HUMAN WRECKAGE

Fleeting Crossword Soul Searching

I was standing at the kitchen sink, a waffled tea towel in my hand. I’d decided I’d give Jesus the morning off from drying our breakfast dishes, what with Easter chocolate on grocery store shelves and Facebook’s “memories” function prepping to remind Him of the worst-ever long weekend of His short life. Ann was seated at the counter, the Crooked 9’s command centre: phones, paper, pencils and pens at hand, the bulletin board and wall calendar hanging to her right. She was studying Sunday’s New York Times crossword: always a themed, expanded grid (21x21 as opposed to the other six days’ 15x15) and generally “Thursday” difficulty.

Ann said, “You should know this one, 98-across: ‘Letters on a crucifix.’”

I said, “Four letters?”

Ann said, “Four letters.”

I wiped my Who logo coffee mug dry. Pontius Pilate’s mocking acronym was just beyond the tip of my tongue, floating there by the cupboard door handle. Oh, God, I thought, I should know this one. I really should.

My father’s parents were both British; they met (in church, as it happens) and married in Montreal. My father was raised in the Church of England. Speaking with him late in his life (and much later in my own), I came to understand that any faith that had been ingrained in him did not withstand night fighter sorties over the Continent, nor even the shocking toll exacted on his squadron by training flights over Scotland and the North Sea. My mother grew up in a Roman Catholic family. Her father was of Irish extraction and her mother was French-Canadian. When my parents married in 1950, the in-laws agreed that the grandchildren would be raised Catholic. I doubt my father cared one way or the other.

There were religious icons in my childhood bedroom, co-existing with the bogeyman in the closet and the monster under my bed. My guardian angel was a little boy in a blue robe with unnaturally large eyes. He had wings of course, and a prop, maybe a harp. He never struck me as entirely fit for the night watch. Beneath his portrait was a wooden crucifix with a bronzed Jesus nailed to it. Above his slumped head was an unfurled though curling scroll of bronzed vellum inscribed with some abbreviated Latin. Four letters.

Judas! It wasn’t long before my guardian angel and the decent fellow who died for the sins I committed even before I was born were replaced by an even bigger superhero, rendered almost half the size I actually was. I don’t know who inked and coloured Spider-Man in the late 60s; Stan Lee, I presume. Spidey was coming to my rescue, on the run. His blue, red and black costume popped from a plain white background. Decades were to pass before I came to appreciate the use of negative space in art and design, and to a certain extent, music and writing. Allow the viewer, listener and reader to fill in the blanks as (and if) required.

The web-slinging, wall-crawler’s flaw (because every hero has one, tragic or otherwise) was his inability to skate. He did not appear on the hockey posters I could get by saving up Coca-Cola bottlecap liners nor was he present on the hockey collectibles my father was handed at the Esso station for putting a “tiger in the tank” of our maroon Beaumont. Spidey did not play for the Montreal Canadiens. The hockey players on my wall had short careers – as most athletes do; Mick Jagger was waiting to go on, coked up and jittery.

I said to Ann, “Can you cross it with anything? I’m wracking my brain.”

She said, “No, but I think there’s an ‘I’.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

IRAE: “Dies – (requiem hymn)”; IRIE: “A-okay in some slang”; INXS: “‘Listen like Thieves’ band”; INRE: “Memo abbrev.”; NIHI: “Bygone grape soda”; INTO: “Fan of”; RANI: “Hindu queen” …

FUCK! (Crude, inappropriate and inarticulate exclamation often indictive of poor education and limited vocabulary.)

When the Tuesday Night Beer Club convenes Stats Guy, Ted and I often stump ourselves talking hockey players, baseball standings, epic war movie casts and celluloid Bond girls. Stats Guy always says, “We can googalize it.” Ted pulls out his phone. I always demure; hungover Catholics instinctively understand instant gratification is sinful. Safer in the long term to wait, believe in the payout at Saint Peter’s heavenly wagering window. I can’t imagine a devoted Roman Catholic signing up for Amazon Prime.

Ann said, “Got it!” She’d crossed the rubric. “INRI.”

“That’s it!” I cried.

“What’s it mean?”

Yessir, that’s my unbaptized pagan baby! I said, “Ah….” The ancient Roman alphabet consists of just 23 letters. Perfectly adequate for writing Latin, I suppose (their numbering system is unwieldy – the concept of zero as a digit in Western mathematics was still centuries hence). “'King of the Jews' or something like that,” I continued. A reminder of Rome’s absolute authority in Judea. Cut to Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

I could and still can see the faded green and yellowing Palm Sunday frond up against the wall in my pale blue bedroom, tucked behind the crucifix. I had to googalize INRI: Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum.

INRE to INRI: Unless 98-across comes up again in the next couple of weeks, I’m not going to remember any of this. Storage capacity is limited and there is more meaningful arcana to retain. Like the running order of It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll. Is “Luxury” on side one or side two? I knew that. Or I did.

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is available in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did remains in print. Collect the set! They're moving faster than gas station hockey posters. While supplies last!

SAINTS PRESERVE US

Mixed Emotions in Alberta

The Iran war is now in its second raging week. Taking my cue from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, I’m just trying to make some sense of it all. I’m unsure, ambivalent and kind of uncertain all at once.

I don’t believe a fascist and hardline sectarian theocracy that addresses human rights within its borders with torture and guns, wages regional warfare by proxy and who tacitly supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ensuing years of quagmire is a particularly noble national endeavour. I wonder about the end result or even if there will be such a thing. The odious and incompetent regime in Venezuela simply grew another head following the recent American decapitation operation. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan: plus ca change. I worry too that FIFA, that gleefully corrupt organization behind football’s World Cup, is contemplating rescinding its inaugural “peace prize,” that shabby, ass-licking token it bestowed on der Trumpenfuhrer because the US Congress, the United Nations Security Council and The Hague (where the remanding of alleged war criminals is frequently stymied by lawyers, diplomatic immunity and finessed extradition treaties) may conclude an illegal war isn’t simply laissez-faire.

But, man, typing at my writing table in the Crooked 9 here in the United Conservative Kingdom of Alberta, I know one thing for sure: War in the Middle East is a barrel of oil’s golden goose. Alberta is Canada’s petro-province. An alarming number of residents imagine it as a state of some sort. The fiscal fortunes of generations of provincial governments have been in lock-step with the cyclonic boom-and-bust cycles of the energy industry. Good times are credited to local know-how and Alberta’s can-do spirit. Bad times are blamed on geopolitics and the remote, elitist eastern mandarins (bastards all) in Ottawa, uncontrollable factors. Consequently, a consistent narrative in a one-horse town can get tricky.

The official political discourse the week prior to the Iranian adventure was interesting. Premier Danielle Smith, the Banshee of Invermectin, addressed the province days before her government’s budget was to be tabled in the legislature. Her oratory, always glib, signalled hard times ahead. Serious ground softening, a rhetorical barrage. Tar sands royalties ain’t what they used to be. Assigning blame, she rounded up the usual suspect. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau was allocated his usual place up against the wall. Ineffectual as he was, he of course (and every other Canadian taxpayer) got Alberta’s precious Trans Mountain pipeline extension done. Yarded on it, just gave 'er, bud. But, never mind. Shockingly, Smith’s updated and expanded hit list included recent immigrants to her formerly fair province. It’s important to remember that two successive United Conservative Party administrations paid for “Alberta Calling,” a nationwide ad campaign designed to attract newcomers. Smith is on record as saying she’d like to see Alberta’s population double. Fuck me if she didn’t remember the province’s teetering health care and K-12 education systems. Apparently, they’re strained now.

And then the bomb, assembled by sweaty, unsteady hands, dropped. The ultimate deflection of reality. Potentially explosive. Next October, the Government of Alberta will embark on a direct democracy exercise. Pandering to the lowest common denominator. A referendum consisting of nine questions concerned with curtailing the rights and privileges of newcomers, and that squishy can of often-impotent worms, the morass of documents that comprise Canada’s Constitution. Albertans will have something else to contemplate other than the sheer incompetence of their UCP government. And by the grace of every fiery evangelical preacher who ever lived, the party’s lunatic fringe gets a sanctified bone.   

Smith’s subsequent austerity budget predicted a deficit of some $9.4 billion. This contravened the UCP’s own legislation banning three consecutive annual provincial deficits. Funny thing about laws, if you make ‘em you can break ‘em. Financial analysts were concerned that the UCP numbers were predicated on a blue-sky oil price, one that didn’t jibe with the US Department of Energy’s assessment or those of industry analysts. And fair enough, estimates informed as they may be, are predictions.

Monday morning you sure look fine. The Middle East erupted last weekend. Sometimes circumstances collude and collide and geopolitics shake down on the right’s side: the UCP’s Monday morning caucus meeting must have been jubilant, some kind of stilted bacchanal. Oil is like miraculous ocean surf in this landlocked place, way up. As for the inevitable inflationary spiral that will cause, gasoline, jet fuel, logistics, what have you, Smith will blame the usual suspects, both new and used.

Here at home, I see a provincial government crippled by its own inflexible ideology and thus barely competent. The UCP means well for the most part, all things considered, I think. Broadening my view, I discern a similar pattern the world over although motive and intent for many are definitely suspect. Anyway, a good week for some. And so it goes. More to come.

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still in print. Collect the set! 

A FAN’S NOTES

An Eyemaxful of Elvis

Elvis is alive!

Or somewhat more objectively, the King finally receives his silver screen crown. Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, director of the 2022 atomic biopic Elvis, has graced rockers worldwide with EPiC, Elvis Presley in concert. And somewhat more subjectively, it’s fucking fantastic.

You looking for trouble? Look right in my IMAX face. (Oh, my boy, curl your upper lip.)

What is it with film directors from Down Under and rock ‘n’ roll? Utilizing lost then found audio and video footage, Luhrmann has reimagined both Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970) and Elvis on Tour (1972). EPiC is revisionist cinema by an admiring auteur. It is Peter Jackson transforming Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be into Get Back in the way Martin Scorsese expanded D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back into No Direction Home. Fresh eyes and attitude incorporating discards, celluloid frames swept up from the cutting room floor.

The Elvis songs I heard growing up blared through the speaker grille of the green plastic A.M. radio in the kitchen. Schmaltz and schlock my mom tolerated even though Presley was no Sinatra or Engelbert Humperdinck. And anyway, my big sister had far more interesting music in her pink bedroom; Capitol and Apple Corps. pressings of the Beatles. And he died young, when rock still ruled and punk was on the rise, a doughy caricature out of frame in American Graffiti.

Elvis was problematic at the end of his life. He was (relatively) old for a rocker whereas my second-generation heroes were destined to remain perennially young and glamorous. Ageless: Pete Townshend and Peter Gabriel wouldn’t go bald; David Gilmour wouldn’t conceal his paunch behind a guitar. These guys would never play the oldies circuit, state fairs and casinos. Not in my generation. I never imagined immortality would constitute a band morphing into a brand. When Elvis died, nobody really knew what to make of an aged pioneer. His determination to keep working was somehow undignified. We all know better now.

RCA released The Sun Sessions CD in 1987. I bought it after reading a beyond five-star review in Rolling Stone. The cover is a staid and classic portrait, a high school yearbook photo; hand-tinted with hints of natural blond in his hair. A beautiful boy. The music, notably “Trying to Get to You”, “Mystery Train” and “Baby, Let’s Play House” stoned me to my soul. I’d bought it in part because any decent music library demands some Elvis. But what really blew me away was the revelation that for any revolution, cultural shift or boost in progress, there’s never a single crucible because somehow different people in different places unfailingly tap into the zeitgeist at the same time; a mystical, collective singularity. Elvis was as tuned in as Chuck Berry, Johnny Burnette, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Ike Turner and Little Richard.

The Presley discography is mainly a morassic quagmire of shitty B-movie soundtracks, shoddy repackages and indifferent live albums. A crying shame. Beyond a couple of stunning compilations (The Top Ten Hits or Elv1s), there are by my count just six Elvis records that matter. I’ve no idea how his early Sun sides are sold nowadays, but you need them. You really, really do. Honest. Trust me. Elvis Presley, his first RCA release, was a long player, 33 and 1/3. I believe that record shook up the business. Young people wanted depth and would pay more for it; the drib and drab of a 45 wasn’t enough: the LP became the cornerstone of popular music. If you can’t picture its cover, there’s no point in me mentioning the Clash’s London Calling sleeve homage. The minor tragedy is that you may now skip ahead from the late 50s all the way to 1969’s From Elvis in Memphis.

There are three live albums too and unsurprisingly, they’re all from the same moment in time. On Stage and In Concert were both released in 1970. These are the Las Vegas shows that EPiC concentrates on. To me, Vegas in that glitzy showbiz era of Wayne Newton and the Rat Pack was about as uncool as it could get, baby. Who knew the city would devolve further into bloated American excess grotesque? And get hip. Elvis performed two and sometimes three shows per day. Each one had to be as fresh and even better than the previous. Elvis neither drank nor smoked. In the film he says he needs five or six hours to unwind after work. Aw, Christ. The viewer knows what’s coming: uppers, downers and more pills in between to take the edge off.

The third live album is Tiger Man, a posthumous release whose cover to my eyes suggests Lou Reed’s Transformer (I think too much). It is the complete second show of the black leather sequence of the ’68 Comeback Special. If you consider what the Beatles and Rolling Stones were concocting for the British Broadcasting Corporation around that time (it's possible both bands enjoyed illicit drugs), The Magical Mystery Tour and Rock and Roll Circus respectively, the white bread mores American network television inflicted on its talent is almost biblical in a satanic way: cheese into smegma. Elvis rose above most of it. Handsome, healthy and fit, armoured by a charming sense of humour, he found his mojo again in the concert settings. Like all of EPiC, that portion of the broadcast is utterly compelling.

Fittingly, EPiC opens with “Tiger Man”: I’m the King of the Jungle/They call me the Tiger Man… Watch out! There’s more to come. Elvis is svelte, still in his thirties. His fringed jumpsuit, especially the high collar, is ridiculous, but Jagger, Bowie and Freddie Mercury dressed funny too. Lemmy from Motorhead once said concertgoers don’t want to see the boy next door up on stage, they’re expecting someone from another planet. That’s the way it is.

EPiC depicts a rejuvenated Elvis in context. There is a slim and unobtrusive underlying narrative to the film and it is universal: frustration and regret – themes of half the popular songs ever written. Elvis in a voiceover says he wants to tour Great Britain, Europe and even Japan. “I’ve never even played New York (City).” The International Hotel on Paradise Road seems a sour compromise. No escape from a trap. “Never Been to Spain” by Hoyt Axton is one of my favourite songs. I must’ve heard it first on the radio or possibly The Midnight Special because if Helen Reddy wasn’t on, Three Dog Night was. The lyrics entrance me. They’re not nihilistic yet nowhere is the destination. The movie’s most poignant moment is when the band, led by James Burton, launches into this one with Elvis at full throttle. He means it, man.

EPiC is exhilarating. Luhrmann carefully crafted “The Wonder of You” and the addictive taste is bittersweet. God, the response overseas would’ve pushed Elvis out of what quickly became a rut. Exiting the theatre I thought about Springsteen writing “Fire” for Elvis and Bowie reputedly writing “Golden Years” for him (!?). And I thought about producer Rick Rubin stripping down Johnny Cash (and even Neil Diamond – the “Jewish Elvis” in dated entertainment press parlance). Oh, well. That’s the way it was then; that’s the way it is now. No point crying in the parking lot. Dry those tears from your eyes.                  

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still in print. Collect the set! 

A FAN’S NOTES

Men’s Olympic Hockey

Is there any other Winter Games sport? Hockey, provided it’s played well, is the most exciting sport on Earth. Non-stop action, skill and violence at high speeds in a confined space. “Quicksilver ballet” is the slickest and most glib descriptor I’ve ever read about the game in any sportswriting; memory fails – I cannot cite its coiner. “Firewagon hockey” was the definitive hyperbolic phrase describing the style of “the Flying Frenchmen” – the Montreal Canadiens in those black and white radio days before I was born (although I can’t imagine “Rocket” Richard keeping up to Connor McDavid). Canada’s preliminary cruise through an admittedly weak 2026 Group A in Milano has been something akin to both to behold. There are words: elan, panache.

The New York City-based National Hockey League always chirps about growing what Canadian journalist Peter Gzowski called The Game of Our Lives. Because its involvement in marquee international events is intermittent, “growing the game” is marketing code for two strategies. In the United States the NHL is the perennial fourth league, possibly the fifth behind souped-up cars turning left, or NASCAR. While the US remains the league’s largest market, the 1980 Lake Placid “Miracle on Ice” probably did more to grow the sport’s audience (and participation) south of 49 than anything the NHL has ever done unwittingly or not. And peddling expensive official fan gear can be lucrative.

The debate whether professionals should be permitted to participate in an Olympiad is dead. When the NHL elects to participate in the Winter Games it encounters a paradox. Its macro product shines on the global stage while casting an awfully dark shadow over its micro North American product. When Canada plays Czechia or Slovakia plays Sweden in a February tournament, fans see what hockey can and should be. They will not see the same sport when Columbus plays Utah on an October Tuesday night even though ticket prices are comparable. A bloated league with an endless and meaningless regular season inadvertently lays bare its woeful shortcomings to its home audience.

It's important to differentiate a love for the game from a love for the NHL. The world’s best league does not embody the sport’s ideal. It has diluted the game. I believe most NHL fans are like me. They love one franchise, despise another and don’t care about the other 30. The last time I was in New York City, the Nashville Predators were visiting. I thought, “It might be fun to see a game in Madison Square Gardens and the Rangers have good uniforms.” And then I thought, “Why bother?” In Las Vegas the following winter I looked into Golden Knights tickets. The St. Louis Blues were in town. I thought, “St. Louis Blues: possibly the best marriage of a city and nickname in all of sports; still, why bother?” Twice a few hundred $US to the good. Admittedly, had one or both of those games included Montreal, I’m there; so there for the belt notch and the war story – I think.

The Milano quarterfinals get underway this morning. Hockey at this level is like an advertising shill. It doesn’t come around often. And accept no substitutes.            

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still print. Collect the set while this exclusive offer still lasts! Accept no substitutes!