sides and in the middle, are not to be challenged except by those of us with untreated mental illness.

All it takes is one car, ahead of you, to suffer that split second crisis of confidence and your forward motion is cancelled until further notice. Trust me. I was there. You know how Asian folks are. I saw an Asian man threaten to beat his Phillipina slave about the head and shoulders because she could not drag the stroller fast enough through the frozen slush built up by the sidewalks.

I saw another Asian woman walking down the middle of the street, talking on her cell phone, with her small child clinging to her hand. I lied about the cell phone. I thought it was a cell phone, but when I looked more closely I could see she was only trying to protect her left ear from freezing. But there was no reason for her to be in the middle of the road. I think she was a terrorist. I was terrified, anyway.

I arrived at the home of my charge and the entire family appeared from out of their bedrooms. I could see they had all gone to bed with their socks on. I don't blame them. They are Portuguese. We held an impromtu conference. They were very sorry they had not called me. They assumed no one would come. But I am a real Canadian. Which means I'm not smart enough to respect snowed in side streets.

We agreed that my charge would be their charge for the next day or two until the thaw comes. It was a warm feeling, this international conferencing. I felt I really furthered the cause of human relations. I was surprised at how many humans could inhabit such a small space, but it looked very cozy. I was just about to ask if I could stay for a week or so, but I noticed the man of the house was beginning to look jealous.

At the Esso service station people lined up twenty deep for the Tim Horton's coffee. I thought I might encounter one of those touching hey-look-let's-make-the-best-of this moments. I was wrong. I encountered twenty very dangerous looking humans who looked like they needed their snow tires rotated. When the servant behind the counter informed us the debit card system was broken I heard fifteen of the twenty assholes slam shut. I had cash so mine remained flaccid.

I looked to my right and there was an Indonesian man waiting for his breakfast sandwich. This man may be a suspect in the snow spirit theft. He had an ear ring and he was scowling. He probably had low self esteem. He did not look grateful for this surprising November winter experience. He was a terrorist. I am certain of it. But I was not afraid. I have a Swiss Army knife and I'm prepared to use it.

There was a time when an event like this would have caused us to dance the hot chocolate with marshmellows on top dance. We would have donned our night caps and chopped some wood and put on the kettle and cracked an egg into the sizzling bacon fat. We would have put our feet up and been grateful for the snow laced trees. This is gone now.

Except at my house. Margaret is on the phone talking to the folks where she works. Her boss told her he would "fully support" whatever decision she makes. You would think Margaret was getting ready to send troops into Iraq. I will support Margaret as well. Maybe not fully. I will also support whatever decision Oswald makes. Oswald is sleeping somewhere. If he decides to wake up I will support him. The stolen snow spirit is inside of Oswald, you see.

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itchy head wool hat winter in november stories

2006-11-26T20:48:00.000-08:00

Margaret and I bundled into our woolen clothing, hats too, and trundled like fat penguins up to the corner Mohawk gas station. The snow was just one shade away from being flawless. The temperature must have been somewhere between zero and minus one. You could feel the white stuff turning from slop to powder right under foot.

With the ground's flood lights shining up into the trees it was magical. We attempted a photo or two. Magic is not capturable. No point in trying, but I don't want to influence the sales of digital cameras. We set out down the sidewalk...

Margaret noticed that an SUV coming out of the neighbourhood mosque did not have it's headlights turned on. She brought this to my attention for the first of what would be approximately twenty seven times during the walk. On the twenty sixth time I mustered all the love I could (it was not easy because my itchy head was distracting me) and said, or rather asked, "Who gives a fuck why his headlights are not turned on? Who, besides you, has noticed that his headlights are not turned on?"

This may have ended the magic for Margaret, but for me it was just beginning. There was a time, oh let's say between year one and year five, when Margaret would have wheeled on me and reminded me that she has fantasies, once in awhile, of plunging knitting needles deep into my skull. I have a large head, so death by plunged knitting needle would take a good deal of rage on her part.

But that was long ago, when we were young and homicidally passionate. This snowy evening, after a large dinner of pork roast, Margaret just shuffled on, telling me exactly why the SUV ought to have it's lights on, and when I realized she was right, I silenced my protest and waddled along behind her.

I asked Margaret, as we walked, about snowfalls past and did she remember the knee deep power snow of 1996. We made our way down Canada Way, in 1991, our first walk in the snow together, watching the cars lose control down the hill toward Gilmore and I wrote a song in my head that included these lines:

I remember the winter's silence
Shuffling down those city streets
Snow like diamonds at our feet
Something between us felt so sweet
Two lovers are reaching
Two hearts try to dream it
This moment's forever
This moment's forever...

And it was. Forever. Margaret is still in the snow, you can see her below, she lost her body to the ravages of time, only her head remains. But it's a beautiful head, you'll have to agree, smiling like the ghost fairy that arrived with the snows of November.

laughing all the way

2006-11-26T14:49:00.000-08:00

Vancouver has many weather zones. Impatient man that I am, oh me of little faith, it took only a drive around the corner, on my way to the gym, to discover the magical Harry Potter winter scene I so crave.

Margaret and I live on the protected north slope of one of Burnaby's many hills. By the time I reached Kingsway and Willingdon it was Christmas in November. About twenty centimetres, at least, and only 8:30AM. The temperature is hovering right at freezing, so it's slushy and heavy, but from inside the car or the living room, with your Presto Log and hot chocolate, a good book and woolen socks, well, it just will not get better than this. It also helps if your unsecured debts are below $2000 (USA), your bowels are functioning reasonably well and you were not sexually abused as a youngster by someone dressed in a snowman costume.

On my way home from the gym I saw a women approach a four way stop sign intersection about five times too fast. She tried to to stop. No chance. Her car slid 180 degrees, left the road, climbed up onto the sidewalk and came to rest with the front bumper touching a guy's kneecap while he was waiting at the bus stop.

This lady looked to be West Indian. She was smiling. Those West Indian people will smile at anything. The guy with the near miss to his knee was not looking like he got the joke. That's Vancouverites for you. No sense of wonder. As in, "I wonder where that fucking woman learned to drive?"

The weatherman says the temperature will drop to 3 below zero overnight. There will be mean streets in the morning. The trees that are laden with heavy white snow are already bending with their freezing burden. Only children, and only those who are blissfully unaware of where their bodies begin and end, can truly appreciate the falling snow and Arctic air with all of the senses.

Adults generally like to watch the snow falling, like it's a TV show. I like to walk in it, but only for a few minutes, and only if the temperature is approximately 6 below zero and the snow makes a squeeking sound. I don't particularly care for the kind of snow that develops a top crust of frozen rain, although it can look quite spectacular when you are stoned on acid.
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the snows of november

2006-11-25T17:30:00.000-08:00

In Vancouver the snow turns to rain. Not the other way around. But this evening the weatherman says the rain will become snow. It's snowing right now. This unexpected and predicted dump of frozen white water crystals is welcome.

It's a miracle. It must be. It came from out of the left ocean. The temperature is dropping. It's global cooling. Bring it on!
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Weather update: I woke up this morning, like a small child rubbing the happy dreams of winter from his eyes. I could hear the silence outside. This meant deep snow, damping all sound. I made my way to the window, holding my breath...

There, on the back patio, was about...a half inch of fucking slush. I should have known! Look, there's a weatherman!! You can forecast, you can forecast, you can forecast. A weatherman! A fucking weatherman! Fifty years ago they would have had the weatherman upside down and stuck a fork up his ass for this forecast!

Ooo, this shocks you? These words shock you? There's still those words, those words, those words...

This Kramer moment is brought to you by Daly's Dilemma-to blog or not to blog

what's the trip with your issues?

2006-11-24T16:15:00.000-08:00

I had dinner with one of the two people I know who can make me laugh until I get Chinese eyes and sore cheeks. Muddy67 (aka Bruce Gilchrist) is one. Scott Patterson is the other. Scott was in town with his new job so we had a bite to eat and some conversation at a spot down by the entrance to Stanley Park.

A good conversation is hard to come by. It's more art than skill. Think on it just a moment and I'll bet you'll agree: you can count the outstanding conversations you've had on the fingers of your hands. If you're remarkably patient or unusually caring you may need your toes as well. If you're an amputee I hope you're not offended by this. If you are (an amputee and offended) that's your issue.
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I kicked the topics off with a little how-bout-that-Kramer-calling-those-guys niggers, eh? Scott winced a little, but because he's a dear friend whose love for me is beyond question, he waded in. The world is wired, Scott said, and I agree. Whatever happens becomes something else. Immediately. Everyone has an issue, Scott carried on, and maybe if we could just disconnect a few of those wires...

The restaurant was noisy, someone kept ringing a big old ship's dinner bell and down at the other end it sounded like a truck was grinding it's gears going from 2nd to 3rd up Boundary Road. But the fresh young face of the waitress appeared and re appeared from the ghostly light, keeping the food and drink and atmosphere warm.

I had coffee and Scott had a lovely looking Pinot Noir. He was more animated and energized than I've seen him in a long time. His new assignment and new love Antonia have put the shine back on his shoes. I listened, for the most part. That was fine too. I don't really have that much to say these days. What I have to say get's said right here most of the time.

I pressed for updates on the folks I knew and cared about all those years gone by now: Scott's siblings and mutual friends. Scott obliged and with enough detail that I feel caught up. We had one or two laughs that came from the belly up.

Nothing that made me look overly Asian, but it's not a show. Actually the mood was more one of gratitude. Scott said, a number of times, that he's a lucky man. It was an affirmation. For some reason every time he said this my right hand went up like I was Pope Benedict blessing a turkey, or a traffic cop keeping things moving.

Just another nervous tic. That's my issue.
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We covered a lot of territory and when the topic turned to politics I sort of decided it was time for me to split. It had nothing to do with the tide turning or the the bell clanging. It was more a recognition that Scott and I are two guys who could talk until the Vancouver water is pristine again, until the 2010 Olympics are five years in the past, until one or both of us is finally in plastic pants.

I don't know how to end these things gracefully and because of my issues I can't stay in all of the seductive ambiance of those tinking glasses and ordinary people who look less ordinary as the evening reaches it's prime. I walked Scott back to the hotel and reached into my pocket for my camera, which I held at arm's length to snap up the digital information of that particular second in our long long friendship.

There we were, looking like a couple of guilty bond brokers caught by the 6PM news. I look like I'm warning the picture taker off and Scott looks like he's seen one too many Power Point presentations. Scott was right too. To back date the vernacular: everyone is tripping out on some trip.

I saw it all day. Folks driving too fast. I saw a junked out junkie in the pharmacy and some crazy Persian looking bitch talking to a dozen long stemmed pink roses in the IGA. The debit and credit card system crashed later in the afternoon and it became a cash only world. There's nothing going on, really, here or anywhere else.

Safe home Scott and travellers everywhere.
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calling out the ghost of herbert john daly (part two)

2006-11-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

The Home Bank of Canada was doomed decades before Herbert John Daly decided he would make it his latest "patient" around about 1918. Daly had earned a reputation as the "doctor of sick businesses". His gift was the ability to look into the workings of organizations and say what was worth saving and what needed to be cut away. Lots of folks can re structure a business, but Herbert John Daly could do it right.

The Home Bank, like other banks of the time, printed it's own money and was the wallet of one or two very wealthy financial swashbucklers: James Cooper and Sir Henry Pellatt the most noteworthy. Banks in those days were not regulated by government. Government wanted little to do with the banking system. These were the days when a man's word was his bond. Cooper and Pellatt may have been scoundrels or they may have been hale fellows, well met. Or they may have been both.

The collapse of the Home Bank was not the first such failure in this country, but it was the last. As a result of the devastation visited on the bank's 60,000 working poor depositors, the government finally made a law to oversee the running of banks and make sure the savings of citizen's were covered by insurance.

Holly Doan wanted me to provide some kind of sketch of Herbert John Daly. Who was he? What drove him? Was he a good man or a bad man? I did what I could, but I'm no historian and the bright lights shining in my eyes were a distraction. Doan had given me the questions before hand and there were no tricks at the taping. Still, this story is laden with emotion for me. I received my father's feeling for his mother and father and those feelings still resonate in me.

My grandfather had stars in his eyes, and his reflected glory burned an impression into his son (my father) William Vincent (Bill) Daly. My father spoke of his father with obvious pride. He emphasized Herbert John's many accomplishments and seemed to accept that his father's guilt or innocence was a mystery lost in time.

I remember my Uncle Ted (who died just weeks ago) and my father saying to me that Herbert John Daly never came to trial. I took their meaning to be that he was, in their eyes, innocent because he had never been proven guilty.

That was their thinking.

Their feelings were more complicated. Doan wanted to know what I thought and believed about my grandfather. What I feel for the man is love and admiration. Love because I know him as an orphan. This was what I tried to communicate to Doan. I believe my grandfather was marked by his beginning.

He said himself, in a magazine interview he did at the time, that he was motivated, in great part, by fear of losing what he had. This makes sense to me. I think the most difficult part of my talk with Holly Doan arrived when she pressed me on my grandfather's role in the failure of the Home Bank and his ultimate feeling about that collapse.

She wanted to know whether Herbert John Daly felt sorry for himself or sorry for the widows of the Fernie, British Columbia miners who had their life savings in the bank, who were disabled and whose health care was imperiled because the bank went bust. I answered that I'm sure my grandfather felt both self pity and shame.

I told Doan I believe the death of the Home Bank led to the death of Herbert John Daly. He died less than a year after the bank closed it's doors. How did all of this affect his family, Doan asked. I told her a story my father told me:

After my grandfather died, on June 23rd, 1924, his wife and children lost most of everything they had. They were forced to leave their home on Warren Road in Toronto. Herbert John's widow, Phoebe Daly, went to work selling insurance and she raised the family. If Herbert John had hidden money from the vaults of the Home Bank he did a good job, because his survivors never found it.

My father was invited to a party by a friend. He was about ten years of age. When he arrived he was met at the door by the man of the house. This man asked him if he was the son of Herbert Daly. My father answered that yes, he was.

The man said, "Get the hell out!". The door was slammed in my father's face.

Humiliation was the fate of my grandfather and much of the legacy he left his widow and five children. I felt my eyes shining and thought that Holly Doan's eyes were filling a little too. It's a sad story, then, she said.

I drove home after the interview with Holly Doan. It was dusk and the crows were gathering in the tree tops and along the telephone wires on Grandview Street. Dusk is the loneliest light of the day. The day is dying. I thought of my grandfather, sitting alone in a chair, looking out of the window of his home into the last light of a Toronto day, remembering that he was Herbert John Bradshaw and always had been. His mask was off, finally, and he was on his way back to where he came from, under the shadow of Brownlow Hill.
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calling out the ghost of herbert john daly (part one)

2006-11-20T17:44:00.000-08:00

I changed into my shiny new suit jacket and baggy black pants in the stall of the bathroom at work. I kind of peacocked about a little, seeing if anyone had a good compliment to feed me. There were a few, but nothing really satisfying. You look nice. That sort of thing. I want to look like Richard Gere did, in his prime. I want to be an ordinary superstar. With good hair. Just for a moment, to see what it's like.

Then I drove downtown, to the lovely old Georgian Court Hotel and sat down with Holly Doan, of CPAC, to answer some questions about my grandfather, Herbert John Daly, the youngest president (in his day) of a Canadian bank, the Home Bank.

The Home Bank was the last Canadian bank to fail. My grandfather and the directors of the Home Bank were indicted for conspiracy to commit fraud. The Home Bank closed it's doors for the last time on August 23rd, 1923. Herbert John Daly died on June 24th, 1924. He was forty two.

I arrived in the lobby of the Georgian Court, and a funky lobby it was, a little musty, filtered light coming in from Beatty Street, with enough wood paneling to help me get into my character as the grandson of Herbert John Daly; the Liverpool born waif who was taken from his shanty town shack to sail across the ocean and a new land in the year of our Lord 1886. Herbert John caused something of a sensation in Upper Canada financial circles before being buried under the rubble of his own hubris and the wreckage of the one "sick" business he could not salvage. The Home Bank of Canada.

There was a sign outside the banquet hall of the Georgian Court where the taping was going on. Handwritten on the same kind of cardboard and printer paper that has recently been taped to Tim Horton's and Starbuck's windows, announcing to Lower Mainlanders there's no coffee because the water is poison. The sign read "Quiet- Interview In Progress". A black curtain was draped across the door into the banquet room.

Holly Doan pulled back the curtain and said hello, you must be...

Yes I am, and that would make you...

Holly Doan is a pretty woman with more hair than me. A shock of sandy coloured wavy hair and very attractive fashionable glasses. Very intense, she seemed (I'm talking like Yoda for some reason) no nonsense, clearly immersed in the material she is working with, good humoured and willing to indulge me a few moments of nervous bullshitting before getting down to the autopsy at hand.

Yes, good. Her camera man and sound man, or gripper or gaffer or whatever they're called; right hand man was named John. He deserves to have a second name but I think he was keeping that to himself. He was a tall ruggedly good looking man, with a 3:05PM shadow and a look that said "let's roll..."

He also had more hair than me. But I have more hair than my grandfather, Herbert John, so I guess these things work themselves out as the years turn us all to dust. Holly Doan and John set up the bright lights, and I squinted into the bright lights, and sort of noticed the Christmas decorations that festooned the room. Like the Beatles sang in A Day In The Life, I went into a dream.

These two folks were professional and it was kind of interesting just to watch them do what they do. Wham and bam, clip on a microphone, remember to refer to Herbert John as your "grandfather", Holly Doan prompted me to take a sip of water. And...

Let's not roll for a minute. I'm not ready.
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I've worn a suit maybe five times in my life: my wedding, my father's funeral. That's two times. I must have worn one at least three other times, but I can't recall. I wear a jacket and a dark turtle neck when I go to the opera, because I want to pretend I'm Dick Cavett.

A suit is a disguise. I was sure of that the minute I put it on. So as I swished around in my baggy shiny pants, I thought about Herbert John Daly wearing his disguise, playing successful business man and banker, hiding his four year old real self locked away in his sweaty body memories of Brownlow Hill, all of that choked off below the stiff starched collar that looks stupid on Don Cherry now and looked stupid on my grandfather in 1920, when he was bathing in funny money and trying get to where he thought he needed to go.

Brownlow Hill was the poorhouse in Liverpool, England, and Herbert John was born in it's dark shadow. He was born Herbert John Bradshaw, son of John Richard Bradshaw, of Liverpool, and Roseanna Bradshaw, of Jonesbury in Ireland. Something happened. No way of knowing now. Poverty would be the safe bet. Nothing to eat for the little children.

My grandfather and his brother William (Billy Bradshaw) were picked off the Liverpool landscape by the good Doctor Barnardo, and shipped to Peterborough, Ontario where he was adopted by the Daly family.

He went to school there and then set out to take on the new world and leave his mark. He was a great salesman, starting out in the Montreal area, moving along and picking up speed, growing a reputation, a whiz kid looking to put as much distance as he could between where he was and where he feared he might end up. I think he was afraid he would end up where he started out. That's a script for running around in circles, in a way.

He had lots of success. And then he had a great huge life changing catastrophic crash into a wall that knocked him right down to the ground. He never got up again....

Calling out the ghost of Herbert John Daly, part two, tomorrow (or maybe the day after...)

can you say "demographic death spiral"? i know you can

2006-11-18T19:06:00.000-08:00

My letter to the National Post was, in the end, the straight man set up for commentator and comedian Mark Steyn's National Post selected fan club to strut their stuff. In any case, I did lots of reading in the Post over the weekend. If the Post is good enough for Mark Steyn and his fan club, it damn well is good enough for me.

It took me the whole weekend, too, because I read slowly. I noticed something interesting:

One of the letter writers in support of Mark Steyn, Stuart Laughton, of Burlington, Ontario, gushed that Steyn, in his book America Alone, "...provides compelling arguments for how we can side step the demographic death spiral that has doomed Western Europe..."

Demographic death spiral. Those words fairly boogie on the page, don't they? I think it's called alliteration. Not sure about that. Decent writing for a letters-to-the-editor hack in though. I carried on to the next page and there I found regular columnist George Jonas, who had a piece titled Epic battles, worthy scribes.

Jonas was reviewing Steyn's book and his praise was effusive. Jonas wrote this sentence: In this unique style, Steyn describes Europe's "civilizational exhaustion", resulting in a nanny state that has feminized the male members of homo europensis and infantalized the rest, until they've entered into a demographic death spiral that will end only when they buy the farm, as it were, in Eurabia.

Hey!? Where have I seen that demographic death spiral tongue twister before? I flipped back to the letters section. Sure enough, there it was. Still doing the mambo on the page. Demographic death spiral. So who the hell owns the copywright, I want to know, because if it's not nailed down, I want it. It rocks the house.

Demographic death spiral. Is it a Mark Steyn original, borrowed (without permission) by letter writer Stuart Laughton? Or is it a Laughton original, swiped in broadsheet daylight by George Jonas. Someone is a copy cat dirty bum, is all I know. And copy cat dirty bums like to hang out together. Which explains the editorial page of the National Post. I think the Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente should march right on over to the Post. On the subject of rampant radical Islamism, Wente is a dyed-in-the-wool-dues-paid-in full copy cat dirty bum.

She is another one with the radical Islam bacteria of the mind problem. These folks just repeat their stuff in the same way sellers of any other product do. Repeat the mantra until readers or listeners are hypnotized. Steyn is the rising star, I think, when it comes to trotting out the unabashed racism in a way that's so...unabashed. I think readers are sort of amazed that a guy can be blatently racist and celebrated, but the rules all changed after September 11th. Steyn is right in the middle of his 15 minutes of fame with the release and promotion of America Alone.

One of his "brilliant" offerings is this: why is it the name Mohammad keeps coming up in association with violent crimes of terrorism? He goes on to provide us a list. How unbelievably unimpressive is that?

What is the appropriate and helpful counterpoint to Steyn's argument? Why is it so many mass murderers between 1940 and 2006 are American Presidents? Hiroshima? Vietnam? Iraq? But in Steyn's world of we're-right-because-we-repeat-we're right, killing by the numbers is only a crime if your face is brown, or you are not an Israeli Jew, or you are not an American.

The deaths in Iraq, you can bet, in Steyn world, are the fault (exclusively) of the Baathists and insurgents who have the unmitigated gall to try and repel the invasion and occupation of an imperial power. There is another Mark Steyn absurd idea: the United States of America is reduced to being a docile and overfed giant, the only "hyper power" in history that is not an imperial power. I look forward to the chapter of Steyn's book that lists the countries where the USA has parked it's soldiers.

the mark steyn national post letters

2006-11-18T09:03:00.000-08:00

I had a letter published in the National Post yesterday (Friday, November 17th). The Post has been running excerpts from Steyn's book America Alone. Here is the letter:

Steyn versus radical Islam

Mark Steyn is a bright guy, and his writing is clever. His point is made, repeatedly, that the West is ignoring the threat of radical Islam and not fighting hard enough against it. Will the National Post be running excerpts from Steyn's book that outline the precise plan Steyn has developed for defeating radical Islam?

And will Mark Steyn, who is a relatively young man, be signing on for the fight?

Today (Saturday, November 18th) the National Post ran three letters that were a response to mine. God forbid they let a criticism of their fair haired neo con warrior stand unchallenged for two seconds. Here are those letters:

Re: Steyn Versus Radical Islam, letter to the editor, Nov. 17.

John Daly asks in his letter whether Mark Steyn will outline the precise plan he has for defeating radical Islam and whether the "relatively young" writer will himself be signing on for the fight.

I believe that Mr. Steyn has not only signed on to the fight, he is also one of our boldest leaders. His book, America Alone, provides compelling arguments for how we can sidestep the demographic death spiral that has doomed Western Europe, guard against the erosion of our hard-won freedoms and stop Shariah law in its tracks.

Stuart Laughton, Burlington, Ont.

Mark Steyn's brilliant use of humour offsets the grim realities we are facing and he reminds us of why we must not fail to successfully confront our adversaries. Quite simply, he's an outstanding writer who espouses values with which so many of us strongly identify, in a manner that brings us hope.

Charla Ramsay, Ladysmith, Vancouver Island, BC

"Will Mark Steyn...be signing on for the fight (to defeat radical Islam)", asks John Daly. Although Mr. Steyn does not require my ineloquent self to write on his behalf, I think it is clear he has already joined the fray.

His writing is a battle for the hearts and minds of the civilized world, to persuade them there is a totalitarian terrorist force which needs to be dealt with; otherwise a liberal way of life will be lost.

There is no little danger in Mr. Steyn doing what he does. Metaphorically putting his head above the parapet exposes him and his family to the chilling physical threats and fatwas of his foe. Mr. Steyn is a brave man who is already fighting a good fight.

Michael N.W. Baigel, Toronto.

Hat tip to these folks for taking the time to put their thoughts on the page. More of us should do it. But they ain't getting the last word here. Mark Steyn is, as often as not, a cheap shot artist who disguises his racism in humour.

His writing is funny, sometimes, but his intention is not. He is as virulent a Muslim basher as you will encounter in print, at least in the Canadian mainstream media.

He is one of those blood thirsty voices always, and I mean always, calling for more troops and more war; hit those Muslims harder, hit them until their teeth chatter, because, don't you know they are breeding like rats and their mosques will be on the street corner of every good old boy Christian North American yellow bellied son of the son of Tricky Dicky.

The National Post is campaigning to bring him aboard their right wing ship and so they are, I think, engaging in something that is not more complicated than a good old fashioned ass kissing by running three letters insisting he is Sir Lancelot in the war to end all wars.

The hyperbole of the writers above (your loyal correspondent being the exception of course) can be reduced to one word:

Bullshit.

The notion that Mark Steyn is a brave fighting man leading Her Majesty's First Metaphor Hurlers is laughable. Al quaida have better things to do than track down a guy who can't decide if he is a serious political commentator or a vaudevillian playing to the crowd at Caesar's Palace.

War lovers, like Mark Steyn, are entitled to their opinion, of course. But there is nothing more offensive than a non combatant calling for more killing when you know he will never be close to the killing. In my blog world that person is guilty of inciting the existing tensions between Muslims and the rest of us, and fanning the flames of hatred.

To suggest that someone else's sons and daughters ought to take up the gun in a bloodletting that will spare you and yours is nothing short of cowardice, in this humble blogger's opinion.

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please jesus! make it rain tim horton's coffee!!

2006-11-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

Here is the background: when the last Rain came (editor's note: in the future, Lower Mainland rainfalls that are greater than the flood that launched Noah's Ark will be referred to as "Rain"...) on Wednesday, a whole bunch of mountains on the North Shore slid into the watershed. This created the greatest turpidity in the history of Vancouver and resulted in a boil water advisory. And here I thought turpidity was the measurement of blood flow to my John Thomas.

The dirt that falls into the water apparently clings to the teeny tiny bacteria and fecal material (for the uninitiated that means human and animal shit) and sort of disguises the nasty little bastards. So you think you are drinking a perfectly good glass of dark brown smelly water, but in fact you are drinking a possibly lethal to the tummy glass of dark brown and smelly water.

It's sort of funny unless you are a baby, or a babe's mother, or an old person, or the loved one of an old person, or have AIDS or one of many other illnesses that compromise your immune system. Then it's less sort of funny.

So your regular citizens got a boil water "advisory", meaning that we were told there was little risk to drinking tap water but we best not do it because we just might get really really sick. Something like that. Places of business and in particular restaurants or any health care facilities got boil water "orders". And that is when the fecal material hit the water, as it were...

I drove from 7-Eleven, to the Esso down at the corner of Canada Way and Willingdon, to the Tim Horton's, for the good Lord's sake, on the Lougheed Highway, and all these establishments had little shirt cardboard end-of-the-world signs on their doors reading "Sorry, no beverages for sale!"

My hands gripped the steering wheel as I peered through the rain streaked windshield at the other driver's who were gripping their steering wheels and peering through their windshields...you get the murky picture.
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The radio talk shows were abuzz. So called experts contradicted one another expertly. You can boil your water if you want to, but you don't need to, no need to worry, but you best not drink the water, no need to worry, we're just saying, your coffee maker may or may not probably heat the water hot enough but there's no need to worry...

The one word that seemed to be the centre of focus?

Rain? No.

Bacteria? No.

Death by dirty water? No.

Coffee? Fucking eh!

The Lower Mainline is more like it. Bunch of soggy West Coasters cruising about looking slightly not quite themselves, hands shaking just out of sight. It was just a taste, if I may be punny, of what it might be like if...

No wonder all those insurgents are so crabby in Baghdad. No electricity, no running water, no coffee, Allah be praised I'll cut your head off! By the end of the day the boil water advisory had been removed for all areas except Burnaby, Vancouver and North Vancouver. In other words there are still millions of us bathing in hot chocolate looking wet stuff, crying by candle light for our long dead mommy to please please bring back the triple low fat lattes, hold the triple low fat, double up on the drugs!

canadian folk singer (a good kick at the can)

2006-11-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

HOPE AND FAITH AND GLORY

I've written here, before, about my old friend and once upon a time work mate Doug Lang. He's a Canadian folk singer. He sent me a new song today. You can find it here, at his myspace site. It's called Hope and Faith and Glory. It's just Lang and his acoustic guitar, his voice and the words of his story.

I like to imagine Doug wrote and recorded this song late at night, all alone in his garden level hobbit suite. It may be a sort of acquired taste, but the sound of an old flat top guitar is so sweet I immediately feel it right in the pit of my gut. The wood of the guitar has absorbed the sweat from the player's hands. All the feelings of the player are in the wood and strings of the guitar. Doug is blowing some scratchy harmonica too. Reminds us of another folk singer. Anyone come to mind?

I've been thinking about growing older. Not a day goes by that I don't think about growing older. It's not morbid. Most of the time. It feels more like waking up from a dream of some kind to realize this is it, my friend. This is the fourth quarter and the planet is down a few touchdowns. Nothing short of heroic effort and miracles will pull this game out of the fire. My prayer is that I be helped to grow old gracefully.

Doug Lang's new folk song will tell you about that. The song is, in part, about activism and activism is always a long shot. Growing old gracefully is the longest of long shots. That's in this fortunate part of the world. In the unfortunate parts of the world growing old at all is even a longer long shot.

It's important, some would argue essential (and I would be on that side of the argument) that we go back before we move forward. We have to remember how we ended the war in Vietnam as we try and end the war in Iraq. We have to remember how the wars started before we can end them. Doug is singing about activism and courage. Listen.
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The political discourse, never particularly honest to begin with, turned poisonous after September 11th, 2001. Now we were all with Bush or against Bush. We were with them or against them. We were on this side or we were on the side the enemy. And the names started to drop off the ends of our tongues; the insults and insinuations. The enemy started to become identified. The enemy became anyone who doesn't see the world the way you do. That's what we've been invited to believe.

What a surprise! The enemy has brown skin and speaks a different language. The enemy is a Muslim. My next door neighbours are Muslim. My neighbours gather, every evening, across the street at the mosque. They bring gifts of food. They share their food, and they auction off food to raise money for charity. I have never seen a crime committed by these people besides hogging the parking spaces along the street.

I'm not too old to take a kick at the can. A good hard kick at the can. I am against the notion there is an enemy. I am against the idea the enemy is Islam. I am even against the idea the enemy is radical Islam, anymore than it's radical anything. Radical consumerism. How's that for an enemy? Too great a distance between family and loved ones? How's that for an enemy?

Fear of intimacy? How about that?

Listen to the Canadian folk singer. Take a moment to think about the "...Witch hunts..." Lang is story telling about. Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee or pour yourself a glass of red wine. Wet your throat and then find your voice.

I understand why folks don't want to think about war and the storms getting stronger all the time. It's a...what did we say then...? It's a bummer. So don't think about war. Think about peace. Make a point of finding someone with a brown face and different tongue and say hello. Wish them well and mean it. There are those whose addiction to violence is even stronger than your own. They are shaking for their next fix and looking at Iran. They are breaking a sweat and looking at North Korea.

I believe my counterpart in Iran or North Korea wants the same things I do: work and shelter, love and music, sons and daughters, sun and wind and moon and stars. Peace.
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Click on the link for Doug's page. On the right hand side of the page you'll see the player. Click on Hope and Faith and Glory...

chapter eighteen of the wild mind is up

2006-11-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

Back in the year of our lord, 2002, I kept pill taking for about two months after stopping the heroin. Then finally, reluctantly, I set that particular crutch down and took a totally clean walk for awhile.

This chapter of The Wild Mind chronicles that passage. Reading it, I was reminded of what a tough time it was. Addiction is a nag, in a way. Always there to remind you there is something you are forgetting to do. Hmmmnn? What could that be?

Oh yeah! Use some drugs!!

If you are struggling with the demons of addiction (and I think at some level and with whatever intensity we mostly all are) then this chapter will probably speak to you a bit. If not you can point your finger and say I would not let that man date my daughter. Good thing too. I'm old enough to be your daughter's father.
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the storms of november come howling

2006-11-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

Even weatherman Mark Madryga says today's wind and rain storm was one of the most fierce and destructive of the last twenty years. And this guy would not tell a lie if his life was on the line. The Lower Mainland has many different kinds of geography; where we are, in Burnaby, we had heavy rain and hydro-planing from water built up on most of the major roads. We had boughs and smaller bits and pieces of trees scattered over the streets from the gusts of wind that arrived early in the afternoon. We are sort of protected from the worst of the wind by the North Shore mountains and our distance from the oceanside.

The Howe Sound, from Horseshoe Bay on up north on Highway 99, and the west side of Vancouver Island, took a major shit kicking. Big trees fell in many areas, Highway 99 was closed for most of the day, and several rivers are ready to flood their banks. The Howe Sound is one great wind tunnel. I've driven from Burnaby, where the snow is falling silently straight from the sky to the ground, up to Squamish, through the Howe Sound and the winds were blowing sideways at gale force.

Are the storms getting stronger? Who the hell knows, eh? It depends on who you listen to and how much attention you're paying. I can recall some heavier rain, but a stat is a stat and tomorrow the record books will tell the story.
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the naked beer bottle dance dream #1

2006-11-14T15:52:00.000-08:00

Here's are the suspected ingredients of last night's dream:

- I 'm reading The Essential Bob Dylan Interviews. Last night, before nodding off, I was enjoying a very vivid passage about Bob Dylan playing a concert at Kenyon College in Mount Vernon, Ohio. The piece is written by Jay Cocks. Cocks takes us from the airport to the college, through the sound check and the concert, and then back to the airport with Bob Dylan, circa 1964.

In the hotel room waiting to go the college, Dylan is drinking red wine, getting pretty drunk and holding forth. The insight in this reading is that Dylan's resistance to his image was there from the very beginning. He never wanted to be identified as a member of any group. He really seems to have enjoyed his Beaujolais.

- I watched the first instalment of the last Prime Suspect, with Helen Mirren in her role as Jane Tennison. This is a two part finale. Mirren is a great actor. In the story she is battling her addiction to booze, her father passes away and she confronts her lonliness and impending retirement. There was a lovely scene where Tennison goes to her father's home to get a picture he is asking for. She finds some old records, Detroit era soulful slow dance tunes, and she whirls and twirls about the living room getting very sloshed and very lost in a reverie of an obviously happier time.

In another scene she is drinking beer from a bottle in the front seat of her car, scarfing down a most unappetizing looking sandwich. She is a very thirsty, very sad woman....
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So I dreamed I was in a living room with Bob Dylan. He was younger and so was I, I think. There was a large cardboard box filled with empty beer bottles, right in the middle of the room. It came to me that I might amuse Bob Dylan if I took all my clothes off and danced naked in the box with the empty beer bottles.

I must tell you that there was no homo erotic feeling in the dream. Not that I have anything against gay folk. Some of my best friends are gay naked beer bottle dancers. It was more of a Zorba the Greek buzz happening. It was just very clear that the most freeing thing I could do would be to get naked and dance in the box with the beer bottles. So I did, and it was the most fun I've had while asleep for quite some time. I felt very light.

Then I woke up. It was 4AM, by the light of the bedroom alarm clock. My brain was reeling with a number of bizaare images. To put it in perspective, the beer bottle dance was the most sane idea my mind was projecting. I can't remember the rest of the images, but I remember hoping they would fade away because I would not want to be stuck with them for too long. These passages from dreaming to waking are sometimes a little rough.

I lay in the bed, awake, for quite some time. It was the heart of darkness time, nothing doing except Margaret's regular breathing and the sound of the cat nosing around his dish in the kitchen. I must confess that the darkness overtook me for awhile and I wrestled with the Death Thoughts.

I don't consciously invite the Death Thoughts, but I happen to believe when they arrive it's best to try and make them as welcome as possible. This is quite like the dance of the depressed. It's a cold, stark feeling, a realization that yes, by golly, this life will certainly end, and time tends to pick it up a bit as we crest the middle years and start to surf that big wave to the whirlpool waiting.

It was alright, actually and I eventually fell back to sleep. I learn in these midnight times. I learned, last night, that to dance naked might be a great thing. I learned that I may be a little parched myself, having not had a drink for nearly nineteen years, and I learned that I am not so much afraid of death bringing endless sleep as I am of death bring endless awake.
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remember the young americans dying in george bush's war

2006-11-11T23:35:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched a special on CNN called Combat Hospital. A documentary done just this last year, the camera work is such that you are a witness to the blood and gore and fear in an American triage unit in Iraq as young soldier after young soldier is helicoptered in, burnt and blown apart, clinging to life in some cases, letting go of life in others.

I watched this on November 11th, after watching, in the morning, the old Canadian veterans standing at attention while the bugle player blew the notes of The Last Post. Were these old men remembering similar scenes from decades ago?

The camera pulls back from the gurney and you can hear a young soldier ask the surgeon, "Am I going to die? Am I going to die?" The soldier is in shock. His left leg is gone and what remains of the stump is a pulpy red mass. His right hand is almost amputated. His face is burnt. His injuries have been caused by the insurgent's weapon of choice; the improvised explosive device.

The surgeon tells the boy he will not die. He tells him he must take his leg though, there is no way to save it. Later, the surgeon tells the camera that he told the young man he would save him because he thought that he could. Though the soldier's injuries were severe they were not lethal. The surgeon says it is common for the young soldiers to come into the operating room pleading with the doctors to keep them alive, and too often the doctors will lie, telling the fatally wounded soldiers they will be alright and knowing their injuries are not survivable.
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We learn that the young soldier who lost his leg survived long enough to make it to Germany, but there he died on an operating table, of a heart attack. Next time you see or hear President George Bush speak in his prideful and stubborn manner about how he will not "cut and run" from the war he started in Iraq, remember those young men who are losing their lives and their limbs in this country far away.

If you believe in the war, if you believe the war is just and necessary and winnable, good on you blook. All the best. If you believe, like I do, that the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan are already lost and were likely doomed from day one, based on lies and distortions that are now common knowledge, then please find the time and place to speak out against these wars. Your voice matters.

Another soldier asks for a telephone so that he can assure his wife, back home in the USA, he is going to be ok. His face is pocked with shrapnel burns, his eyes are swollen shut. When the call is dropped by the cell phone that is being held to the side of his face he curses, "God damn, baby, I can hardly hear you!" He is desperate for re assurance that there is someone to whom he matters.

The doctor tells him his injuries will take a month to heal. The young soldiers tells the doctor that he has three months left of his tour in Iraq. The doctor answers, "Did I say one month? I meant three months." The doctor will not see this twice wounded young man sent back to the meat grinder that is Baghdad.

The doctors say they are amazed, sometimes, at the reluctance of the wounded soldiers to leave Iraq. When asked why they want to stay they don't express belief in the mission, or faith in their President or their country. They say they don't want to leave their buddies. That's a hero. This heroism is being wasted in the cynical effort at legacy building of George Bush. He wanted to be associated with something great. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 presented him with an opportunity. He took that opportunity and now, nearly six years later, 3000 young Americans and at least 150,000 Iraqis are dead.

Baghdad is burning. Lives are lost at the rate of 3000 a month. Bush opened the gates of hell and now he will try and tunnel his way out of the inferno. His victims lie in Veteran's Hospitals, with legs and arms and eyes gone, left (if they are not lucky and loved and unimaginably strong of mind and body and soul) to spend what remains of their time on earth suffering for the bloodlust of a sociopath from Texas. When Saddam hangs, I will close my mind and imagine the noose around the neck of George Bush.
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at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

2006-11-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

basking in the light of the klingon

2006-11-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

There's a new kid come to the little town where I work. Just out of high school, I think and the most remarkable human being I've encountered for a long time. I can't tell you his name; guidelines that protect client confidentiality prohibit that. That's fine, although the kid deserves to be known by his name.

So I'll call him Klingon because...what the hell, eh? The whole world should know a Klingon.

Klingon has cerebral palsy and so he moves about in a shaky off balance looking body. It's instructive, though, to see him demonstrate an amazing ability to keep his centre, in all kinds of situations that challenge his physicality.

I've worked with him in a wood shop and raking leaves on a hobby farm. We've been skating together once. Klingon is the most unfailingly happy young man I have ever met in my life. He's slow to answer my questions and he repeats himself but this guy must be directly related to the Buddha because he just smiles and smiles and smiles.

He is keen to please, but oddly (because it's not often this way) he seems to be pleasing himself as much as anyone else. At the wood shop he and I were shown a simple and repetitive (read deadly dull) task of manually tearing a small strip off eighteen inch pieces of cedar, then tossing the wider piece into a box and the strip into a garbage can.

Klingon needed one trial only and then he was off to the races. I stood back and watched him. I think he might have done this work forever, smiling, focused, and content. When he walks he is pitched forward but he doesn't fall over. He is Chinese so his eyes are smiling too and when he grins you are standing in the sunshine. His hair is worn in sheepdog bangs and his glasses sit perched on his wide nose. He is shy until he knows you a little and then he is a cheerful reporter, telling about what he's seeing, as if each thing is the most interesting thing since the last thing.
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The work I do is demanding and things, after 25 years, are not often surprising. Now and then I am aware that somehow my work is bringing me a blessing, almost a compensation for parts of my life I have perhaps missed or not done well with. When I help someone, when someone I support really needs me at work, then I am a dad for that moment. I'm saying that there are moments when I think...ah, this is great, I am using the same skill and quality I might have used as a father now.

I don't know if that's strange or not. I can't imagine that others don't experience this and maybe in the same way. Skating with Klingon was one of those intense and satisfying moments. The skating activity can be a really uphill battle: lacing up our individual's skates generally takes forever. Getting the skates on and then off again feels like the whole shot sometimes, with a very brief interlude for a tour around the sheet of ice.

On the way to the rink I asked Klingon if he'd been skating before. His physical condition would make skating only an outside possibility. Once, he told me, smiling, and I fell down, he began laughing. But he said he would try again. That's Klingon in a word. Try. This kid has more try than anyone I can recall.

There were several folks at the rink from other programs I have worked in and this day some of the them needed a hand. Time is an issue. I was lacing up a fellow's skate and I looked at Klingon and said he might have to watch today, because there wasn't enough time for me to get his skates on and off and get him out there on the ice.

He nodded yes but he was disappointed. He tri light eyes went down from three to one and his shoulders sagged a bit. No complaining or protesting. I swear the kid has been raised to be some kind of saint. So I pushed myself, which is always a good thing to do, got his skates on (after realizing the ones he was struggling with were about two sizes too small) and walked him over to the end boards so he could step down onto the cold surface.

He was afraid. Remember, with something like cerebral palsy, your legs are not the most trustworthy ally. But one step at a time Klingon bravely made his way to the ice and then took what must seem like a forty foot step down onto the hard surface (the step where your chances are greater for falling on your ass) and reached for the metal walker bar he was provided with.

He made his way around, and around and around. Look John, I'm going so fast, he told me, and then told me again. It was a magical moment, really. I sort of basked in the kid's light, happy to be there and happy to be needed. Happy to be in the presence of Klingon's determination. I want to do it myself, he told me, and I let go of the walked and watched him push it slowly forward. I'm doing it, he said.

It's a good lesson, for me, and an interesting one. This kid appears to have no idea that he might feel sorry for himself or feel he has been deprived of anything. He will work until he sweats, as he did at the hobby farm, raking wet leaves, and report back, "There's so many of them, look what I'm doing!" He stopped raking because it was time for us to go, or I think he would still be there, with a smile on his face, "Look John, there's so many of them!"

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the decider decides-rumsfield falls on his sword

2006-11-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

President Bush was asked (for about the one millionth time) a while back, when he was going to fire Donald Rumsfield, his Secretary of Defense. Bush said, "I am the decider of these things and I have decided Donald Rumsfield is the man for the job..."

Today the Decider decided his decision needed to be undecided and he accepted Rumsfield's resignation. There is a sense of joy that comes with this news and it's important to try and understand what that joy is about.

Donald Rumsfield is known to have a sense of humour (as does President Bush) and he enjoyed some laughs in his press conferences before it became undeniable the war in Iraq was going from really horrible to beyond terrible.

There was a moment of emotion in his farewell speech, when he spoke of the soldiers he had served with and for. Let's not celebrate Donald Rumsfield's pain, or even that of George Bush. These men are victims of the number one human sin-pride-and anyone who claims to be free of that sin is a liar or deluded.
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This is a great moment in the history of western democracy. There is no time for gloating. The questions are so monumental and the Democrats must answer quickly. Whither Iraq? And then there's this question: what happens when the United States of America is attacked next?

The Democrats, or many of them, are on record saying the Bush administration would have been better to treat the attacks of 911 as a criminal act rather than an act of war. Will the Democrats make this their official defense policy?

Here is a link to the farewill remarks of Donald Rumsfield. He speaks of the war on terror as being "complex" and there is a feeling he is suggesting that we (the people) are just not smart enough to understand these things.

It's ironic, because the American electorate appears to have just said the same thing to Rumsfield. You don't understand. You're arrogant. Be gone.

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is there time to turn the titanic?

2006-11-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

AMERICAN DEMOCRATS RETAKE CONTROL OF CONGRESS SENATE TOO CLOSE TO CALL!

This morning when Canadians awake there will have been a shift away from the right south of the border. The Democratic Party will have re taken the majority in the House of Representatives and made significant gains in a Senate race that is too close to call.

As of this writing, the control of the American senate may be decided by one state, Virginia, where the democratic candidate is leading by 2000 votes. It will take some days to determine the winner. If the Senate falls to the Democrats then their victory will be nothing short of astounding.

What does this mean? It means Americans have seen enough to know they can no longer support the leadership of their President, George Bush, and specifically they have rejected his vision on foreign policy and the way he has conducted the war he started in Iraq.

That's a start. It's an important signpost marking time passed since September 11th, 2001. It means Americans are not willing to relive their Vietnam era shame and humiliation again. But where do we go now? Canadians are presently governed by Stephen "Steve" Harper, a man who appears more than enamoured of the simplistic worldview he shares with fellow evangelical Christian, the President of the United States.

Like Bush, Harper goes out of his way to declare his bias for Israel in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Harper has extended the Canadian mission in Afghanistan until 2009. Harper has just announced he will not participate in the coming meeting in Europe where he was going to be criticized for his rejection of the Kyoto approach to climate contol.
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I think my ideas are so radical I sound silly sharing them. I'm not embarrassed though. We are currently led by a generation of men and women who allow themselves to become pathological liars in their desire to have and hold power. Some of them seek power for good reasons and are well intended. Even those men and women become crazy from lying.

And then we, their followers, the ones who still participate in the democratic process and vote them into or out of office, also go insane because we have two choices: we say we believe our leaders even when we know they are lying, because to say otherwise would leave us in despair.

Or we cast our eyes toward the horizon, looking for an honest man or woman to appear, one who will tell the truth regardless of the consequences to their search for power. I want my leaders to do some of these things:

- Admit what Westerners and Europeans have done to the poor of this world. Admit how we have exploited the poor of this world and ask for their forgiveness. Admit how we are, collectively, harming the earth to the point of endangering our existence as a species going into the future.

- Openly ask our "enemies" what it is they want. That means publically announcing an intention to negotiate with men like Osama Bin Laden, Iran's Ahmadinejad, and Kim Il Jong of North Korea as well as groups like Al Quaida and Hezbollah. Only when these enemies have been invited to air their grievances in the light of day we will be able to say what we can or cannot live with.

You see? I sound like an idiot.

I'm happy to be an idiot. We are on the Titanic, steaming toward a cold and dark end, and our children are on board and their children are on board. The way business has been done has brought us to this place in history.

A clash of religions and cultures is, in fact, well underway, with each side looking for a bigger stick to poke into the eye of the one who does not accept their God (Allah) G-D. The primary struggle on the planet is between those who have (us) and those that have not (the poor in our own nations and in the Third World).

The changes that are required to change course are almost unimaginable. An example?

Despite everything we have read and heard and seen about the changes in the planet's climate, how many of us have given up our fossil fuel burning modes of transportation? I know only a handful. Why do we resist? Because our need to earn money takes far greater precedence over our fear of a future we don't really believe we will live to see.

Think for a moment what this says about our honour and suitability as parents and friends to one another and citizens of nations and residents on this planet. The disenfranchised are inclined to seek relief from their pain in visions of an afterworld, a paradise where things are better. These men and women are not hard to turn against fortunate Westerners.

I want my leaders to re state the separation of church and state in a representative democracy. I want the belief in God to count for nothing when it comes to making foreign policy or educational or social policy. If you want to worship your God, go ahead and bless you, but don't foist that belief system off on me and say it's the reason we must go to Afghanistan.

There is lots to talk about. I'll go to sleep tonight with a good feeling, knowing that my southern neighbours, by the millions, have rejected the notion that Pax Americana is anything other than nonsense of the highest order.

and now the calm before the storm

2006-11-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

When Muddy67 and his wife Barb and I were students in the Music Therapy program at Capilano College in the early 80's, we had an odd classmate by the name of David Rogers. David was a gay (closeted) Christian with aphasia and a corduroy fetish. He would speak in tongues while we played our bongos and ask God (just like Oral Roberts) to take him home.

We were pretty sure we heard him chant "Ascension, ascension!" during one exercise. Our small group of aspiring music therapists had just bongoed ourselves into the 5th dimension, and Rogers was literally levitating from his place in the centre of the group.

Muddy and Barb and I sat toward the outside of the circle, jaws dropping at what we were witnessing. Then someone noticed it was noon and the exorcism stopped in it's tracks while we abandoned Rogers to his thrashing pleas for Jesus to raise him up. We marched out of the classroom and down to the cafeteria, leaving Rogers staggering about wondering what the hell had happened to the other apostles.
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On another occasion we were asked by one of our teachers to put on some sort of demonstration of the various uses of world music in their cultural context. Something like that. We worked in pairs and some put more effort into their presentations than others. One of our colleagues did a puppet show, with Minda painted onto one fist and Spirita painted onto the other. We were treated to a long dissertation on how Minda and Spirita were struggling to live together in harmony.

I remember watching Muddy67, who had come a long way and paid some decent dollars for this education, sitting with a look of disbelief on his face as he realized he was being trained to shake a tambourine at illness and pathology.

When it was David Roger's turn he played a record. Beethoven, maybe. In other words Rogers had put about the time it takes to grab a record off the shelf into his demonstration, and we were forced to sit there honouring him like he was Albert Einstein expounding on the theory of relativity.

He perched himself on the edge of his chair, at the front of the class, listening to the record with the rest of us, waving his hands about like he was conducting the Philharmonic. There came a moment of soft playing in the symphony and David Rogers intoned, with the solemnity of Moses, "Ah...and now, the calm before the storm!"

Muddy67 and Barb and I nearly pissed ourselves laughing.
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And for some strange reason this is what I'm remembering on the eve of the American mid terms elections. For those who have long since tuned out partisan politics, tomorrow is just another day. For those of us who still have a teeny tiny candle burning for the idea some leadership may yet arise from those who aspire to govern, it is an important event.

It's important because it may mark and represent the moment in time when the American public, in the majority, say publicly that George Bush's war has been a mistake. Let's not be so cynical that we underestimate the importance of that admission.

It's time for people who care to begin thinking about the way we want to be in the world. Because the moment the Democrats retake control of the Congress the world will be waiting for something beyond a unified condemnation of Bush's discredited notion of the American's right to rule.
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baghdad is burning

2006-11-06T06:31:00.000-08:00

The following piece has been excerpted from a blog called Riverbend. This is a first person account, right up close, for those who want to take the time to know what is going on. The final line of the piece is like a punch in the stomach.

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

Sunday, November 05, 2006

When All Else Fails...

… Execute the dictator. It’s that simple. When American troops are being killed by the dozen, when the country you are occupying is threatening to break up into smaller countries, when you have militias and death squads roaming the streets and you’ve put a group of Mullahs in power- execute the dictator.

Everyone expected this verdict from the very first day of the trial. There was a brief interlude when, with the first judge, it was thought that it might actually be a coherent trial where Iraqis could hear explanations and see what happened. That was soon over with the prosecution’s first false witness. Events that followed were so ridiculous; it’s difficult to believe them even now.

The sound would suddenly disappear when the defense or one of the defendants got up to speak. We would hear the witnesses but no one could see them- hidden behind a curtain, their voices were changed. People who were supposed to have been dead in the Dujail incident were found to be very alive.

Judge after judge was brought in because the ones in court were seen as too fair. They didn’t instantly condemn the defendants (even if only for the sake of the media). The piece de resistance was the final judge they brought in. His reputation vies only that of Chalabi- a well-known thief and murderer who ran away to Iran to escape not political condemnation, but his father’s wrath after he stole from the restaurant his father ran.

So we all knew the outcome upfront (Maliki was on television 24 hours before the verdict telling people not to ‘rejoice too much’). I think what surprises me right now is the utter stupidity of the current Iraqi government. The timing is ridiculous- immediately before the congressional elections? How very convenient for Bush. Iraq, today, is at its very worst since the invasion and the beginning occupation. April 2003 is looking like a honeymoon month today. Is it really the time to execute Saddam?

I’m more than a little worried. This is Bush’s final card. The elections came and went and a group of extremists and thieves were put into power (no, no- I meant in Baghdad, not Washington). The constitution which seems to have drowned in the river of Iraqi blood since its elections has been forgotten. It is only dug up when one of the Puppets wants to break apart the country. Reconstruction is an aspiration from another lifetime: I swear we no longer want buildings and bridges, security and an undivided Iraq are more than enough. Things must be deteriorating beyond imagination if Bush needs to use the ‘Execute the Dictator’ card.

Iraq has not been this bad in decades. The occupation is a failure. The various pro-American, pro-Iranian Iraqi governments are failures. The new Iraqi army is a deadly joke. Is it really time to turn Saddam into a martyr? Things are so bad that even pro-occupation Iraqis are going back on their initial ‘WE LOVE AMERICA’ frenzy. Laith Kubba (a.k.a. Mr. Catfish for his big mouth and constant look of stupidity) was recently on the BBC saying that this was just the beginning of justice, that people responsible for the taking of lives today should also be brought to justice. He seems to have forgotten he was one of the supporters of the war and occupation, and an important member of one of the murderous pro-American governments. But history shall not forget Mr. Kubba.

Iraq saw demonstrations against and for the verdict. The pro-Saddam demonstrators were attacked by the Iraqi army. This is how free our media is today: the channels that were showing the pro-Saddam demonstrations have been shut down. Iraqi security forces promptly raided them.Welcome to the new Iraq. Here are some images from the Salahiddin and Zawra channels:

Zawra channel. The subtitle says: Baghdad: Zawra satellite channel has stopped broadcasting by order of the government.

Salahiddin's green screen which appeared suddenly says: Salahiddin Satellite Channel

Sharqiya channel announcing breaking news: Two channels, Salahiddin and Zawra, shut down. Security forces raid the offices of the channels.

It’s not about the man- presidents come and go, governments come and go. It’s the frustration of feeling like the whole country and every single Iraqi inside and outside of Iraq is at the mercy of American politics. It is the rage of feeling like a mere chess piece to be moved back and forth at will. It is the aggravation of having a government so blind and uncaring about their peoples needs that they don’t even feel like it’s necessary to go through the motions or put up an act. And it's the deaths. The thousands of dead and dying, with Bush sitting there smirking and lying about progress and winning in a country where every single Iraqi outside of the Green Zone is losing.

Once again… The timing of all of this is impeccable- two days before congressional elections. And if you don’t see it, then I’m sorry, you’re stupid. Let’s see how many times Bush milks this as a ‘success’ in his coming speeches.

A final note. I just read somewhere that some of the families of dead American soldiers are visiting the Iraqi north to see ‘what their sons and daughters died for’. If that’s the goal of the visit, then, “Ladies and gentlemen- to your right is the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, to your left is the Dawry refinery… Each of you get this, a gift bag containing a 3 by 3 color poster of Al Sayid Muqtada Al Sadr (Long May He Live And Prosper), an Ayatollah Sistani t-shirt and a map of Iran, to scale, redrawn with the Islamic Republic of South Iraq. Also… Hey you! You- the female in the back- is that a lock of hair I see? Cover it up or stay home.”

And that is what they died for.

saddam hussein sentenced to death

2006-11-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

ICU NEWS (LTD) BRINGS YOU THE UNCENSORED TRANSCRIPT OF SADDAM SENTENCE

Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by a cranky judge in Baghdad. Western media outlets like CNN are showing video of the sentence being handed down and Hussein's angry words of protest. ICU NEWS (Ltd) has learned the audio portion provided by all western outlets is fake, and has been falsified in order to spare the sensitive feelings of North Americans who might have been shocked and, yes, appalled had they heard Saddam's real words.

ICU NEWS (Ltd) is dedicated to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but, regardless of the wounded sensibilities of watchers. Our motto is, "The bigger the wound, the better the booty". Here, then, is the actual exchange between the judge and Saddam Hussein. A link to the video portion provided by CNN has been provided if you would like to see Hussein, with an obvious audio overdub, reacting to the judge.

You can find the link by clicking on the nice red words above. When you get to CNN look for the video icons beside words "Saddam's fury". The video runs about four minutes and is well worth watching, if for no other reason than to appreciate how even a mass murderer can be a very snappy dresser:

Iraqi Judge: Sit down!

Saddam: No!

Iraqi Judge: I said sit down!!

Saddam: You are not the boss of me...

(The camera is turned away as the Iraqi judge orders Hussein beaten with cudgels and dragged to his feet. When the camera comes back on, Saddam is smoothing his Armani sport jacket and looking very unhappy...)

Iraqi Judge: For the crimes committed against the Iraqi people (the sound of the judge's voice is drowned out by an enraged Hussein, who is pointing his finger, waving it in the air...)

Saddam: Buckets of goat piss to you! Goat piss!! Your wife wears big green ugly American issue army boots!!

Iraqi Judge: You will sit down or I will have you removed!

Saddam: Speaking of removed, is that your face or the back end of a Baghdad bus? Heh, heh, heh. Goat piss and camel turds!! I wave my underwear at you. Dirty underwear at you. Long live Saddam Hussein's dirty underwear!

Iraqi Judge: For the crime of shaking hands with Donald Rumsfield all those years ago (again, the judge cannot be heard over the bellowing of Saddam Hussein, who is smiling a little and appears to be enjoying himself...)

Saddam: Rumsfield! Liar liar pants on fire to him! A billy goat's underarm to him! Long live the people of Iraq, at least the ten of them who will still be alive by the time my appeal of this sentence and next three hundred trials for genocide against the Kurds are completed!

Iraqi Judge: For the crimes against...(Hussein interupts, yet again...)

Saddam: Get on with it. Hey, do you want to see a real weapon of mass destruction (Hussein pulls down his pants, but the camera is again turned away...)
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As difficult as this may be for our viewers and listeners, ICU NEWS (Ltd) believes the people, in a real democracy must know what is going on behind closed doors. As more doors close in our society, you can trust ICU NEWS (Ltd) will be sneaking a peek through keyholes so that you are up to speed on these important events.

behold your iraqi democracy

2006-11-04T21:54:00.000-08:00

PRESIDENT OF IRAQ SAYS HE HOPES SADDAM "GETS WHAT HE DESERVES"

Did Iraqi President Nuri al-Maliki mean he hopes Saddam Hussein gets a fair trial? Not a chance. He said that he hopes Saddam gets the noose. This is Iraqi democracy. This is what nearly 3000 young Americans and uncounted thousands of Iraqi civilians have bled out for.

For a god damn puppet of George Bush to shit all over the principle of innocence until guilt is proven. It makes me sick. And I'm not going to make the perfunctory disclaimer about how I know what a bad guy Saddam Hussein is. I hope his death triggers the final conflagration that convinces even the thickest American neo conservative they have lost their fucking precious war.
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art for art's sake (money for god's sake)

2006-11-04T11:50:00.000-08:00

Some things have changed since I last left my house on a Friday evening. Mind you, that was about twenty years ago. Some things are the same. The November rain was teeming down as I drove to a Kingsway coffee house, Myles Of Beans, to see the inaugural solo performance of local player Mojo.

Mojo appeared, along with two young women reciting their poems and another singing her songs, courtesy of Mike Reed, who organized and promoted the mini concert. Mojo had a severe case of nerves. He opened the case and showed me. They were severe alright. He's been nurturing those nerves for weeks, practising and getting ready for this event, hoping for the best and probably fearing the worst. By Friday night his energy was a bag full of skinned cats waiting to be let out for a good scream and scratch session.

He delivered energy and feeling. In buckets. Of sweat. If you plan to go and see Mojo strum and sing don't sit too near the stage side unless you're wearing a raincoat. Mojo may as well have been playing outside for the water that left his body during his six song set.

We sat together before the gig, waiting for folks to arrive and I tried to distract Mojo with observations about the many different approaches to guitar tuning and do-you-think-Gordon-Campbell-will-really-re open the institutions? Mojo said he hopes so, but at the moment he had more important things on his mind.
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The joint slowy filled with coffee drinkers and enjoyers of the herbal holiday. The rain outside did not let up and the streets were a shining river running come time the first young poet stepped up to the microphone. One of the things that's changed since I last left the cave is young women's sense of sexual entitlement, if this twenty something red head was representative. I sat in my seat, shocked and appalled as she spoke of deep fingering reaching shadowy places and wet spots in the back seats of trucks and shaking and shuddering hips and Jesus, suddenly I needed to take off my sweater and order a bottle of water.

I'm kidding about being shocked and appalled. I think. What I felt, more than anything else about the content of her poems, was enthralled by the courage it takes to stand up and share something real in a world that is buy and sell twenty four hours a day and seven days a week, no overtime because we gotta work all the time.

Is there much that matters more than getting down to our skin and getting that skin next to another's skin? No. Money and work are the substitutes for our failures with intimacy. Sexual and otherwise. That's what I took from the young lady and her lyrics last night. Good and bravo on her!

Another young woman, First Nations by blood, calling herself High Prairie Darlene, sent out a message on the breeze of her voice, with some of her own songs and a cover of the Hank William's standard "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". Darlene is not a virtuoso on her instrument, her guitar playing actually confused me a little (it doesn't take much) and her songs don't really end when you'd expect, but her heart was available and if that's not enough, then stay home. Right?

She did a piece that is a prayer, really, called "Ninety Nine Years", a tribute to her grandmother now passed into the other world. Darlene accompanied the lyrics with a simple beat of her hand on the top of her guitar. This was very pleasing.
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Mojo's set was the headliner, no question. He swabbed his big shiny dome between songs and he left absolutely not one skinned cat in the bag. This man has something to tell you. He's essentially a blues singer, if you want to imagine his vocal style, but that doesn't really paint the picture. He's a blues guy supporing his songs with folk guitar stylings.

His music is heavily influenced by his spiritual beliefs (he's a Wiccan) and his belief that there is magic in this world. He's a witch. So his stories are of warriors and destiny and essence; man with nature and against nature, man with and against himself and these forces. I have heard Mojo's songs on MySpace, as part of the singing group Chalice and Blade, but hearing them live allowed me to bask in the intent, a little, of what he's getting at.

I was at the back of the coffeehouse, checking out the sound and getting ready to take his picture when I heard him introduce one of his songs by saying "...there was time when leaders did not send young men into battle, they led them...."

Well, fuck me! I had to shout out. Yeah! His song was about the fearful imaginings of a young warrior contemplating his coming fate, and wondering if he'll be missed when he's gone, killed in the battle. With wars raging across the planet and blood spilling back into the Mother, Mojo's invocations of the spirits is right on time and right on the money.

The darkness of "Solstice Day" was mellowed with a Van Morrison accoustic guitar treatment, and this song tells you all you need to know about Mojo's worldview. It's an invitation, "...come and run away, I was born on Solstice Day..."

There are reminders to be grateful, as in his love song for Lady Sarah, "When She Kisses Me". Mojo talks about the way a working day can batter your balls until you remember the great good fortune of having a lover and companion to share it with. There is humour too; as in a lyric that suggests there would be no wait for hospital beds if pot were taxed.

As he made his way farther into his set Mojo leaned into each song with greater force than the one that preceded it. He is a growler. He knows this and after he was done he and I and his lady Sarah stood outside, sheltered from the pouring rain, while they enjoyed a cup of tea. I haven't had a cup of tea since I was 28 years old. Let's see, 53 minus 28 equals...10 years!

The tea smells better than when I was drinking it. I think it's a stronger brew. Anyway, I had to lean in pretty close to hear what Mojo and Sarah were saying, what with the rain and all. I felt a little better driving home than I did driving there for some reason.

I digress.

I told Mojo his set was great and I'll bet he can hardly wait for next time. I also told him I think there is something tender hidden under that growl and I am hoping to hear those tones brought out to the dance in the future. We did a quick version of Danny Boy, as an illustration of a song that needs strength but also to be sung sweetly, only we changed the lyrics to ones growlers might prefer.

Oh Danny boy, if I come here one more fucking summer and you're still dead you're gonna be real sorry, we growled.

It was pretty good that way, actually.

A band from the long past but never forgotten Sixties wrote a song with a lyric about "...art for art's sake, and money for God's sake..." A comment, I think, about our priorites in life. Friday evening, for me, was about intimacy and the noble art of reclaiming it. I thank Mojo for inviting me out.

Finally, a note on the difference between what we imagine and what is: Mojo's band mates from Chalice and Blade came out in support. Mojo wasn't sure they would. It was good to see and be part of that moment.
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maybe if you didn't sleep like herman munster (margaret circa november 2006)

2006-11-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

The Rewards Of Semi Retirement

Take a good look at Herman Munster. I'll get to that part of the post momentarily. I am nearly two months into my semi retirement, and I think it's time for a progress report. The first days after tendering my resignation at my second job I felt a sense of liberation. Light on my feet, re taking hours of my life, it was good. Then I began negotiating a return to that job, or as a work mate of mine characterized it the other day, I "caved".

OK, I caved.

But it looks like caving might yet prove to be the wiser move on my part, because being home more seems to make Margaret like me less. It's not her fault. I don't want to assign blame. To quote former Canuck Todd Bertuzzi, who is quite the philosopher when not pile driving opposition skaters into the ice, "It is what it is."

Partly it's a timing challenge. Margaret has quite a few rules and I am losing my ability to memorize them. As soon as I learn the latest rule, the rules are revised. There is this new rule, apparently drafted while I was working evenings a few times a week for the last seventeen years: Margaret owns the television set and the remote control.

I discovered this Halloween evening when I insisted on watching Little Shop Of Horrors and suddenly found myself in a little shop of horrors. Margaret was quite violently opposed to the idea I would like to watch this old musical and withdrew from the West Bank of our living room to the Gaza Strip of our bedroom, which is approximately three feet away and that's part of the problem.
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I recall that when my father finally retired, at about 68 years of age, my mother found herself needing to make frequent trips to the nearby shopping centre. My father was perplexed by her behaviour, unable to make the connection. I understand his experience now. I feel his pain.

Margaret has a look on her face much of the time. Hard to describe, but it gives me the feeling she is making some kind of plan. I think her plans may include me, and I think I may rather they didn't. I was wakened at about 2AM, to the sound of Margaret's weary voice. She said, "Your breathing is laboured, change your position..."

Yes, Margaret, my breathing is laboured, and it would help if you would remove the pillow from over my face. In the morning I was complaining, theorizing that I am experiencing these bouts of sleep apnea because our cat Oswald gets about 40% of the bed, Margaret gets about 45% of the bed and I am squeezed into the remaining (let's see...45 plus 40 is....) 10% and running out of oxygen.

Margaret spoke directly to the cat. "Oswald, he's blaming you..." she advised him affectionately and conspiratorially. Then she turned to me, with a little less warmth, and said, "If you didn't sleep like Herman Munster maybe you'd be able to breath..."

It may have been unkind, but it was apt. I sleep propped up because my stomach bothers me. My large head lolls forward onto my chest, effectively cutting off my windpipe. With my new short haircut I probably look very much like Herman Munster in the midnight hour. Maybe tonight Margaret will let me sleep through my self strangulation and then she can watch the cooking channel until her dear heart is content.
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barbara kay is an anti muslim

2006-11-01T18:30:00.000-08:00

Barbara Kay is a Jew. She's a Canadian Zionist. She's also a columnist and her work can be found at the National Post as well as here, at Proud To Be Canadian. I've never met her. I don't like her. I dislike her based on my gut reaction to her ideas, as expressed in her writing.

Kay has jumped on the bandwagon (she is pretty close to the steering wheel of the bandwagon, truth be told) in adding her shrill voice to the growing chorus manufacturing controversy about the wearing of the veil (or niqab) by Muslim women in Canada.

Now stop. And go back to my first sentence.

Did you feel a little icky or odd when I identified Barbara Kay as a Jew? If so, why do you think that is? Have we retained a great reluctance to identify a Jew, in any fashion, because we still remember the terrible ways they were identified by Hitler and his Nazis? Hitler ordered the Jews to wear a yellow star of David.

Barbara Kay does not want Muslim women to wear the veil. Read her column, if you like, and see how she rationalizes her position on the matter. She goes as far as saying the wearing of the veil is an act of provocation, intended to create social separation for ideological reasons. When she writes "ideological reasons" she really means the agenda of radical islamists to see that we all bow down on prayer mats to Allah, and when we do to quickly behead us. Kay uses fancy words and fancy arguments to disguise her deeper motivation. But here is what I believe:

I believe Barbara Kay is an anti Muslim. Note I did not say she expresses ideas that are anti Muslim. She does that, but it's more than that. I use the descriptor anti Muslim in exactly the same way Kay uses the descriptor anti Semite. And she uses that descriptor quite regularly. Kay's antipathy toward Muslims is a core issue for her. She cannot separate her feelings about being a Jew and a Zionist from her feelings about the enemies of Israel, and so she sees all Muslims as the enemy and she wants to bring them down a peg.
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She would refute what I've said, of course. She would likely deny my allegations outright. Or like other members of the over exposed intelligentsia just dismiss this as the rantings of...

Of what? I have criticized Barbara Kay. The Jew. The Zionist. Am I, therefore, an anti Semite?

Barbara Kay has a very large audience. Many hundreds of Canadians will read her columns. Maybe 50 Canadians will read this offering of mine. But I make the offering because I am taking personal responsibility for answering back the rising chant of anti Muslims like Barbara Kay. Barbara Kay and other Zionists living in Canada would like to ride the neo conservative surf just as long and as far as they can. Kay would have you believe that Islam is the cause of all our troubles today. Kay would pretend that she is only concerned with radical Islam. I think she is lying.

I wear a cross on a chain. Maybe Barbara Kay wears the Star of David on a necklace. I have no idea. Hitler wanted the Jews to add something visible to their clothing. A yellow star of David. Barbara Kay would like Muslim women to subtract something visible from their clothing. The veil. Kay and Hitler share the same impulse. Hitler was lying. So is Barbara Kay. Leave the Muslims alone, for Christ's sake. And maybe they will leave us alone, for Allah's.

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so long uncle ted (i'm wishing you a deeper comfort)

2006-10-30T19:37:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling maudlin and have been since hearing my Uncle Ted has crossed over the River Styx. His death was expected. He had been failing for some time. So this is a day for remembering and the more I try to bring this man to mind, the sadder I feel.

The sadness is not only about the man, Ted Daly, and the end of his life. When I think about the life of one man or one woman I feel something that is closer to wonder, or fascination. I love to think about the journey of one man or one woman. It's pleasant and a deeper comfort to fall asleep thinking about the life of an old loved one.

Imagine their lifetime of thinking things, and seeing things and hoping and planning. A lifetime of watching the sky and the weather change from this to that and the seasons come and go. Summer, fall, winter and spring. Around and around.
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Poets do these things justice. Maybe. Maybe I should read some poetry and see if there is deeper comfort to be found. I learned of the death of my Uncle Ted, on Saturday, via an email sent from one of my cousins, who lives in Vancouver and whom I rarely see. What I felt today was disconnected and wishing it were not so.

Emails. Voicemails. Internet. These things are what they are; communication. But contact they are not. Not in the way of the flesh and the tone of voice when one speaks to another. Here's what I mean:

When my father died, seven years ago come next February, my Uncle Ted and Aunt Marg came from Ontario to help us bury him. So did my Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Bert. I picked these old people up at the airport. It was a red eye flight they caught, if I recall the thing accurately (and I probably don't, and it doesn't matter because this is a story...)

I delivered my old aunts and uncles to the guest suite at my parent's apartment complex, and I remember looking at the exhausted face of my stooped and tiny Aunt Dorothy. Her's was an open face and her's was an open heart. She loved to talk. She would chat and chat, and with a good deal of sincere feeling. She wanted to know how folks around her were feeling and how they were doing.

She said something to me, just before we bade each other goodnight. I can't bring her words to mind, but they had to do with the arrangements we'd made to hold a prayer service the next evening, where there was to be a viewing of my father in his casket.

Aunt Dorothy said what folks say, often, in these situations. She said she would not look at my father in his casket, she would like to remember him as he was. Living. Here is the thing: while she said this she touched my hand, gently, with her hand, and in the touch of her hand there was a much, much deeper comfort.

This touching of human hands, the hands of my clan, has been lost to me. This is my doing, and like Scrooge I must change or pay the unbearable price for remaining the same.
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My Uncle Ted cooked breakfast for us, that cold and rainy and horribly sad February morning almost seven years gone. This is another way we bring comfort to one another. We feed one another like Jesus did. Uncle Ted cooked and then grumbled we were late coming to the table. Where the hell is everybody?

The voice that came from his body was the voice of his brother, my dead father, and that was a deeper comfort. I can see my Uncle Ted, sitting in a chair, looking at me with some mischief or other on his mind, making a joke and then laughing and punctuating his laughter with an "Eh?" I thought my Uncle Ted was kind of magic, relaxed in a way my father was not. Easy going where my father was given to worry. Who knows what really is deep in the heart of another? That's the way he seemed to me.

When I drove them back to the airport, after my Dad had been laid to rest, my Aunt touched my hand again, and I was so overcome with sorrow I could not speak. It was not just the grieving for my father. It was the grieving for the loss of neighbourhood and clan close by, and the past, and the look of these familiar faces. They were feeling this too. I know they were. My Aunt Dorothy said something that was tender. I cannot bring the words to my mind just now.

My Uncle Ted shook my hand and I think he said, simply, "OK, John." I took him to mean it will be OK John. He was an old man then, nearly seven years ago, and he had seen the leaving of many familiar faces. He said it would be OK, and it has been.

More or less.

More business and earning and spending of money, and hustle and days passing like the speed of traffic, and less looking into the eyes of people I think I was supposed to be closer with. For a time after my father's death I kept in touch with my back east uncles and aunts. We spoke on the telephone. Aunt Marg would always say it had been nice of me to think of them. And I would feel it was nice to hear her voice.

Then we all returned to our forgetfulness and the illusion we have forever to say hello again.
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My Aunt Marg told me that when Uncle Ted began to lose his memory to the dementia he asked for my father. His brother. Bill, he repeated the name, to the folks sitting by his hospital bed. He was needing to see a familiar face. His flesh and blood. He was needing a much deeper comfort. Deeper comfort is like snow on the West Coast and clan breaking bread at the supper table. It's a rare thing and get rarer all the time. There is a great longing in the place where once we gathered.

I will go to sleep tonight and imagine my Uncle Ted, maybe gathered with his family, all of them; Herbert John and Phoebe, Ranald and Herb, Bill and Dorothy, sitting by a heavenly Lake Simcoe, watching the sunset, listening to Harry James' big band, making small talk and taking their much deeper comfort.
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"i won't put lipstick on that pig"-george w bush

2006-10-30T06:01:00.001-08:00

Here is a link that will open an audio file of a talk given by President Bush to a gathering of 8 conservative reporters last week. It runs for about an hour. You can download it on to your iPod if you like and listen while you sit on the throne in the morning. It may help you bear down. It will make you grimace and maybe even grunt.

One of the things that makes this man so dangerous, even as a lame duck commander-in-chief, is that he totally and completely believes his own bullshit. He has convinced himself that he is leading a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil.

Some of what Bush says sounds reasonable enough. For instance; he says that those who use religion to justify killing are "evil". But there is no indication that he realizes in the moment of speaking those words he is a born again Christian who has sent young men to kill and die, and lied about the reasons for doing it. Evil? Evil.
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Bush says, over and over again, that he intends to win the war in Iraq. He says he will not distort how difficult the war effort is. He will not "...put lipstick on that pig..." Just a good old Texas boy, George Bush is, working hard.

I am listening to the audio for a third time and I have not heard him offer any suggestions about what the western or Europeon powers can do to make things better in this world, other than to "stay on the offence" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The reporters Bush chose for his off- and- on- the record session were all conservatives. They asked him some good questions about the war, and the present and anticipated foreign policy objectives of his administration. You will hear how Bush thinks. He is not spinning. He is (as he tells you at the beginning) "...sharing his mind with 'ya..."

He has alot to say about Iran and North Korea, the other two countries he decided are part of an "axis of evil".

I have written before that George Bush Jr. is a stupid man. I think he is. But he is not without intelligence. He is his father's son. If you have ever listened to his father talk about his presidency you will recognize in Dubya's world view the Bush family trait of complete denial of their own darkness. The world is filled with dangerous men, says Bush. He clearly does not think he is one of them.

Any man who insists on seeing his own denied darkness in another man is, in my view, a stupid man. Do you think North Koreans or Iranians are having the kind of conversation George Bush is having with his conservative base? Of course they are. They are enumerating the faults of the Great Satan, and so it goes.

George Bush prefaces his comments on this tape by predicting that in thirty years there will be a struggle in the Middle East between governments led by radical Islamists and governments led by more moderate men. Oil will be used as a bargaining chip. People will ask why our generation did not oppose the radical Islamists. This is Bush being Bush. He may as well have a bag over his head.

The world is he predicting is here now, and he has done more than any other modern western leader to bring the prophesy of a clash of civilizations to fruition.

This end of times scenario is not so silly. If men like Bush continue to poke a stick into the eye of men like Bin Laden, and vice versa, there may come a time when all Muslims are fighting all Christians and Jews. The result will be bloody beyond all imagination and know one will remember who started what and when.

Do we even remember now?

Do you remember the reasons Bin Laden gave for attacking the United States on September 11th, 2001? It's essential that we know Bin Laden's thinking on the conflict, because in knowing the grievances of our enemies we find the keys to a negotiated reduction of violence over the longer term.

For a dyed in the wool large C conservative the notion that Osama Bin Laden and his merry band of radical Islamists have any grievances, let alone legitimate grievances, is not conceivable. If conceivable then it's not speakable. But these neo conservatives are the folks in charge now. I don't think things are going so well. I think we should talk to our enemies, see what they want.
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on the passing of our elders-frederic (ted) daly 2006

2006-10-29T20:19:00.000-08:00

I just got an email from my cousin David, informing me that my Uncle Ted has died in Ontario. This witty old guy had been laid low by many blows; his kidneys had failed and he had been sinking more deeply into the confusion of a senile sundown.

His loss was expected, perhaps not imminently, but it was inevitable given the multiple breakdowns of his systems . I imagined I might go east sometime and see him again. That was a pipe dream. The last time I saw him was at the funeral of my father in February of 2000. He made bacon and eggs for our grieving family one morning and wondered in an uncanny cranky imitation of his recently dead brother Bill, where the hell everyone was. In the voice of one old man came a vivid reminder of the other old man just gone.

I remember Uncle Ted standing before my father's casket, arms folded across his chest, silent and stricken, and this was a man for whom words came easily. I wondered what he must be thinking, what he might be remembering in that moment.
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My Dad told me stories of his early days, growing up in Orillia and Toronto. I made a tape of this story telling, but it was left unfinished. We leave too much unfinished with one another, don't we? My father spoke honestly, said that he and his brother Ted had been close but fought "bitterly". Such was their rivalry. Uncle Ted was two years younger than my father, and 88 at his passing.

His oldest brother Ranald died long long ago, in the early part of the last century, as did his older brother Herbert. His brother William (Bill) died in 2000 and his sister Dorothy died on October 15th, 2001, of a massive brain hemorage, just two days after my mother, who went away on October 13th.

Uncle Ted was an avid tennis player. He made his living in the finance business, as did my father, and their father before them. Herbert John Daly, my grandfather, was the president of the Home Bank of Canada. The Home Bank failed in 1923 and Herbert John died in June of 1924, a broken man, having been implicated in the dark goings on that preceded the bank's collapse. Before his unhappy ending Herbert John Daly blazed a trail through the business world with many successes that won him the admiration and attention of downtown Toronto's money players of the day.

Uncle Ted gained a reputation for being a major league tease and jokester. My brother Mark nicknamed him Uncle Rickles, for comedian Don Rickles, the notorious and sometimes vicious kidder of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack fame. Like many who use humour to communicate, he was a sensitive man, faithful to his family and much loved. He was the last Daly of his clan. Long may he run.
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stop the war rallies across canada

2006-10-29T14:54:00.000-08:00

This link will take you to the website of a Vancouver based coalition of activists against the presence of Canadian troops in Afghanistan. There were protest demonstrations across Canada over the weekend. The turnout for these marches may seem underwhelming. That will change the longer Canada is involved in the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

And this is also true: for every individual who takes the time to attend an anti war (or any other kind) of protest there are literally thousands, perhaps of hundreds of thousands of people who agree with the points of view of the protesters.

A recent poll, commissioned by the military, claims the majority of Canadians continue to support the war in Afghanistan, by a margin of about 55%. The questions asked in polls skew the findings, though. The question asked by the recent poll was along these lines: do you support Canada's involvement in the military operations in Afghanistan, provided the outcomes of the war are positive?

What does "positive" mean when the lights are on? Does positive mean a guarantee the Taliban or any other radical Islamist and anti western group will never return to power in Afghanistan? Does positive mean a reliable (objective) presentation of data that proves our military actions in Afghanistan will lessen the chances of an attack by radical Islamists on Canadian soil?

If someone tells you that Canada's military involvement in the fighting of insurgents in Afghanistan will lessen the chances of radical Islamists attacking Canadians on our own soil, you will almost certainly notice there is a muffled quality to the sound of their voice. That is because they are talking through their underwear.

All you need to do in order to answer the question about greater or lessor chances for hostile acts against Canada by radical Islamists is imagine the following scenario: a member of your family is killed by a foreigner, on his or her home turf. How do you feel about the person who killed your loved one? Want revenge?
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michael j fox- a canadian hero

2006-10-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

Last week former Burnaby boy Michael J. Fox made the headlines when he was essentially accused of being a fake by conservative radio talk show buffoon Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, whose motivation is political, said that Fox, in his zeal to see Missouri elect Claire McCaskill to the Senate on November 7th, had either purposefully gone off his Parkinson's medication or was exagerrating his symptoms of Parkinson's to gain sympathy and promote the cause of stem cell research.

The reaction to Limbaugh's mean spirited commentary was swift and re assuring. Most Americans have not sunk to Rush Limbaugh's level of cynicism and can see Michael J. Fox for what he is; a young man who has decided to take a bad situation and use it to make a difference.

Fox did many interviews in the wake of Limbaugh's attempted character assassination. Here is a link to his interview with NBC news anchor Katie Couric. It runs for about 8 minutes. Fox talks about his work to advance stem cell research and to support politicians who are in line with the wishes of 75% of Americans who also support stem cell research. He answers the charges that he is faking his symptoms or operating as an unwitting dupe of the Democratic Party.

President Bush, the born again Christian, used his veto to squash a piece of legislation last year. He can be forgiven, I guess, because he has a direct line to Jesus, who has also ordered Bush to continue tossing young American bodies onto the altar in Iraq.

Michael J. Fox talks about his personal journey since being diagnosed with the illness in 1991. One can see, watching Fox, why a mouthpiece like Rush Limbaugh might challenge what the camera shows. Initially it's hard to believe that Fox could be so obviously effected by Parkinson's. But he is. He is an articulate and committed activist and I'm glad we can claim him as Canadian born. Like most Canadians, he is tough and self effacing. Take a moment to listen to what he has to say. It will make your day better.
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george bush to iraq-"american patience is not unlimited"

2006-10-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

On November 7th the United States of America and the rest of the world, with a little luck and the grace of the godess, will see some daylight. The mid term elections, according to pollsters (and let's not re mortgage our homes on what the pollsters say) will almost certainly see the Congress, and possibly even the Senate re taken by the Democrats.

This is the extent to which Joe and Jane American can see and understand the massive tragedy that has befallen two nations, the USA and Iraq, as a result of the military adventure of the one of the most stupid elected officials in North American history. And that includes Canada's "Steve" Harper.

George Bush invaded Iraq. He encouraged his intelligence agencies to cook information in order to justify that invasion. Nearly 3000 young Americans have died in his war. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens have died, mostly as a result of the insurgency and the secular violence between the Shite and Sunni Muslims.

Bush, right after September 11th, 2001, named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the Axis of Evil. Now Iran is preparing to make a nuclear weapon and North Korea has tested it's first. Hizbollah felt emboldened enough by the chaos in Iraq and the growing belligerence of Iran to attack Israel and then hunker down for a month long war against Israel last summer.

It would be wrong to suggest George Bush is responsible for all of that. He is responsible for Iraq and the wrong headed post 911 policy that sent a message to Iran and North Korea. When those two countries saw Iraq invaded, what do you imagine they were going to do? Lie down and wait their turn?

They are preparing for war.

This is what nations do when they are named evil by another nation, a super power, that has developed a foreign policy that is organized around their self declared right to pre empt any real or perceived threat.
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The re election of the Democrats won't make all of these dark clouds disperse. But it will be a break in the clouds and it will be a time when we can use the light to consider the change in direction that may make the world a safer place. One of the shifts in direction will be the replacement of one idea with another:

You do have to negotiate with your enemy. It is essential to negotiate with your enemy. You make peace with your enemy or you don't get peace. The false pride of idiots like George Bush and Cheney and Blair and Sharon have caused more deaths than all of the attacks of the radical Islamists combined, since that September morning, nearly six years ago. The exception might be the genocide in Darfur.

In a press conference yesteday, President Bush made a last ditch attempt to influence the outcome of the coming mid terms elections. He said he was "...not satisfied..." with his war in Iraq and he warned the Iraqi government that Americans "...do not have unlimited patience..."

Coming from anyone else this statement would be incredible. You invade a nation and create the conditions that lead to a flood of blood and suffering, and then you tell that nation it needs to "...stop all that shit..." because you are running out of patience!

Coming from Bush it's just the lastest evidence the most dangerous holder of power on the planet is still at the helm.
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the story of my life (the existential underwear problem)

2006-10-25T17:34:00.000-07:00

The Vancouver Province decided to tell the story of my life in yesterday's edition. When I think of all the trouble I may have been spared if I had just been less interested in finding out, for sure, the answer to life's greatest and most mysterious question:

Will her underwear come off or not?

And the thing is, when her underwear comes off, whether it surprises you or not, you can't just rectify the situation by handing back the underwear and saying, "Here, put it back on!"

No, you are there, with her underwear in your hand, your life forever altered, possibly greatly misunderstood, or even reviled, just because you had to know about the underwear.
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and now the american embassy (ltd) in iraq

2006-10-25T06:23:00.000-07:00

Click on this link and read something that ought to boggle your mind. Don't argue or tell me you're too busy. Just do what I tell you. Call in sick. Take the next week off. Click on the fucking link! The United States of America is in the process of building the largest embassy in all of history. That's correct, the largest, the biggest, the baddest....in...all...of...history.

Where, you ask?

Why, right smack dab in the middle of the country where they have been welcomed, this last few years, with such a show of heartfelt gratitude. Iraq. This mammoth complex will employ 4,000 people. If you are following the progress of America's latest adventure in nation building you will know voice after voice after voice is being raised (and these are conservative voices), on how the war has been an abject failure.

Don't wait for the conservatives to say it, but I will (and without any pleasure): this war has wasted the lives of almost 3000 young Americans and only God, apparently, knows how many Iraqis. How the hell is a monster sized American presence, a permanent one no less, supposed to aid the future re conciliation that needs to happen in Iraq?

If you didn't like the first article I provided the link to, please accept my heartfelt apology, from the heart of my bottom. Here's another link, maybe you'll like this one better.
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a pretty face may last a year or two (but pretty soon we'll see what you can do)

2006-10-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

The words in the title are lifted from John Lennon's very bitchy shot across Paul McCartney's bow in the early '70's, following the breakup of the Fab Four. The Lennon song was called "How Do You Sleep At Night?" Lennon and the other two Beatles, George and Ringo, were more than a little disappointed with McCartney's contribution to the litigious end of their musical union.

The crack about a "pretty face" was a reference a Paul's good looks and reputation as the number one heart throb of the group. This is all written in support of my gratuitous posting of the above picture of Beatle Paulie, all these years later, his face looking slightly worse for the lack of sleep he is experiencing, what with having to get through the day minus his alleged one legged punching bag.

And speaking of bags: what are those under Sir Paul's eyes?

Those aren't bags. That's a full set of luggage. And he has paid for that luggage, plus tax. Lost two of his best mates, John and George, and his really best mate Linda. Made a mistake of the heart when he threw his lot in with Heather Mills.

McCartney is the guy who sang, all those sleeps ago, Why Don't We Do It In The Road? He's gonna be doing it in the road, alright. By the time the lawyers are done with Sir Paul he will be booking the tours until he's 84. Take a look at that picture again...

He looks great, actually. Now if he would just lose the Lady Clairol and show us what a real man can look like as he's growing old, I would twist and shout. I like Paul McCartney. I am forever indebted to him for the tunes he added to the soundtrack of my youth. I'm in his corner all the way. Look at those crows feet. Those are from laughing his ass off in the back of limousines and in hotel rooms with the fabs.

God bless you Paul McCartney. Get that old guitar out and sing it to yourself outloud. I can't wait to hear the story.
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on mortality, margaretisms and muddy's world

2006-10-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

On Mortality

I write about this because I think you, the reader, will have experienced these kinds of moments. I come into the house and look around. There are pieces of paper scattered hither and thither and yon. Papers with this written and typed upon them, and that.

Receipts and memos. Reminders to myself and to...myself. Scraps of paper donated by the local real estate sales person who would like us to buy an entire place to keep more pieces of paper. There are stacks of old mail (with thanks to Margaret), there are stacks of new mail; bills that are somewhere between current and overdue.

Magazines I have not gotten around to reading. Articles I've printed out and not gotten around to reading. Newspapers from weeks ago. My imagination, when it comes to reading, is way bigger than either my capacity or ability.

I look at these pieces of paper and think about death. My own. How much time do I have to get rid of this paper and how should I get rid of this paper? It seems to me there are two main approaches to this challenge (formerly called problem):

- Read everything, including the bills and receipts. This means, of course, moving the piles about, like those old key chain games, with the squares that moved about until all the red squares lined up

- Throw every fucking piece of paper out. Every one. Except my driver's license. Including everything I've written to date. Toss it out and never look back.
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Margaretisms

I should not make fun of Margaret and her ongoing battle to find lost words. I should not suggest that senile dementia, early onset, is funny. But I will. Margaret bought a new lamp. She sits with her knitting, or reading a book, in the dark. If she made a squeaking noise I would think she is a bat.

She was happily setting up her new lamp and turned it on. She was disappointed. It was not casting the bright light she imagined. She stood there, hands on hips, and thought for a moment. Then she asked this question:

"What force is this light bulb?"

I answered, "What episode of Star Trek are you in? Because if you can tell me that I may be able to tell you what "force" the lightbulb is. It may be Force 1. You may want Force 7. " Margaret will have to settle for a lightbulb that is stronger until they make one that is more forceful.
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Muddy's World

Muddy67 (aka Bruce Gilchrist) is a man who spends a great deal of time in thought. He has questions to ask and he would like some answers. He has taken the time to stay in touch with me for almost 23 years. I was thinking about that today (I spend some time in thought myself, because my head, contrary to what some will suggest, is attached to my body), thinking how quickly that time has passed and thinking how much I've enjoyed my always stimulating, sometimes enervating near and long distance relationship with Muddy.

He operated an online forum for a time, called Bilateral Notions. He wanted to engage with others who care about the issues and events and experiences we have in common, or don't have in common but would like to share anyhow.

Muddy is back with Muddy's World. Follow that link to his new forum and check it out. You can never learn too much, particularly of a good thing.
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daly's dilemma top story tracker for the coming weeks

2006-10-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

Watch these ones. I will:

PETER MACKAY-WILL HIS "DOG" BITE HIM? HOW HARD?

This one may fade to black or it may raise it's hairy head and snap at the ankles of Peter MacKay. My prediction is that the Liberals will use the early part of the week testing the "shame....resign, Peter MacKay waters..." and then abandon that mid week to focus on the upcoming by elections just called by Steve Harper.

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IRAQ-IT'S ALL BUT OVER

There have been many many indications that the Democrats are poised to re take the House of Congress in the upcoming (November 7th) mid terms. The single greatest reason for the Republican fall from grace is Iraq, where about 200 American soldiers and upwards of 4000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the last few months.

The rise in sectarian and reprisal killings has been out of control for some time. There are new voices, every day, joining the existing opposition to the American occupation. Look for George Bush to parse his way out of this.
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THE CANUCKS-LIVE OR MEMOREX?

The Canucks are showing signs. It's just hard to say what these signs are. They have games where they seem to think it's ok to begin playing with ten minutes to go in the 3rd period. On the other skate, they have come back to win some exciting contests, and you gotta like that.
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our mommy's dead-i can't get it through my head

2006-10-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

The universal mother, Jane Wyatt, of Father Knows Best fame, has left this mortal coil. So we'll have to fucking well figure things out on our own now!

bobby clarke finally gets his chocolates

2006-10-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday, and there is proof the universe continues to be ruled by the Old Testament God, who delivers justice with a bolt of lightening (out of a blue sky sometimes). Bobby Clarke, arguably hockey's biggest asshole (and I say that with due respect, knowing that Clarke would consider it an accolade) has finally been relieved of his duties.

This is the guy who put the screws to Vancouver recently, tabling an offer to Ryan Kesler that was incredibly inflated, knowing the Canucks would be forced to match it in order to keep a young player they have tutored in their organization.

Some of his other accomplishments:

- Commenting on legendary coach (he instituted the waving of the white towel when he was with Vancouver) Roger Neilson's cancer (which was terminal) and the club's choice to let him go, "We didn't tell Roger to go and get cancer..."

- His team has been showing up in the post season since forever and since forever has been bounced without the coveted prize

- His complete mismanagement of what might have been one of hockey's greatest players, Eric Lindros. Clarke preferred endless pissing contests with Lindros's family to developing a player and ensuring his health was attended to (see history of concussions and the infamous punctured lung story)

- Clarke is the warrior who broke the young Russian star Kharlamov's ankle, on direction from his coach the story goes, so that Team Canada would have a better shot at winning the fabled 1972 Canada-Russia series

Bobby Clarke has been with the Flyers throughout his playing days, which ended more than two decades ago, and with their front office since then. Followers of the team and the game have long wondered what Clarke had (the Immunity Idol?) that kept him there. Apparently whatever insurance he had just expired. It looks pretty good on him. Watch; the Canucks will hire him here if Nonis or the new coach falter.

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taking back our sexual souls

2006-10-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

My bathroom book of the moment is The Treehouse, by Naomi Wolf. It's the story of Wolf's turning 40 crisis and her seeking help from her father. She wanted to re learn some of the lessons the old poet taught her when she was a child. Wolf remembers how she turned away from her father, in her youth, and rejected his ideas.

Now she finds she needs a reminder of his approach to living in a healthy way. Her 80 year old father believes the key to contentment and good health is creativity. Without some connection to our own creative power, he is convinced, we will not be well and we will squelch a fuller experience of the world around us.

Wolf bought a run down old property in the country and retreated their to restore the home and her own depleted soul. She and her father built a treehouse and while they were doing that Wolf asked her father to re teach her, formally, the lessons she had turned away from so long ago.
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I also found this essay by Naomi Wolf. She is writing about pornography, and it's effects on the sexual experience of men and women. I think she is describing the thing accurately and she has some worthwhile messages for anyone who is interested:

The Porn Myth

In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing.

By Naomi Wolf

At a benefit the other night, I saw Andrea Dworkin, the anti-porn activist most famous in the eighties for her conviction that opening the floodgates of pornography would lead men to see real women in sexually debased ways. If we did not limit pornography, she argued—before Internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility—most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. In a kind of domino theory, she predicted, rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow.

The feminist warrior looked gentle and almost frail. The world she had, Cassandra-like, warned us about so passionately was truly here: Porn is, as David Amsden says, the “wallpaper” of our lives now. So was she right or wrong?

She was right about the warning, wrong about the outcome. As she foretold, pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.

But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.

Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up: They can’t compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.

For two decades, I have watched young women experience the continual “mission creep” of how pornography—and now Internet pornography—has lowered their sense of their own sexual value and their actual sexual value. When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market. If there was nothing actively alarming about you, you could get a pretty enthusiastic response by just showing up. Your boyfriend may have seen Playboy, but hey, you could move, you were warm, you were real. Thirty years ago, simple lovemaking was considered erotic in the pornography that entered mainstream consciousness: When Behind the Green Door first opened, clumsy, earnest, missionary-position intercourse was still considered to be a huge turn-on.

Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.) Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high “exchange value,” as Marxist economists would say—wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices.

The porn loop is de rigueur, no longer outside the pale; starlets in tabloids boast of learning to strip from professionals; the “cool girls” go with guys to the strip clubs, and even ask for lap dances; college girls are expected to tease guys at keg parties with lesbian kisses à la Britney and Madonna.

But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.

The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.

So Dworkin was right that pornography is compulsive, but she was wrong in thinking it would make men more rapacious. A whole generation of men are less able to connect erotically to women—and ultimately less libidinous.

The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity.

After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.

Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

And feminists have misunderstood many of these prohibitions.

I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf. I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”

When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

Compare that steaminess with a conversation I had at Northwestern, after I had talked about the effect of porn on relationships. “Why have sex right away?” a boy with tousled hair and Bambi eyes was explaining. “Things are always a little tense and uncomfortable when you just start seeing someone,” he said. “I prefer to have sex right away just to get it over with. You know it’s going to happen anyway, and it gets rid of the tension.”

“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”

“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”

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the desert

2006-10-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

This picture reveals (more than I'd like) my perpetually increasing fleshtone highlights. I'm still growing, I guess. I'm growing right through the top of my own hair. But look at the desert. That's what we go there for. That dry as a bone ancient show of the sun's power and influence on this blue green rock.

Imagine that sky a deeper blue, because it is.

Everything is bleached out and when I drive through I wonder about the green things that survive. This picture was taken near a place called the Gorge, which is the beginning of the Grand Canyon. We stopped to look at some silver and Navajo crafts. The paint on the pottery was sticky from sitting super heated under the relentless burning globe. No matter how many times I go there I want to go there again. Soon.