Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

The Mysterious Mr. X

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell resigned on Wednesday, and, from the looks of the latest numbers, not a minute too soon!  There are going to be the usual accolades and incriminations, farewells and good riddances but one guy in B.C. is so mad about all this he could tear his hair out.  We’ll call him MR. X.  Mr. X has an ambition in life.  He wants to be a Superhero — and Premier of BC – but, mostly a superhero.  He’s already got a costume: rolled sleeves, loose tie, bike helmet.  He’s already got a secret identity: caring, sharing, sensitive, millennial man.  He might have a secret lair, too, but I’m not sure.  Anyway, Mr X’s problem on his quest for superhero-dom is he’s been beset by villains.  It is almost as if Mr. X has been the butt of a series of cruel jokes.  At every turn, he’s been thwarted by nefarious schemes, perpetrated by an Evil Mastermind.  That mastermind is Gordon Campbell.

This is the story as we know it.  In 2005, Mr. X was elected to the provincial legislature.  Swept in on a repudiation of Liberal policies, Mr. X knew it was only a matter of time before BC voters turned on the Liberals and kicked them out.  He was quite content to be the rising star in the NDP caucus and bide his time until the powers that be threw Carole James under the bus.  Then he would swoop in and save the day.  Unfortunately, a couple of years into it, Carole James was still doing a reasonable job and had him tied up in actual work — far away from the spotlight.  Meanwhile, the evil Gordon Campbell’s approval ratings were not dropping the way they should and it looked like this wait-and-see crap was going to take a lot longer than anybody figured.  Besides, boring work on dreary committees with “backbenchers” and “hacks” was hardly the work of a superhero.  Nor did it generate that many media sound bytes.

But all was not lost.  In that same country, across the water in Gotham City, the ruling NPA party were having a meltdown.  There were so many knives out that you’d have thought The Amazing Ginsu was having a convention.  It was apparent to anyone with a political eye that, once the bleeding stopped Harold the Talking Penguin could beat these guys.  Plus, in two years, the greatest show on earth was coming to town with a 5 ring media circus that would dwarf anything a lowly member of the provincial opposition could ever hope to get his mitts on.  So, faster than you can say “Holy City Hall!” Mr. X stuffed his backpack, resigned his seat and cross the water.  He was elected in a foregone conclusion and settled down to reap the media rewards, while carefully steering clear of the Transit police.  Things were looking good — until disaster struck.

In 2010, the Olympic media machine descended on Gotham City like locusts over a harvest.  There were so many cameras in town it looked like Canon threw up.  But who seemed to be in front of every one of them?  The evil Gordon Campbell!  Campbell had a great time at the Olympics — waving the flag, talking to the media, dancing, singing, occupying centre stage.  Johnny-come-lately dignitaries were pushed into the background while the big boys strutted their stuff.  There were a few crumbs for Mr. X but nothing near what a Superhero deserved.

However, time was on Mr. X’s side.  The scenario was easy.  It was back to Plan A.  BC voters were beginning to turn against the Liberals.  Carole James was going to get close but still lose one more election.  The bus was waiting, and Mr. X was ironing his cape.  He would replace Carole James and face a diminished Liberal government ripe for the picking.  Superhero status was within his grasp, but who should show up on the horizon?  The evil Gordon Campbell!  In a wicked move, he introduced the HST, and suddenly, it was no longer wait and see.  Liberal numbers plummeted.  Bill Vander Zalm was getting all the press coverage.  The Liberals could lose the next election and Carole James stepped back from the brink.  Mr. X wasn’t going to save anything except the price of a BC Ferry ride.  Things were bad, but then they got even worse.

On Wednesday morning, November 3rd, the evil Gordon Campbell struck again and resigned – the last cold-blooded trick in the evil genius’s deck.  Now the way is open for a new Liberal leadership with a new lease on life.  Carole James isn’t going anywhere and Mr. X is stuck in Gotham City — cleaning out storm drains and dreaming of glory.

So, is this the end of Mr. X?  Only time will tell but, as we all know, without supervillains, superheroes wither and die.  We can only hope that fate has more in store for the mysterious Mr. X and that he doesn’t squander his powers shuffling the homeless between temporary shelters and making the world save for bike lanes.

Welcome to the Tea Party

Okay, you won the election — mostly. You took the best Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann and the girls on The View could throw at you and you won. You beat the elites. You’re dancing in the streets. Hold it! Stop! Alto! You didn’t do anything. Despite whatever you folks were telling each other last night in the euphoria and the moonlight, this is the morning after, so let’s all get outta bed and go catch the reality bus. Last night was an off-year, off-speed, mid-term election. People are angry. The country is in the middle of one of the worst recessions (dare I use the D-word) in history, and just about everybody has taken it in the goonies. And besides all that, 2008 and Obama’s coattails served you up a Democratic majority in Congress that had no business being there. So, if you hadn’t won last night — and won big — we’d all be writing the eulogy and digging the hole by now.
But before you start doing the happy dance and repainting the Oval Office just in time for 2012, let me let you in on a little secret: Barack Obama wasn’t running for office in 2010. He was likely sitting at home, in the White House, watching the results on his presidential big screen TV — and so were his troops. There’s a room full of boring CNN stats that prove this, but here’s the only one that matters. In 2008, 126.4 million people voted; in 2010, only about 95 million did. Duh! The kids saw the avalanche and stayed home. They’re not going to make that same mistake twice.
“But we’ve won a great victory,” you say. “We must keep up the pressure,” you say. “We must march on the White House and beat those champagne glasses into beer mugs,” you say. ”No retreat! No Compromise!”
History teaches us something different. In 216 BCE, Hannibal won a great victory over the Romans at Cannae. The road to Rome was open. His Nubian cavalry could have been there in a day – two, at the most. His generals urged him to march. Hannibal wisely turned away. He knew if he took his war elephants to the walls of Rome, they would be useless, and he would be trapped and annihilated. This isn’t just a cute story. If the pissed-off and the profane take these Republican war elephants to Washington and try to fight the campaigns that are coming up between now and 2012, they’re going to be trapped and annihilated. The bottom line is this: it’s politics — not righteousness — that’s going to carry the day – and politics starts this morning. This means that — angry or not — the Republican caucus better quit being indignant and start working with the Democrats. If they don’t, and Congress goes into cardiac arrest early, they’re the ones who are going to be hit by the Blame Train — not Barack Obama.
Right now, we’ve all been invited to a tea party and Sarah Palin’s pourin’. But just in case you didn’t notice “You betcha” is not a policy statement! If Palin drags this crowd into the race for 2012, she might make it through the primaries, but in a national campaign? Jon Stewart, Barbra Walters and the New York media are going to eat her alive — just like Katie Couric did last time. They are going to make her look like The 3 Stooges — except this time she’s going to be 2 Stooges short.
There’s no doubt that this president is all hat and a teleprompter. But you don’t go from After Dinner Speaker to the White House in 4 years if you don’t know what you’re doing. People are learning that Barack Obama just isn’t a very good leader but that doesn’t mean he’s not a good politician. Don’t confuse the two. He can and will rally the team for 2012, and all those folks sitting on the sidelines this year are going to get back in the game. Remember: 58% of voters under 30 still think Obama is the best thing since Bill Clinton, and young people prefer Democrats by over 20%. These people aren’t angry; they’re not frustrated; and they don’t give a damn how much money the champagne socialist elite throw at the economy, healthcare or each other. They just think the Tea Party is a collection of knuckle-dragging racists who have the misfortune of being old. You, me, Fox News and Harry the Talking Penguin can call them irresponsible, immature or even imbeciles. It doesn’t matter. They vote: Obama wins. It’s that simple.
The Teabag people and their allies better temper their message right now or run the risk of being just another bunch of Glenn Beck whiners on the road to obscurity. It’s one thing to seize power; it’s another to use it, and use it properly. Like it or don’t, the American people (some of them anyway) have said “Put up or shut up!” Now it’s time for these new Republicans to, first of all, learn how to govern — so America can dig itself out of the mess it’s in. And secondly, think up a coherent plan to take back the White House in 2012 — so the sinkhole doesn’t swallow them up again. If it’s Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, so be it. But they’re going to need more than outrage and a loudspeaker, or they’re going to end up with nothing.

Slurring Our Words (III)

Issues: A Verbal Apocalypse

Remember when we used to have problems?  As a refresher course, problems were things that didn’t work or broke or didn’t follow the accepted path — vacuum cleaners, the toaster, marriages, the Chicago Cubs – things like that.  Problems were easy.  By definition, they were finite.  They had a solution, and with a little ingenuity, you could take care of your problems.  The difficulty with problems, however, was, first of all, we were intimately connected to them — they were our responsibility.  If you had a problem, you were supposed to fix it.  Secondly, there was a meritocracy involved with problems.  Some people solved their problems, most of the rest of us just stumbled along, and then there were those folks who always seemed to have “nothing but problems.”  And this is what killed problems.

In the old days, you didn’t get any social points for problems unless you solved them; their continued existence was actually a serious social black eye.  But in a land where we are all so incredibly equal (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary) you just can’t have unequal people running around, incapable of coping with their problems.  It shakes up the foundation of our “win: win” or “everybody has merit” social structure.  So rather than question the basic dogma of 21st century society, we simply changed the wording.  And because we’re an ingenious bunch of folks, we clicked it into our love affair with victims.  It was the birth of the issue, and issues literally solved all our problems.

Issues are the perfect escape clause.  They’re attached to our psychic DNA.  They exist without our consent and we can’t control them.  Plus — and here’s the best part — issues absolve us from any blame and absorb all the responsibility.  It’s like having a medieval priest in your back pocket.  Want to sleep with the pool boy?  Have commitment issues.  Don’t wanna pay the cable bill?  Have financial issues.  Want to be a jerk?  Have anger management issues.  Any or all of the above?  Have childhood issues.  Childhood issues?  What the hell does that mean?  Nothing!  There’s no such thing.  Everyone has a childhood — everybody!  And in that childhood things happen: good things, bad things, things we can’t even remember.  There’s not a single person on this planet who can’t point to some event in their childhood and claim it shaped them, warped them, or left them scarred, bruised or annoyed.  It’s absolutely meaningless to claim this as special status, yet we continue to do it.  Our society loves issues almost as much as we love victims.  Why? Because — and here’s where the bike helmet hits the highway — unlike devastation, nightmares or even ordeals, issues are permanent.  You can’t solve an issue.  So, now, anybody within the sound of Dr. Phil’s voice can play “Ain’t it Awful? The Home Game” and get all the cool victim stuff without the slightest inconvenience. 

Unfortunately, issues carry a heavy price.  Once you’ve verbally abused yourself into thinking you’re a victim, it’s hard to go back.  You actually become a victim — at the mercy of your job, your family, your government.  Resistance is futile.  You’re part of that great mass of people being pushed around by everything they see — unable to cope with the simplest of situations, stressed out, incapable of seeing life as it presents itself.  Nobody can calmly discuss an “ordeal” (believe me, I’ve tried) or repair a “nightmare,” but issues are the spaghetti stains on life.  Once you’ve slopped them all over yourself you’re never going to get rid of them.  Here’s one itty-bitty example: within my lifetime there were students who didn’t do well in school.  For a while I was one of them.  Teachers were supposed to recognize this and take some action appropriate to the kid’s ability.  Today, those same students just surrender themselves to Learning Issues, accept whatever label comes with that — dyslexia, dyspepsia or A.D.D. — and keep on moving.  They’ve been initiated into the Cult of the Victim before they even know what hit ‘em. Think about it: you’re 5 years old, you’ve only recently mastered the intricacies of the bathroom, and suddenly everybody you trust is telling you you’ve got an uncontrollable inability to learn.  Depending on your 5-year-old frame of mind, it’s either the best “Get out of Jail Free” card ever or you’re screwed – permanently screwed.  This is just one example!  Issues are everywhere.  They’re like Smurfs.  People are talking about injured athletes with “hamstring issues” for God’s sake!  And what happens when somebody has more than one issue and we start using this phony-baloney in deadly combinations.  What if a person with Substance Abuse Issues has Time Management Issues, as well?  Does he come late to get high? 

We’ve got to stop this madness — yesterday.  The word is eating our soul.  It’s all well and good for a bunch of middle class muffins, with nothing but time and a Starbuck’s on their hands, to chatter away about their issues, but the rest of us don’t have that luxury.  We’ve got jobs to do and bills to pay and we don’t have a lot of extra energy to carry these irresponsible hangers-on.  Here’s where we stand at this very moment.  We’ve got half the population disabled by their issues – make-believe stuff like anger management and emotional stress.  We have half the population condemned to theirs – serious problems we can no longer solved because we’ve turned poor people with names and faces into poverty issues and the junkie, stealing your iPod, into an addict issue or some such nonsense.  Then we’ve got the rest of us, trying to carry the load with no light at the end of the tunnel.  Believe me, if the first bunch don’t get over themselves pretty soon and start helping, that second bunch are going under and there’s nothing we can do about it.

What we need is to reintroduce some problems into our society, and not some candy-ass “Where’s my green shirt” problems but real thorny, jaggy, scabby, pee-stained problems – the nastier the better — and we need some serious consequences to go along with them.  Otherwise, we’re  just going to keep slathering on the Oprahspeak until we have such a heavy gloss on our real problems we’ll never have a chance to solve them.  They’ll simply become part of the foodchain – if they haven’t already.

So, here’s what we need to do.  First of all, e-mail every cable news, talk, entertainment, opinion network on the planet and say you are offended by the word “issues.”  Demand that the professional virgins in front of the microphones use the term “the I-word.”  They’ll get behind this.  After all, we’ve already got “the N-word,” the L-word” and of course, “the R-word.”  — not to mention iPod, Pads and Phones.  Secondly — and much more importantly — the next time anybody with a last name for a first name starts yipping about “issues,” punch them in the stomach.  It might not do any good, but boy it’ll feel nice.