SAINTS PRESERVE US

We’re All Friends, Right?

Painting Alberta as a conservative province seems a by-numbers exercise. There exists a long tradition of evangelical Protestantism. A rural economy was elbowed into modern times when Leduc No. 1 propelled the province into an epoch of Big Oil, an industry not noted for its liberal outlook. Prior to the 2015 election, Albertans were content to buy into 44 consecutive years of Progressive Conservative (PC) rule. All of this is true, but not the complete picture. And right here, right now, Alberta’s conservative contingent itself is in disarray.

Shell-shocked Tories are attempting to kiss and make up with the Wildrose (WP), an angry faction calved from the once mighty Big Blue Machine. Resumption of power is the motive and no cost is too high and no ethical twist too difficult. The uneasy result is a nascent political entity known as the United Conservative Party (UCP). The common enemy is the sitting New Democrats (NDP), brain-washed socialist doormats all. Alas, already there is evidence that Alberta’s newly united conservatives may not have the wherewithal to tar each other with the same brush.

Even on a rainy day at a rodeo it’s impossible to herd all of Alberta’s conservatives under one tent. Some are centrists, some are libertarians, there’s no concrete bloc. PC leader Jason Kenney crowed that 95-per-cent of his party’s membership was in favour of merging with the WP even though barely half of them elected to engage themselves in the process. Meanwhile in Wildrose country, some disconsolate members of the recently deceased party, no strangers to ideological schisms, have opted to form another and as yet unnamed alternative to the UCP. Wait, it gets better.

The UCP is still a concept, sort of a populist sketch. It has no leader and consequently no coherent policies. Last weekend Jason Kenney announced his candidacy. With nothing to say, the former federal cabinet minister spent his speech slamming Ottawa because the nature of his Confederation is confrontation since only Albertans ‘get ‘er done!’ That’s something darn close to a miracle since the province’s school curriculum is ‘riddled with politically correct themes like oppression and colonialism and climate change.’ Former WP leader Brian Jean is already in the running; his pitch to the populace promised to ‘repeal, undo and replace much of the damage the NDP has done.’ Apparently he has policies, pre-approved by the Wildrose too - which should go over well with the disillusioned former PCs, the moderates, who lean to Kenney.

Both men necessarily spouted partisan rhetoric, but the aggrieved tones and puerile nastiness were off-putting. Stoke discord. Milk ignorance. Their messages were similar, recalling those halcyon days of coal mining and listening to songs their mothers would know. Sound bites of furious complaint. The next provincial election in Alberta will be held in 2019. That’s the future, the big picture, all there is to be concerned about. There’s a corporate whiff about the fledgling UCP, that nothing matters beyond the next set of quarterly poll results and that progress on any government file must be regressive, two steps back is good, three is better.

Not even Cher can turn back time. But before either of these dinosaurs can retro-fit and repaint 21^st century Alberta in the sepia tones of the good old days, one must defeat the other, unite the right and then assemble some sort of party platform, make public spending cuts. So, razors to the strop for a back alley rumble that will last until the end of October. Each dauphin wants to dress his old party up in brand new drag. The wild card is a third candidate, a lawyer from Calgary, a chap named Doug Schweitzer, the only dark horse in the race to date. Anybody remotely familiar with the shadowy intricacies of picking a political leader knows that everything doesn’t always go as planned at the final, fateful convention, that starry, starry night when deals are sealed and daggers glint behind the canvas party banners.

EDMONTON EXISTENTIAL

Disengagement

If you were to pick up a Postmedia broadsheet or one of its ragged Suns in a major Canadian city, it would take a moment or two to figure out where you were exactly in this big country. News, business, sports and arts are slight, generic items on a backlit McDonald’s franchise menu.

The debt-ridden company has long complained that digital entities such as Google and Facebook are killing its properties but these firms are not publishers. Postmedia is actively lobbying for federal subsidies arguing, rightly, that a healthy, independent and free press is an essential pillar of democracy. However, the grey lifeblood of the press was columns and columns of classified ads and the Internet has certainly played a major role in their disappearance from print; hell, there are no dead people in the obituaries these days. Dissatisfied readers cite a dearth of editorial staff, local content, indeed, any substantial or insightful content as just cause for breaking a long-established daily habit.

I once bought hash from a dealer I didn’t know outside the Montreal Forum before a concert. Nothing happened after a minute; nothing happened after an entire gram. I’m sure one or two my friends still owe me that $5 I lent them. I paid $1 to see the movie ‘Wayne’s World.’ I’ve purchased a few wedding rings. Suffice to say in my life I’ve spent money on nothing more than a few times.

The first-ever edition of the Edmonton Journal was put to bed in 1903. The newspaper is two years older than the Province of Alberta. Its beats are the rhythms of a capital city and consequently the entire province which makes it Alberta’s de facto paper of record. Edmonton is Canada’s youngest city, and hasn’t it grown up so fast? Including the murder rate. There is a myriad of other social issues too, some of which pre-date the Canadian Confederation of 1867. The tone in the legislature is increasingly American-style nasty; a civic election looms. Beneath an ever-changing and often extreme climate, folk are debating the future of fossil fuels and ways to diversify the provincial economy. It seems like awfully fertile ground for coverage and commentary. If only the Postmedia Journal would, or could.

Saturday night Ann and I sat up and out on the front porch talking about last week and next week, as we do. Ann said, ‘Our Journal subscription is up for renewal.’

I replied (with silent apologies to political columnist Graham Thomson, city columnists Paula Simons and Dave Staples, and my own degree in journalism), ‘Gas it. How much does it cost? Who cares? Let’s save the money. We’re not getting anything in return.’

Ann said, ‘I’ve read the Journal my whole life. I like the local news. I gave it another chance last year.’

I said, ‘I know, but there’s no point in even buying an e-subscription because there’s no content on any platform. Let’s stop the Journal and keep the Globe and Mail. The Globe covers Edmonton and Alberta better than the Journal does anyway.’

‘What about the New York Times Saturday crossword?’

‘Hmm.’ Some old habits are so hard to break. ‘Maybe we just take the Journal on the weekend.’ The paper’s only appeal to us involves a syndicated diversion from a foreign country. Makes you pause and think.

‘I’ll think about it.’

Prior to the last federal election, Postmedia’s head office instructed each of its editorial writers throughout its chain to endorse incumbent prime minister Stephen Harper for reelection. Nationwide, Postmedia newspapers shipped enshrouded in paid-for Tory propaganda. It’s no secret that a big ad buy with Postmedia comes with enhanced editorial coverage, the very anathema of a free and independent Fourth Estate.

Edmonton is sometimes referred to as ‘the festival city,’ especially in tourist guides. While the northern summers are short the days are long and there’s always something going on. Interstellar Rodeo is a weekend music festival mounted annually in a river valley park. It has broken some major acts in this town including Jason Isbell, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, and St. Paul and the Broken Bones. One performer will always blow off the pavilion roof sheltering the stage. Happens every year. Except this one.

Because of a collision of colluding circumstances, Ann and I did not attend Interstellar Rodeo this year. We were anxious to get the skinny on the festival, the lowdown. According to Monday morning’s Edmonton Journal the event never happened; nor did Nobel laureate Bob Dylan growl through a concert last Wednesday. We know: it’s only rock ‘n’ roll, and recipes for devilled eggs make for more interesting reading - the secret is smoked paprika! Interstellar Rodeo bought quarter-page, four-colour ads and front page banner ads and still couldn’t generate a single column inch of copy in the Journal.

Ann said, ‘Look at all this paper. There’s nothing in it. What a waste. I’ve made my decision.’ The waste of energy to transform pulp into newsprint, of ink on a heat-set press, of tap-tap typing banalities, we’d been wasting our money for a year or so too long. The absurdity ceased Monday morning. We finally wised up to the scam of paying money for nothing. Cord cut. Tellingly, we’ll be no less informed of the goings-on in our town.

CORRESPONDENCE: DEAR meGEOFF

A Letter from Tony

Tony Intas and I were classmates and football teammates at Montreal’s Loyola High School. That was 40 years ago. Tony is a resident of Vancouver; however for the next nine months or so he is itinerant, rootless, travelling. Today Tony writes to meGeoff from our hometown.

Greetings from Montreal.

I decided to take a break from the paradise that is the People’s Republic of British Columbia and return to the city of our respective births to experience some good old fashioned “Montrealisms,” those special moments that can only happen here.

That I have certainly done so far. Much to my pleasant surprise, I have also experienced some new ones, to me anyway, established during my extended absence, one of which I will describe now - a surprisingly active black market in plastic milk crates.

No, they are not being used to store record albums, as we all did as teenagers, but to put on the backs of bicycles, lots of bicycles, ridden by all kinds of people...

As I am here for a few months, and recall what an Olympic sport it is to try to find a parking space downtown, I decided to get a bicycle as my primary means of transport and errand running, with the appropriate amount of moral superiority and righteous indignation for those who do not do the same to minimize their carbon footprint and save the planet (yes, BC has had some effect on me).

As I am at the age where it now hurts too much for me to wear a backpack for any extended period of time (and affects my centre of gravity on the bike as I dodge other cyclists, cars, pedestrians and potholes), I decided to do what is “de rigeur” here, have a milk carton container installed on the back of my bike, perhaps the most securely fastened accessory on it, because these babies are in hot demand. Where does one get one? You could in theory buy one from a hardware store, but Montrealers do not buy what they can get for free, nor do they “pay retail." Instead, one “acquires” one, by oneself or by the more fun method of “from a guy or a guy who knows a guy." How and for how much? It is very much “don’t ask, don’t tell," pay cash if you absolutely must buy one (and don’t ask for a receipt of course because none will be forthcoming).

I expect that in the near future, restaurants and corner stores - the community centre hubs of society known here as “depanneurs,” will begin to padlock chain the milk crates in their back alleys to minimize the loss of these precious commodities, due to the “permanent” borrowing by those who have alternative uses for them. Until then, the selection from which to choose is virtually limitless. Pick a colour.

Who would have thought?

AMDG (Ad Majorem Dei Gloria) - for the Greater Glory of God

Tony

Readers of this blog who find themselves in places where they don’t normally find themselves, actual or otherwise, are encouraged to write meGeoff a letter detailing their experiences and impressions. Get in touch with me. I’m on Facebook.

NOIR CANADIANA

Advice Not Taken

My Walther P-38 lay in pieces on the workbench. I’d cleaned and oiled its parts. I’d flipped through my slabs of Semtex, dry and pristine in their sealed plastic sandwich bags. Upstairs the needle in the spinning groove was playing Coltrane and my thoughts wandered to risqué peepshow images of my buxom moll Ann Fatale, my love supreme. She’d gone out, shopping for booze, smokes and invisible nightwear. I was feeling neglected, hard done by. So when the black dial phone hung on the basement wall stud rang, I answered it.

I reckon that call came about a year ago. The phone hasn’t rung since then; I’m not easy to reach. My name’s Danger, Geoff Danger. I’m a fixer. If you lead a decent life, why, you need never know that men like me exist. Trust me: it’s better that way. Go to church and put your faith in some phantom other than the likes of me. Still, we’re all called in someway, aren’t we just?

‘Yeah?’ I grunted.

‘Mister Danger? My name’s, like, Ivanka?’

‘You may squeak like a broad, kid, but you ain’t no broad. What’s your name.’

‘Uh, Donny?’

I ran a pipe cleaner along the rifling inside the pistol barrel. I cradled the receiver in the crook of my neck, shoulder hunched. ‘Got a surname, kid?’

‘Junior? Donny Junior. Some friends of mine in Washington, very powerful friends, very powerful, suggested I seek your counsel.’

‘Talk is cheap, kid,’ I grunted. ‘Wet work’s more efficient.’

‘Uh, that’s really not an option? Anyway, like, daddy’s running for president and I’ve been offered some very damaging information about, like, his opponent whom I’ll call “Lock Her Up” for the purposes of this conversation?’

I lit a cigarette and poured myself three fingers of Irish. I took a healthy swig. After I swallowed, I grunted, ‘Go on.’ I took a deep drag on my cigarette. ‘Who’s your source?’

‘There are two,’ Donny Junior continued, ‘with impeccable, very fine, credentials. One is a lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. The other is a gentleman who used to work for the KGB.’

‘Ex-KGB,’ I grunted. ‘Hmm.’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘the accounting firm, very, very well known. You’ve heard of them?’

‘We’ve crossed paths.’ I flicked an inch of ash into my copper Expo ’67 ashtray. I peered around my workroom studying the various tools I’d accumulated during the ensuing 50 years. My gaze rested on my chisels and saws; they were sharp at least. ‘What do they want in exchange for this so-called information?’

‘Nothing! I love it!’

I grunted, ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch, kid.’ I thought of Ann Fatale’s annual attempt to make me a sandwich. She doesn’t know which side of a slice of bread to butter: best leave it to the kitchen staff of the best hotel in town.

‘But there is, Mister Danger! There is! My family’s been eating for free, like, at very low cost, for, like, two generations! By the way, have you tried the taco salad at daddy’s New York restaurant? Tasty, very, very tasty, delicious.’

‘Sure,’ I grunted. ‘Well, I’ll tell you something for nothing, kid, since you called. Walk away from this deal and keep walking and don’t leave a trail. That’s my advice, for what it’s worth.’

‘Thanks for your, like, valued input, Mister Danger!’

I hung up the phone. I’ve been shot. I’ve been stabbed. I’ve been punched. I’ve been slapped. I know a brush-off when I hear one. Coltrane was still blowing in the living room on the hi-fi. I heard Ann Fatale blow in through the front door and drop her marketplace bags in the vestibule with a whoosh and a sigh. Then I heard the diamond needle tick-tick around the Impulse! label, the end of “Resolution.” I glanced at the black phone. Somebody had to have been listening; I’d heard the faint clicks. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘not my gig, not my country, but that’s not the end of it.’ I shrugged at the silent furnace and strode upstairs to deal with more important things.

HUMAN WRECKAGE

Desperate Measures

When I first arrived in Edmonton in 1990 I learned quickly that if I didn’t like the weather, all I had to do was be patient for ten minutes. It was soon apparent too that the city was graced only by two seasons, construction and winter. Today our neighbourhood is under occupation by a paving contractor, crews, trucks and machines. The upgrades to the sidewalks and street surfaces are long overdue. Aged residential infrastructure must necessarily take a backseat to ring roads, light rail transit expansion, dedicated bike paths on roads never designed to accommodate afterthought lanes, utilities and services. The expanding city is cash-strapped, hamstrung by limited avenues to raise additional revenue beyond property taxes.

During the last week of June, the postal carrier who services the Crooked 9 summoned me from the garage. She was standing in the middle of the road. I walked to the edge of the abyss. I leaned on my broom. She informed me apologetically that she was not permitted to deliver mail to addresses without sidewalks. I replied, “Fair enough.” I did not mention to her that the person who delivers the morning newspapers in the darkness before the dawn continued to negotiate the trench, the barriers, the stakes, the flags and the wires that now demarcate the property. I often hear the slap and thunk of the broadsheets’ arrival because I’m usually up in a fog, reading a sandwich at the kitchen counter and eating a magazine.

The undone state of the block has led to something of a midnight crisis. Despite two walkable Canada Post substations in the area, the mail piles up at an inconveniently located sorting depot in an industrial park. The Economist and The New Yorker no longer get delivered a week late, they don’t get delivered at all. I’ve nothing to read at three o’clock in the morning. I could substitute a book but a splayed, hands-free and hoagie-friendly book requires a broken spine and that just won’t do.

ROBBERY PREVENTION PROGRAM IN EFFECT. NO BALLCAPS. NO SUNGLASSES. NO HOODIES. The other day I strode into a chain depanneur, measuring myself against the hold-up tape on the doorjamb. I wanted to buy a carton of cigarettes. In front of the till in a rack about level with my knees was a copy of Maclean’s magazine. I believe the last issue I bought was in 1977, when its cover featured a candid photo of Mick Jagger with Margaret Trudeau, who was on a rip in Toronto at the time, unavailable for official functions at Sussex Drive. I’ve since thumbed through greasy copies in desultory waiting rooms, encountering the byline of a journalism school mate now and then. Maclean’s is a Rogers Media property, no longer a weekly general interest magazine but a moth-eaten legacy monthly now, withering in these digital times.

The July ‘Special Commemorative Issue’ trumpeted an analysis of ‘The Canadian Dream at 150.’ “Not our myth,” I thought. I then noticed that its author was Allen Abel, a wonderful writer whose prose I first encountered in the sports pages of the Globe and Mail. I recognized the cover art as a work of Lawren Harris, my favourite painter: ‘Red Maples.’ The magazine’s logo was a reproduction of the lost beauty of true typography, dating back to the days when commercial artists designed and drew fonts only for the letters required, not needing to bother with the rest of the alphabet or upper and lower case variations. Impulsively, recklessly, I decided to add $6.99 to my order.

Awake in the solitary navy blue of a starless night, I discovered I’d purchased 90 pages of something next to nothing. Aside from the Abel piece (in which a photo caption placed Bonavista, Newfoundland in British Columbia), a particularly witty columnist had a go at Nickelback, a conundrum for some, a universally reviled band that sells millions of albums anyway. An easy but a very used and tired target, sort of a 21^st century Helen Keller punch line: “Move the furniture!” Oh, how we laughed in 1967.

Most of the content was paid advertorial, a sort of Canada Day parade of afflictions, syndromes and diseases. Rogers Media obviously knows the demographics of its shrinking readership. Maclean’s is a national magazine, distributed from coast to coast to coast. Consequently I was struck by a full page ad suggesting I live out my retirement in Elliot Lake, an affordable, safe, clean and friendly community with breathtaking scenery and an abundance of the services and amenities I expect. Elliot Lake apparently hosts one of the most affordable retirement lifestyles in the province.

But which province? There are ten provinces and three territories in Canada. So my question was, “Just where is Elliot Lake with its sunlit beaches, golf and hiking? Is it near Bonavista, BC?”

To casual readers The Economist and The New Yorker appear as similar shades of grey, far too many columns of type to scan. The ratio of content to advertising is extreme by current standards. The writing is usually top notch and facts are checked; how quaint. In recent years, both Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone, fading publications, have tarnished their legacies by running grossly inaccurate stories, blunders that rival Newsweek’s now legendary ‘The Hitler Diaries’ hoax.

I’ve no idea if my two favourite magazines are bleeding or thriving. Down a soon to be paved road they may exist (if at all) in very different forms. Perhaps I’ll sniff, “They aren’t what they once were.” But today due to circumstances beyond my control, the night must withhold some of its pleasures and there are no substitutes.

NONSENSE VERSE

The Song of Tweeterdumbest

I’ve unleashed a Twitter deluge

Because I’m big very huge

Look at my tie note how long

It suggests my mighty schlong

I’ve shilled rotgut rancid steak

I leveraged daddy’s real estate

I love gold and I love gilt

I do gauche right to the hilt

I never read I just watch TV

Paid a ghost to glorify me

I’m the face of a luxury brand

Voice of the common man

Women are a kind of icky

They bleed and then get sticky

I trust Info Wars and Fox News

Alternative facts is what I choose

Muslims and Mexicans on report

No rooms left at my resort

What’s the deal with the FBI

Poking Vlad right in the eye

I want to nuke North Korea

Paris accords NAFTA see ya

I’m undoing what’s been done

Paid my family to join the fun

You liberal haters and loser elites

A thousand cuts from my tweets

HUMAN WRECKAGE

A Decent Flag to Wave

I’ve never been to Spain. And I’ve heard heaven’s Oklahoma. I only know what I know. I know a little bit about Canada, excepting Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, the three northern territories and vast tracts of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. My grasp of Canada’s geology, geography, its various historical narratives, and its current state of affairs is fair to middling. Though I have often felt out of place visiting regions of this big country, I have never once not felt at home.

Nation-states are human constructs and as such they will always be flawed, some terribly. Those in power are prone to making colossal mistakes, pursuing idiotic policies and committing ghastly crimes against humanity. There’s nothing like people. Canada, which Saturday celebrated the 150^th anniversary of its confederation, isn’t so different. But if my existence is the result of a cosmic lottery, I certainly won a prize; there’s a whole wide world of wickeder countries to be born in under the big, hot sun.

My grandfather was English; he was born in Bristol. The family owned a haberdashery in Fishponds, a suburb. Disruption arrived innocently enough, a bus route to the city, and competition, was introduced. Papa sailed to Canada aboard The Empress of Ireland to seek his fortune. In Montreal he met a young woman from Hove, near Brighton, the daughter of a baker. The outbreak of the First World War extended her summer holiday in Canada by some 90 years. Together they rented a duplex in Outremont and raised my father and his sister. A few streets over, a French Canadian woman and an Irishman with family roots in Philadelphia, USA had an Irish setter named Sean and five children, the youngest of whom was my mother. This randomness explains my predilection for dad rock, my colonial mentality, and my white male privilege in 2017 social media discourse.

July 1^st allowed a lengthy peek into thoroughly modern Canada, now viewed as our planet’s progressive beacon by the New York Times and The Economist. Many folk on Facebook decorated their profile pictures with red maple leaves while others decried capitalism, inequality and fascist police forces. The newspapers were a marketer’s wet dream, complete with a government-approved Canada 150 logo. The National Hockey League and my bank paid for full-page congratulatory colour ads in the Globe and Mail. Anyone else sniffing after a loonie of patriotic sentiment did so too.

Festivities of Parliament Hill were crashed by protesters, pardon me, activists. Dissent is tolerated here; and anyway, these days anyone without a grievance isn’t considered to be engaged with society or even alive. That’s me, an aging boomer, a walking symbol of complacency, complicit in and guilty of the Kafkaesque crime of being relatively content with my lot in this life.

Celebration day took a surreal turn after an excited Prime Minister Trudeau omitted Alberta while rhyming off Canada’s provinces and territories. Here in this province, Wildrose party leader and leader of the opposition in Alberta’s legislature, Brian Jean, tweeted that he personally would never forgive nor forget that inadvertent federal slight. Jean, who once lamented at a partisan rally that it was illegal to “beat” NDP Premier Rachel Notley, has never once, not once, committed a public speaking gaffe. Shortly thereafter, St. Bono of U2, on hand to rock the national party in the capital, praised Canada for “not building walls but opening doors.” Obviously provincial trade barriers and pipelines aren’t the singer’s area of expertise.

The eyes of the world are watching this immense and sometimes abashed, peaceful dominion that stretches from sea, to sea, to sea, hemmed in to the south by the Great Lakes and the Medicine Line. Canada seems great from a distance. My fear, typing as someone who would never wave a flag, any flag, in a public space, is that internally our national conversations are coarsening. Discussion of any issue, real or perceived, is increasingly superseded by deaf, agitated complaint. Speaking positively of some of the delicate threads that bind us now rings off-topic, Ann of Green Gables freckled pollyanna. Here we are, now. There are worse places to be a citizen, 194 or195 of them to be less than exact. There’s likely time enough to tinker with Canada’s new world model; perfection is impossible but it’s good to have a goal.