frustratedboomers

Shock The Monkey

by Roxanne Tellier

(reprinted from DBAWIS, 2017/3/26)

It’s been nearly four months, and still, several times a day, it feels like a rat is trying to gnaw it’s way out of my belly. I’m still craving the instant hit of nicotine that was my constant companion for nearly 50 years.

I remember precisely when I first inhaled a Benson and Hedges menthol cigarette … I was 13 years old.

A friend had come in from Edmonton to enjoy the wonders of Montreal and Expo 67, and she brought me the habit. I’ve never forgotten that day. We giggled even as we gagged, and blew the smoke out of my bedroom window. I felt very grown up, as she showed me how to ‘French inhale.’

She also turned me on to shoplifting, but I was such a terrible thief that my first attempt in the downtown Woolworths found me nabbed and ‘barred for life’ from the store.

But back to cigarettes. My grandparents smoked into their nineties, and both of my parents smoked, as did most peoples’ parents back in the sixties. People smoked, and they smoked EVERYWHERE. At the local Steinbergs, a large grocery chain store, there were ashtrays affixed to the shopping carts, so that you need never go without your nic fix as you weighed your bananas.

We smoked in offices, in hospitals, in church basements, in stores, on elevators, in restaurants, on the street, on airplanes, in our cars, and in our homes. MPs smoked in Parliament. Talking heads smoked during television interviewers. Doctors recommended brands in print and TV ads. Even cartoon characters smoked.

We smoked indoors and outdoors, and few, if any, ever waved a hand to shift the smoke from their faces, or the faces of their children.

At that time, 50% of Canadians over the age of 15 smoked. I’m guessing it was closer to 80% in Quebec, where no macho, hockey playing, swaggering boy would be seen without a fag hanging from his lip, and a deck tucked up inside his white t-shirt’s sleeve.

Cigarettes were quite inexpensive, less than fifty cents a pack, and were even cheaper in the States. The top tobacco brands competed fiercely for market share, in both Canada and the U.S., but the magazines that came from America almost always included coupons for free packets of ciggies.

But there had been rumours coming from the United Kingdom (where 80% of males smoked) as early as 1950, that a Dr Richard Doll had discovered a link between smoking and cancer, while pursuing a possible link between the tar in road construction and patients with lung, stomach, colon, or rectal cancer. Over a period of several years, he interviewed patients, and over 40,000 British physicians, and came to the inevitable conclusion that smoking was a main factor in lung disorders, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

Since no one wanted to believe that our delicious smoking habit could possibly be bad for us, most people thought it was just some nonsense brought up by do-gooders who had a hate on for smokers and drinkers. After all, 9 out of 10 doctors said Camel cigarettes were ‘toastier,’ while dentists recommended Viceroys! Clearly your health and safety concerns were just a question of finding the right brand.

But the evidence was mounting. In 1963, Canada’s federal health minister, Judy LaMarsh, warned that smoking contributed to lung cancer, prompting the Canadian Medical Association to urge doctors to stop smoking, at least while attending their patients.

And despite the 1964 report from the U.S. Surgeon General that linked cigarette smoking to lung cancer in men, and possibly in women, despite that same report citing smoking as the most important cause of chronic bronchitis, and despite the fact that I was studying voice and music, and considering a career as a vocalist … I took up smoking in 1967 and didn’t look back for decades.

In 1972, the first ‘warning’ messages began to appear on the side of cigarette packages, and by 1989, it was made mandatory for packets to have a health warning . By 2001, Canada mandated picture warnings that covered 50 per cent of the boxes.

Like most conscientious, quasi-hippies of the sixties, I quit smoking and drinking while pregnant with my daughter, and stayed off cigarettes for a few years after her birth. But nicotine is highly addictive, so by 1976, I was back on the demon weed, despite now pursuing full time singing gigs. I was young, healthy, and I couldn’t feel any side effects from my habit, so why not?

For a few years I’d continue on an on-again/off-again pattern, quitting sometimes for years at a time. But despite trying every trick in the book, from acupuncture to hypnotism to counselling and medication, nothing worked permanently. I was always just an excuse away from sliding back into the addiction.

And then, about four years ago, I heard about a paid research study on nicotine addiction being done by CAMH, (the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Care,) and decided to give it a go. They’d pay me to be in a double blind study that focused on the use of Zyban, a nicotine replacement medication. AND they’d give me the medication for free. Only thing was, I wouldn’t know if I was on the actual drug or a placebo. Still, I was game to give it a whirl.

Beyond the medication, the study focused on mindfulness, and an understanding of what part our addiction played in our day to day lives. The study required that I make a note of every cigarette I smoked during the day, and any emotion I was feeling when I felt the urge to smoke. Since I had been using an old fashioned cigarette making machine with tobacco and tubes for my daily fix, I hadn’t any idea that my cigarette intake had risen to 40 cigarettes a day.

I also discovered that I had certain attitudes about smoking. Years of social conditioning had convinced me that I could neither relax nor concentrate without a smoke, and that I certainly couldn’t write without a cigarette smouldering away in the full ashtray beside me.

When I’d talk to other smokers, the males would commonly exhibit bravado about continuing to smoke, despite health concerns, while most of the women would agree that sneaking a cigarette break really meant allowing themselves to stop the world and it’s unending demands for a minute. Even though we intuitively knew that we were doing physical damage to our bodies by smoking, we still had a “this I do for me” attitude about the habit.

When the study concluded, I was nervous about keeping off the ciggies on my own, so I was referred to the CAMH Nicotine Independence Clinic, where I would have access to outpatient treatments, assessment, medical consultation, group counselling and medications to quit/reduce smoking.

I’m so glad that I lucked into that clinic. From my first visit, I was welcomed by their friendly staff, and treated by top notch doctors and nurses that encouraged me to fight towards nicotine independence. Month after month I’d have to face those professionals and explain why I, an intelligent, motivated, woman, could not seem to get the nicotine monkey off my back.

The first surprise was that I had spent three months on the placebo, rather than the medication. And when I was prescribed the actual Zyban, I discovered that I couldn’t tolerate the drug; I wasn’t smoking, but only because I couldn’t stop vomiting.

However, with the clinic’s support, and a constant supply of free nicotine replacement treatments, (patches, lozenges, gums, inhalers) I struggled through the next four years, promising myself and my mentors that I would indeed quit .. soon. Just not today.

During a particularly harsh Harper budget year, the rules for the clinic were changed; patients could now only receive the nicotine replacements for six months at a time, although they could continue receiving medical consultations and counselling. After a further six months, patients could again receive replacements. Those six months on/six months off made it very hard for many to stay nicotine free.

When I returned to the clinic last fall to begin yet another six months of treatment, I desperately wanted to get off the addiction treadmill. I was sick of being sick, of seeing the effects of years of nicotine use etched on my face, and in it’s detrimental effects on my health. It had almost become a joke that I had been attending the Clinic for longer than some of their staff.

I waved a breezy ‘hello’ to Natalie, the receptionist. But it was the sight of a woman patiently waiting to see the doctor that really gave me pause. The woman was chipper and in good spirits, despite being hooked up to oxygen tanks, and needing a walker to get around. She happily told me that she was certain she could finally quit smoking, although it was too late to do much more than halt the progress of the COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) that she’d acquired through her years of smoking. The woman confided that she was a decade younger than me.

When it was my turn to talk to the doctor, I told him that I could deal with aging, but I couldn’t deal with being a sick old lady. I wanted to bang away at this nicotine monkey with everything I had, and that they could give me. The doc loaded me up with patches, gum, lozenges and inhalers, and wished me good luck.

For all my good intentions, however, and even while wearing nicotine patches that added up to 63 milligrams of nicotine replacement to my blood, I still found myself smoking to ease tensions and relax. I could tell myself that the stress of selling the house and moving gave me an ‘out.’ I DESERVED the occasional cigarette, dammit!

And the story might have ended there, in an endless loop of me going to the clinic, getting medical help, and still smoking, except for a bad thing that turned out to be a good thing.

November and December were tough months, what with the move, the weather, and all of the physical changes in my life, which culminated in a bunch of health issues, including a cold that turned into bronchitis and then into a nagging cough that just wouldn’t go away. I coughed 24/7, even in my sleep. I coughed so constantly and theatrically that I finally had to find a new doctor that might be able to help me stop coughing, and allow everyone to get a decent night’s sleep.

This doctor listened patiently to my story, and then produced a medication. “The good news, ” he said, “is that this medication will stop the cough. The bad news is that, if this medication works, you likely have COPD. We’ll have to do testing to find out if that is the case.”

In that moment, time stood still.

Although I’d have to wait a week for the tests to be done and assessed, I knew that I had finally passed the threshold I’d always dreaded; I had done terrible damage to my lungs, and now I’d have to pay the price.

I stopped smoking that day, nearly four months ago, and haven’t had a cigarette since. The tests came back, and although I’d done a lot of damage to my lungs with the smoking and the coughing, I did not have COPD. With care, and time, the damage would repair itself. All I had to do was not smoke.

So I didn’t. And I won’t. Even when the craving is so intense that I feel like screaming, my mind flashes back to that moment in the doctor’s office, and I don’t light up. I dodged a bullet – no way will I put myself back in it’s path again.

I’m still wearing the nicotine patches, although with time, I’ll wean myself off them. And I have nicotine replacement inhalers in every pocket, purse and room of the house. I have the support of my family, friends, and doctors, all of whom remain cautiously optimistic that I’ll keep on the straight and narrow.

I’m not saying it’s easy, nor am I throwing myself a ticker tape parade, but I’m very grateful for the help and support I’ve received, and quietly confidant that I’m too sensible to let my addiction wiggle it’s way back into my life.

I smell better. My clothes and my house smell better. I no longer have to worry if my smoking will harm other people, nor do I have to fear long periods of time in places where you can’t smoke. I don’t have to leave an event and traipse out into the cold or rain to have a ciggie. I don’t look up at a darkening sky and wonder if I have enough cigarettes to last through a snow storm. I don’t have to calculate the cost of cigarettes into my budget.

I no longer have to justify a habit that took the lives of my father and mother, amongst other millions of smokers.

I am a non-smoker.

(originally published 2017/3/26, on Bob Segarini’s Don’t Believe A Word I Say website)

It Was 40 Years Ago Today …

by Roxanne Tellier

When you are smack dab in the middle of massive change, it’s nearly impossible to parse what is going on all around you.

Baby boomers have been there a few times. The chaos of the sixties, when the world suddenly went from belonging to your parents, to belonging to you and your like-minded friends – remember that?

That same sort of overturning of the norm happened between 1981 and 1984, and most of us just rolled with it, not realizing how irrevocably our world was about to change. Once again, the world was being handed over to a new generation, and those who wanted to keep current, were about to be sent back to school or risk being considered a dinosaur.

A Facebook buddy, Walter Frith, posted something that I can’t stop mulling over in my mind … how is it that I lived in the middle of a complete technological upheaval, and never felt so much as a tremor?

Walter wrote, ” I’m watching the first season of The West Wing again for the zillionth time and having begun in the 20th century (September 1999), it’s a hoot seeing the occasional typewriter, enormous video cameras, referencing the Encyclopedia Britannica with no mention of smartphones, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Twitter, all of which had not been invented yet. Watching a political drama series without ANY reference to social media seems almost absurd now but the times were what they were back then, 19 years to be exact.

… mind … blown …..

… not a cellphone to be found …

I was actually working in tech back then – first at Oracle, then as a writer and sales person for the Canadian rags Toronto Computes, then The Computer Paper, and finally We Compute!

I had a cell phone in the early nineties, but it was enormous, and cost hundreds of dollars a month to service. Very few people, beyond those who could write it off as a business expense, bothered with cell phones back then.

We moved to Scarborough in 1998, and I found a new career selling collectibles on eBay (which had debuted in 1995.) Most of my transactions were done by cheque or money order, until PayPal launched in 1999, and forever changed international commerce.

There was no Wikipedia prior to 2001, and though it may feel like you’ve always been on Facebook, that site launched in 2004, eventually burying MySpace, which had launched in 2003.

From Parade Magazine: The Evolution of the Cell Phone

1973 – The first cell phone. The phone Martin Cooper designed for Motorola weighed 2.5 pounds and had a battery life of 20 minutes.
1983 – Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. …
1984 – The Nokia Mobira Talkman. …
1995 – The Motorola StarTAC. …
1996 – The Nokia 8110. …
1998 – The Nokia 5110. …
2004 – Motorola Razr. …
2007 – The iPhone.

YouTube came along in 2005, and Twitter arrived in 2006. Mixtapes were effectively put out to pasture when Spotify debuted in North America in 2011.

And the smartphones .. ohhhh the smartphones! It was 2007 before we began arguing over which iteration of LG, Samsung or iPhone was best. Can you imagine that? In only eleven years, trillions of dollars have been generated for an industry that didn’t even exist before 1973.

It’s hard to envisage how we lived prior to all of this tech. Cast your mind back to 9/11, for instance. At that point, with almost no social media, the North American phone network became impassable in hours, as we all tried to connect with people who might have been affected by the tragedy.

You know what else didn’t exist, even ten years ago? The iPad (2010,) and tablets in general. Uber (2009),Lyft (2012,) AirBnB (2007,) Pinterest (2010,) 4Square (2012,) Instagram (2010,) and KickStarter (2009.)

And that’s just a few of the apps we think we can longer live without .. and we have no idea what leaps and bounds of thought and tech might be coming down the pipeline to blow our minds in the 2020s or 2030s.

There’s only one way that this relentless tech explosion can be stopped – if someone, so out of touch, narcissistic and megalomaniac were to take over the heart of this tech – the cell phone – and bend it to his needs. That would be a bridge too far, I believe, and might even cause those who rely on that convenience to bury their phones in the backyard ….

oh oh ….

=RT=

This entry was originally posted on September 16, 2018 on Bob Segarini’s “Don’t Believe A Word I Say” blog site.

You Can Choose

by Roxanne Tellier

Oh yes, you can choose. You can choose pretty much every aspect of your life, from the small to the large, from the clothes you wear to the colour of your hair, and the music that you listen to, and of course, to the politicians you elect to run your country and who will ultimately tell you … what you can choose.

But it’s not all lollipops and roses, this ability to choose. First off, once we’ve chosen, we might not be happy with what we chose, and we might not want to take responsibility for how our choice worked out.

That’s free choice. And it can be exhausting.

Now, of course, there’s some stuff that is best when it’s our choice. That’s the prime directive from our childhood – it’s all about getting out from under the right of other people to make choices for us. We can’t wait for the day when we’re on our own, able to decide what we want to eat, drink, and wear, and how we wish to behave without being told what we can and cannot do.

And yes, we find out the hard way that these choices are always available to us .. as soon as we are able to pay … financially, physically, and emotionally … for the right to choose, and the consequences of what we have chosen. It’s a child’s parents who have to teach children how to make smart choices.

One thing that parenting magazines stress is that giving kids virtually unlimited power to make choices is damaging to the child.

Some kids are better at decisions than others; some kids shut down when confronted with too many choices.

But one thing is certain. “An infinite number of choices will make a child anxious and insecure, ” says Dr Gorski. “Think how you feel when you have a dozen important decisions to make. What we think are small issues, such as what to wear, or what to eat, are huge to a child. Having to make too many choices – even kid sized ones – can be overwhelming. “

Children are more comfortable within boundaries. “A child who acts up is begging with her behaviour to be shown limits. “

I know exactly how they feel. It’s not so different when we get older. Yes, it’s great to be able to choose our destinies – that’s what being an adult is about! However there are times when it’s just so much easier if someone makes the choice for us.

Take music, for instance. It’s great to be able to access any song we want to hear, and to hear it as many times as we would like, but sometimes, it’s more relaxing to let a radio station’s programmer made that decision. Not only might we hear songs we like, but we might even hear new songs we wouldn’t have found on our own.

Or TV programs. Remember how we used to follow a series for years .. like Seinfeld, or Friends, and Thursday was the night you didn’t go out because you might miss an episode?

Well, it’s not like that anymore, because there are 500 channels on the satellite, and then there’s NetFlix, Hulu, Kanopy, and a half dozen other additional outlets, and then you can also stream television episodes from any point in the history of broadcasting, and watch them at any time of the day or night.

All you have to do is choose which episode … And again .. that’s stressful. What if you decide to watch this one episode, or this movie, and there’s another better one you don’t have time to watch because there’s only so much time in anyone’s life?

You can choose. But sometimes, it is great when someone else chooses for you. Isn’t it great when you ask your official or unofficial ‘other’ what they want to do, and they tell you? In detail? What they want to eat, where they’d like to go, and what they’d like to do after that? It can feel really good to hand over the reins to someone else, occasionally.

You can choose to agree, or disagree, or to start a dialogue where your preferences are considered and best of all, suddenly, you have more choices!

What we learn, as kids, and what we take with us into our adulthoods, is that every group in which we are included is a community, and that not everyone’s needs can be met all of the time. Fair is not always equal. We resent if there is one person making all of the decisions all of the time. We need to spread the freedom of choice around and amongst us.

As we grow and begin to reason, we also see the consequences of our choices, and learn that what might be fun or easy in the short run, could be disastrous in the longer run. We learn that we may have to deal with the regret of making a bad choice, but that we can’t always know what is best, and that mistakes, and how we deal with them, are also a part of life.

Choice can be a liberating or a limiting thing, depending on circumstances. There are days when, just like a child, it’s best to limit your choices, to ask yourself to be responsible for just so much, and no more. Limiting the amount of decisions you need to make can be as beautiful a thing as having the reason and responsibility to make really big choices.

You can choose that too.

(originally published 2018/03/18 on Bob Segarini’s DBAWIS website)

And a Happy New Year!

by Roxanne Tellier first published 21/12/2014 on Bob Segarini’s Don’t Believe A Word I Say …. So here’s what was happening, mostly in Youtube and music, 9 years ago!

This year it falls to me to be the last voice of 2014. Still decked out in my new holiday outfit, and digesting our early family New Year’s dinner, I’m parsing my memories of the events of the last 365 days. Some incidents filled me with joy, while others had all the appeal of an ugly, if ironic, Christmas sweater.

Now, that’s MY kind of Holiday table!

Life is a seesaw; for every up, there’ll be a down. Revelations and accusations of chronic sexual abuse of women were aimed at celebrities Woody Allen, Jian Ghomeshi, and Bill Cosby, as well as at pro footballers, politicians and university students. But in the music world, women took a strong lead, garnering awards for their abilities, and sadly, often attention for their willingness to literally expose themselves to the world. (What is it with our obsession with big butts, she asked rhetorically?)

One of the biggest winners of the year is Taylor Swift, who transitioned from introspective and observational country songs to pop and fashion diva . “She released a best-selling album, took on Spotify, performed at the Victoria’s Secret show and turned a tabloid reputation for man-trap desperation on its head, emerging as a single-and-loving-it cheerleader for girl power.”

“Ms. Swift’s latest album, “1989,” her first under the aegis of pop, arrived in October and in its first week sold 1.287 million copies, more than any of her competitors in first-week sales, and more than any album in that time period since 2002.” (The New York Times, December 2014)

I’m still not convinced. And I like this parody of “Shake It Off” better than the original.

On the country scene, Maddie and Tae’s “Girl In A Country Song,” hit number one on the Country charts December 20, 2014 after 23 weeks of climbing said charts. The song is a satire of the contemporary “bro-country” trend, where the biggest male country stars objectify their downhome ladies.

Meghan Trainor’s another female with a Nashville background. Only 20 years old, she previously wrote and self-released two albums, and has had song writing cuts with Rascal Flatts, R5, Sabrina Carpenter and others before releasing the mega earworm “All About That Bass.” Unfortunately the follow up, “Lips Are Movin’ ” is pretty much a virtual remix of “Bass.”

Iggy Azalea has cornered the market on Australian white woman rap. Her song “Fancy” reached number one on the U.S. charts, with Azalea becoming only the fourth solo female rapper ever to top the Hot 100. Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj work the same street, and their joint effort, “Bang Bang,” debuted at number one in England, and reached the top 10 in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Bulgaria. The song now sits at number 3 on the U.S. charts, and has been nominated for 2015’s Grammy Awards for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

On the adult contemporary front slash latest Disney song to drive parents mental, both Idina Menzel and Demi Lovato had hits with “Let It Go,” the first song from a Disney animated musical to reach the Billboard top ten. The song, from the smash hit Frozen, has sold 3.5 million copies as of this month. And still counting.

This adorable mother/daughter duo’s video went viral (4.5 million views) when they lip synched to another song from the movie, “Love Is An Open Door.”

Still bubbling on the charts, Sia’s electro-pop hit “Chandelier” video has enchanted viewers with the help of Maddie Ziegler, a young, fearless and apparently boneless 12 year old dancer. The track was certified quadruple platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and platinum by the Recorded Music NZ (RMNZ) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It’s hard to take your eyes off young Maddie, as 397 million hits will attest.

Madonna had a hissy fit this week, when her new music hit the Internet prematurely. She posted this on Instagram on December 17, “This is artistic rape!! These are early leaked demos, half of which won’t even make it on my album. The other half have changed and evolved. This is a form of terrorism. Wtf!!!! Why do people want to destroy artistic process??? Why steal? Why not give me the opportunity to finish and give you my very best?”

I guess she had it explained to her, because two days later she released six songs from her upcoming album Rebel Heart. Genuine outrage or publicity stunt? Who knows. Or cares.

It wasn’t all good for women this year. Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kim Kardashian, and more were digitally hacked in August 2014 and their nude selfies were posted all over the Internet. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was cancelled after Mama June was found to be dating a sex offender – again.

Women were largely unrepresented at the 2014 Grammy Awards, although Lorde’s “Royals” won Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. Alicia Keyes won Best R&B Album, and Rhianna picked up the Best Urban Contemporary Album. But overall, it was a Grammy sausagefest, as Daft Punk, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Pharrell Williams cleaned up in the main categories.

Speaking of Pharrell, his famous hat sold for $44,100 at an eBay auction to fast food chain Arbys The money is going to From One Hand to Another, a charity that helps children learn through technology and the arts. Unfortunately, he also seems to have sold his ability to generate a followup hit to “Happy” (Song of the Year at 2014 Soul Train Awards.) His new song, “Gust of Wind,” is pretty gustless.

We lost a lot of good people in 2014, including Joan Rivers, Shirley Temple, Lauren Bacall, Peaches Geldof, Jan Hooks and Maya Angelou. Although the voices of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mickey Rooney, , Richard Attenborough, Harold Ramis, Sid Caesar, Casey Kasem, Tommy the last Ramone, Phil Everly, Pete Seeger, David Brenner, John Pinette, and others were silenced, it seemed that the loss of Robin Williams hit people the hardest. His last cinematic performance, in Night at the Museum; The Secret of the Tomb, debuted December 19^th.

We also lost the services of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who withdrew from the race after being diagnosed with a rare tumour of the abdomen. Brother Doug Ford officially signed up to step into his place just minutes before the deadline for candidates to submit their registration papers. But it was John Tory who won the position. We’ll have to see how well Mayor Tory runs the city, but in the meantime, it’s been a refreshing and nondramatic breath of fresh air for the Big Smoke.

In the ‘States, a St. Louis County grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson in the August killing of teenager Michael Brown. And an Ohio special grand jury decided that no officers would be charged in the death of 22-year-old John Crawford III, who was shot and killed inside a Wal-Mart while carrying an air rifle sold at the store. In New York, a special grand jury decided to not bring charges against the officers involved in the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in a chokehold during an arrest. This week, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins wore a shirt calling for justice for two black Ohioans (John Crawford and 12 year old Tamir Rice) recently killed by police, onto the field before a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. With racial unrest and worldwide protests over the apparent lack of justice, all eyes will be on the grand jury called to decide if the police offers who shot Tamir Rice will be indicted.

At the cinemas, the monster hits primarily had the first initial “G” – Guardians of The Galaxy, Gone Girl, Grand Budapest Hotel. Non-G movies included Ida, creepy 70’s cinema throwback Nightcrawler, Jon Stewart’s Rosewater, and Snowpiercer, with a dramatic ending making the political statement that sometimes you’ve just got to blow it all up and start all over again. What we won’t see this holiday season is “The Interview,” pulled from it’s planned December 25^th opening by Sony Pictures Entertainment, after hackers leaked several other then-upcoming Sony films and sensitive internal information. The hackers, whom the FBI believe have ties to North Korea, demanded that Sony pull the film, which it referred to as “the movie of terrorism,” and threatened terrorist 9/11 style attacks against cinemas that played it.

On December 19, Craig Ferguson’s final episode of the Late Late Show aired, but was largely overshadowed by the finale of Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report. Both shows will be very much missed.

What will the new year bring? Here’s hoping for a lot less controversy, and a lot more quality entertainment. Will the ladies take their current success to the 2015 Grammy Awards or will Sam Smith’s album win Record of the Year?

I’m keeping an eye on several groups that I hope will break out this coming year, including Vintage Trouble, who knocked us dead at Lee’s Palace in September; St. Paul and The Bones, who just keep getting better and better, and alt-J, a group I first saw on British TV who are starting to get airplay in Canada, after scoring several high profile late night spots on American television.

And of course, I remain infatuated and enthralled by Bruno Mars, who’s latest outing with Mark Ronson is racing up the charts. With nods to Nile Rodgers, Nelly, James Brown and early Prince, it’s a more classic funk that can’t help but pull you out of your chair and on to the dance floor.

So that’s it … goodbye 2014. Wishing all Don’t Believe A Word I Say readers a happy holiday season, and a bright and shiny New Year!

Happy Holidays to all! And to all a superior New Year!

Christmas And Snowbound In the Treasured Past

(originally published Dec 13, 2015, on Bob Segarini’s WordPress)

My mum embodied the Spirit of Christmas. She loved everything about the holiday, and she made every one of my childhood Christmas’ as merry and bright as she could.

She’d grown up in the depression, and my family always struggled financially. But mum knew that Christmas wasn’t about money. When times were tough, she’d tell us it would be a “Hoodoo McFiggin” year – that meant the only presents would be things she had to buy us anyway, just to keep us clothed and fed – underwear, socks, boots. Presents were lovely, but some years, presents could wait. Christmas was about gathering with family, and sharing what we did have, and what we had to share was love.

She just had so damn much joy and childlike belief in the season that it all came naturally through her to us … the breathless lead up that began months before, when she’d start asking my sister and I what we were going to ask to receive from Santa, and the admonition that we must be very sure of what we’d tell the Big Man when the day came … this was serious business! We were to name only one important item we really, really wanted. If there were other gifts, they would be of Santa’s choosing. We’d spend hours arguing over what toys were best, what we really wanted, and we’d change our minds a zillion times before our visit to Santa’s Kingdom.

Nor were the needs of others to be forgotten. We’d be given a small amount of money, and a list of those we needed to delight with thoughtful gifts. It’s extraordinary how far $5.00 could go back in the sixties. We would have been mortified to not have a gift to give to any of the family who had brought a gift for us. Some years would find us digging through our own stash of precious things, in order to find something we could wrap quickly and present to an unexpected guest.

In the run up to the Day itself, we’d drag out the boxes of carefully packaged ornaments that Mum had collected through the years. She’d linger over the battered aluminum stars made from pie plates, reminding me that she and I had made those together, one year when I was very young, and recovering from the mumps. She’d carefully unwrap the fragile glass ornaments she’d had since she and dad first married, each colorful globe a warm memory. And she’d always linger over a set of orbs, some round, some tear-shaped, so transparent they reflected rainbows, so precious and delicate, “they’re like soap bubbles , Roxanne! Aren’t they beautiful?!”

We had to have a real tree. She felt there was no point in having a tree if it didn’t come with that delicious smell, and the scratchy feel of pine needles under foot. The tree would find a place of honor in the dining room, and strict instructions about its care and watering were delivered. After the tree was set into the metal holder, she’d draw a bright red and sparkly cloth gently around the base, and then add puffs of ‘angle hair’ to make the tree look like it was floating on a cloud.

She’d drape the tree’s branches with long strands of tiny glass beads, the beads a little more worn every year, but shining nonetheless. The box of tinsel was precious too; after Christmas we’d gather as many of the used strands as we could and save them for the following year. We had two special toppers for the tree – one, a paper plate collage of an angel adorned with cotton batting that I’d made in first grade, the other , a plastic doll dressed as an angel, it’s halo tipped jauntily to the left.

Christmas songs would be playing on the little record player, and we’d all sing along as we decorated. Jodi and I liked to make up new and naughty words to some of the classics, just to make mum laugh, before she’d chide us to “Behave! Santa hears and sees everything you do!”

Once the tree was up and decorated, we went into a two week hiatus, where the other 50 weeks of naughtiness were replaced by determined niceness. We’d wait breathlessly for the Christmas specials to appear on the TV; without video or DVD, you had to be home to see “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” or one of the other animated delights, most of which seemed to be Rankin Bass productions.

As my sister and I got older, we began to appreciate more adult offerings; Jodi loved “It’s A Wonderful Life.” My favourite was “Holiday Inn,” with the moment I waited for being when the heroine posed in silhouette against a giant red paper heart, before dancing through it … and breaking poor old Bing Crosby’s heart.

And of course no Christmas was complete without the scary, but ultimately uplifting, black and white classic … Alastair Sim in “A Christmas Carol.” God bless us, everyone!

There was also one special box that contained nothing but photos, recipes, newspaper clippings, song lyrics, and a few very treasured books. Our favourite to read and to have read to us was” Christmas and Snowbound in the Treasured Past,” a large full coloured collection of holiday poems, stories, artwork and photos, from 1961.

“We remember our best Christmas. A flashback appears and this favorite Christmas plays on a very special screen in a picture of color, and we see the scenes we remember so well. Immediately our story we’ll begin to tell … It snowed early that year. In those days the holiday spirit was in the air with the first fall of snow. Sleigh bells jingled and that meant Christmas was near!” Erwin L. Hess

We loved that book; it epitomized an ideal Christmas, one that we’d never had, nor likely ever would. But it held a promise, so much so that the phrase, “Christmas and snowbound in the treasured past” became our family code for how we imagined paradise to be.

Were winters colder then? Not always … one memorable Montreal Christmas Eve, the family toddled off to church in summer dresses and sandals, only to emerge into a starlit night made brighter by soft, fat flakes of snow gently falling onto the sidewalks. But that was an aberration; most Christmas Eves were ‘see your breath’ cold, brightened by our new knit hats and mittens that Gram had made to keep us warm.

Cold, colder and coldest was more often the weather on Christmas day. During my teen years, the habit was to gather at one of the uncles’ house to carve the roast beast. The best parties were at Uncle John’s big house in Chambly, as there was plenty of room for the kids to play, and even a special room where we could have our own holiday meal, manners and decorum cast aside, while the adults ate, smoked, clinked glasses and laughed about adult matters. We felt a little sorry for them – they didn’t even get to watch TV while they ate!

No matter where the party was held, in time the celebrations would wind down, and we’d gather our outdoor clothing, say goodbye to the 14 cousins, and kiss all the ‘grumps,’ (grown ups) before piling into the car for the long ride home, across snowy roads and an ice-laced Pont Cartier, and then along Sherbrooke Street for miles, our bellies full and heads nodding, and inevitably slipping into sleep just before the car drew into the driveway. If we were small enough, we’d even get carried to our beds, where our new pjs and slippers awaited us.

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It was a very different time, and, as with every generation that comes along, we were creating our own version of what Christmas should look and feel like. My mother’s memories were precious, but no more precious than the one’s she created for my sister and me.

Times change, and families are usually smaller than they used to be, and often times, a great deal more complicated. The name we give to that wonderful time of year when we get together to eat and sing and laugh and pray may be Christmas, or Hanukkah, Kwanza, Ramadan, or even Festivus. Heck, call it “Christmahanakwanzika“ if you want to.

What we call the holiday doesn’t matter – what matters is that we take the time to find that small, still place in our hearts, where peace and goodwill live. We gather with our families and friends to join our hearts and hands, to share what we have, and to give thanks that we … together … made it through another year, and are ready to enter another year, whatever it may bring … together.

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What Really Matters

By Roxanne Tellier

When I was growing up, you weren’t supposed to trust anyone over 30. 40 was the start of being ‘over the hill.’ It was “Welcome to Middle Age!” at 50. Then at 60 they’d say, you’re “Old enough to know better, but too old to care.” When you hit 65, you can retire – from work, and/or life. And then 70 … 70 is ‘the new 40’ … or 50 or 60. Nah. 70 is 70.

Seventy – Don’t Panic! Consider the alternative! And the one I see most often from my peers – “It was more fun being 20 in the 70s than it is being 70 in the 20s.”

I’m too young to be seventy. Even when my everything hurts, I’m still plotting and planning and thinking and doing and writing and singing and making good trouble. I can’t keep a lid on it; I never learned how.

But there’s something that’s really not cool about being seventy – it’s being invisible most of the time. It’s being underestimated, and having assumptions made about abilities and capabilities. And it’s living with what other people presume when they look at or through an elder, their eyes shifting to focus on the person behind them, because they can’t imagine what a senior has to offer, and they’d rather not deal with someone not as young, quick, and as with it as themselves.

I chose to make a major change to the rest of my life when I opted to move to a new city, far away from my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Some might think this drastic move an opportunity to reinvent oneself, to wash away the past, and to start anew. But instead, it was a shock to the system. These new people I was meeting only saw the surface, that little old white-haired lady on a scooter. But we are all – each of us – so much more. We are the sum of all of our lived experiences. Being invisible, being a blank slate, presenting myself solely on how I looked and acted at 70, was the denial of the existence of all the major and minor events of a vibrant, action-packed life.

And I hated it. At 70, I wanted a victory lap, not to have to start over from scratch. But it is what it is, kids. After a lifetime of feeling ‘seen’ I discovered what so many learn as they age – society’s triage of acceptance.

On one level, I’ve always understood the importance of community, of friendships and relationships, and of how ‘it takes a village.’ But when you move from one place, you leave your physical community behind. And it feels like losing a limb. You’ve can have a lot of connections online, but that won’t keep you warm at night.

Loneliness can kill you, as surely as a drink or drug habit. During the closures and restrictions of the Covid 19 era, we learned that not being able to gather for the highs and lows of life sucked a lot of pleasure out of our human experiences. Seniors, and those who lived alone, were especially hard hit from the lack of human contact. A study in June, 2023 found that:

“People who experienced social isolation had a 32% higher risk of dying early from any cause compared with those who weren’t socially isolated. Participants who reported feeling lonely were 14% more likely to die early than those who did not.”

At any age, it’s important to get out of your cocoon, get active, get involved, and to meet people. For seniors, it’s a sad truth that you have to keep making new friends, because your old friends, bless ‘em, will be – if you’ll excuse the expression – dropping like flies.

For the most part, I’ve always been a rebel who does what feels right, rather than what makes others happy. And I’d like to think I’ve learned a truth or two in my life’s travels.

But the wisdom of age doesn’t come with a megaphone. You’ve still got to have the chutzpah to demand to be heard and seen.

I always did like an audience. So, while I have you here, I’m going to share a little of what I’ve learned – mostly the hard way – in the last seven decades:

From the moment we are born, we have to figure out whose voices we’re listening to in our heads. This is your one life. You can and should listen to the advice of your elders, but in the end, it is your own path to walk, regardless of your families, cultures, and beliefs. We are born alone, and we die alone. In between, we need to be the sculptor molding the shape of our life.

BUT – no matter how determined you may be to try to chart your course, there’s no guarantee it’s going to go in the direction that you planned. And maybe that’s not where you needed to go, anyway. Zigging when you meant to zag can sometimes lead you to somewhere all together new and unexpected. The future will not be forced; be open to the unexpected.

Happiness is a choice. Neither you nor anyone you know is going to have a perfect life. There’s going to be moments of great joy, and moments of deep sadness, but you’ll get through whatever gets thrown your way, even if it leaves a scar. It’s life’s hurdles that make us resilient, and we need that resilience so that we can help lift others when they, too, inevitably fall.

You can get away with being dopey and vacuous when you’re young and attractive, but being stubbornly obtuse as an adult takes all the pretty out of a person.

What makes you seem the strange, nerdy, uncool person as a kid, can often lead to being thought of as interesting, quirky, and distinctive when you get older.

What other people think of you is none of your business. Or theirs. When you’re young, you think that every embarrassing thing you do is observed and found wanting. As an adult, you still worry about what your peers think of you, but now, you’re judging their actions right back. When you’re older still, you finally realize that everybody was too busy worrying about their own cringeworthy actions to notice yours. You are so much less interesting to others than you think.

The Buddha once said “Hatred is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” You know that thing that bugs you? Let it go. Don’t hold grudges; it’ll just hurt your stomach and give you frown lines. Don’t look for opportunities to complain and hate. No one likes a whiner. Don’t be a racist, bigot, chauvinist, or antisemite. Don’t. Just don’t. If you want to live in a kind world, choose empathy, not cruelty.

Compromise, while necessary, still means that someone’s gonna be unhappy, because no one ever gets everything they want. Compromise anyway.

Even the nicest people think, “What’s in it for me? “We are all creatures that want to have good, fulfilling lives. As a young woman, building a family, building a career, I often put other people’s needs ahead of my own. And I learned that sacrificing your own needs for a loved one can be a lot like sacrificing your life for a job; it’s mostly unappreciated, love and respect can be withdrawn without warning, and, sadly – you can always be replaced. Always. If you must put other’s needs and wants before your own, do it wisely, and don’t expect repayment.

Trust your gut, in friendship or romance. Marriage and relationships should be fun, make you feel happy, and make hard times easier. You’re not supposed to be constantly sad or needy. If you notice a red flag, there’s a reason for it. The right person will bring out the best version of yourself. It’s not the right person if you are trying to be someone you’re not to make them happy, making yourself smaller so that they can be bigger, or if you’re compromising your values. Sometimes being alone is better than being in the wrong company.

You are not obligated to keep toxic people in your life, no matter their connection to you. Your life’s job is to take care of yourself. The people you keep around you should make you a better person, a person who feels loved and supported. You need to let go of people that bring you down and make you feel insecure.

Take the reins of your life. Don’t be or play a victim. Don’t be a martyr. Refusing help for fear of being judged as ‘less than’ is only a punishment on you, your kids, your family. If you need help, ask, and take what you are given with gratitude. Start a GoFundMe to pay for your family’s, or your pet’s, medical needs. Call Meals on Wheels. Call 211 and get help. There are kids in high school that can get credit for helping you with home maintenance, shoveling, mowing. It’s not worth killing yourself over clean gutters or a shoveled walk. Just remember to pay it forward, if and when you can.

Don’t live in a ‘bubble.’ You can ‘play along to get along,’, but if your opinions, and decisions on your choice of jobs, schools, marriage/relationship/sex partners and tech are decided by committee, rather than yourself – you’re doing it wrong.

Remember, the victor writes history, so when you read history, try to find out what the other side had to say. Accept nothing at face value; there’s always more to the story.

Social media can help you stay in touch with family and friends, but it can also take over your life, if you let it. Too much time spent scrolling destroys your attention span, and takes time away from living your best life. Consider setting a time limit for how long you’ll be on your mobile devices. “Always leave them wanting less.”

Take a stand. But if it turns out you were wrong – apologize, frankly and honestly. You don’t have to argue over every disagreement. Pick your battles and let trivial things slide.

“Everyone is entitled to my opinion” is a joke, not a commandment. It is always okay to say, “I don’t know,” or “This is not my area of expertise.” Wild speculation doesn’t add anything to understanding issues. Before you share your opinion, ask yourself; Is it true? Is it necessary, or at least useful? Is it compassionate, or at least, not harmful?

Be true to yourself. Honesty is the most powerful tool you own. Use if wisely, because, once you are branded a liar, you will never be known as anything else.

Travel, as much as you can, as far as you can, as often as you can. Cross an ocean. Travel while you’re young, and have few responsibilities. Travel when you’re older, and bring the kids! There’s a whole other world out there that many will never see, except on a screen. Be the one out there seeing and doing, not the one who just watches other people enjoying life.

Focus on experiences, not things. At 70, you’ll remember good times with great people, and visiting new places or attending important events. You will NOT remember that 12-foot skeleton or Barbie photo booth you absolutely had to get the kids, no matter the cost, in order to make their Halloween ‘perfect’. Money can’t buy perfect, even thought the kids swear that it does.

What you thought you couldn’t live without changes every five to ten years. One day you’ll realize how many years you have spent giving all your time, money and energy to buying ‘stuff’ that only made a mess that you now have to either find a place for, or dispose of, at yet more cost of time, energy and money.

Read something every day. Reading, be it on a printed page or an electronic device, is crucial to a rich life. Read to destress, to find tranquility, to escape into other worlds, or to learn how you can use words to communicate your dreams better to others. Reading teaches you focus, it expands your vocabulary, helps with concentration, and improves analytical thinking. And you can nearly always find something to read for free or inexpensively! Join a library, while you’re at it; you won’t believe the wonders you can find there!

Dance! So many of us have stopped dancing, yet dancing is universal, and an ageless impulse. We feel the music, even while we are inside the womb, and move to it. But as we age, our bones grow stiffer, and we can get so self-conscious about dancing that we stop allowing ourselves to feel the rhythms of life. Some people want to dance, but haven’t a partner. Dance anyway.

Speaking of dancing … The habits that you formed in your teens and early adulthood are going to be what define you as an older person, so try and make your habits good ones. Eat properly. Exercise. Avoid ingesting anything you’ll later have to learn to live without. Do you want to look and feel like a Trump or a Biden when you’re 80? Mick Jagger’s 80. Dick Van Dyke is 97, and he’s still dancing!

You know the Canada Health Plan, with its emphasis on fruits and veg? Read it. Prioritize it. Being retired doesn’t mean you get to only eat what you like. And i can tell you from personal experience – if you only eat what you like, instead of what’s good for your body, you’re a) not gonna get as old as you might have liked, and b) you’re not gonna like what it looks and feels like when your body gets all stopped up, and cranky.

Acknowledge your age, and your health. At least once a year, take your physical and mental ‘pulse’; no one is going to go out of their way to make sure that all of your bits and pieces are in working order. In fact, there’s a form of health care triage that begins to happen after the age of 65; no one’s going to come and save you from falling apart, you’re going to have to do it yourself. Make a check list of what needs to be evaluated every year: eyes, ears, bones, heart, blood. GET THE PHYSICAL. Know your medical rights. Get your ducks – er, docs – in a row; you’re gonna need ‘em.

Physical Health: If you don’t like what the doctor tells you, get a second opinion. If you still don’t like it, get a third. Take care of your body if you want it to make it to the end in one piece. Take care of your teeth. Protect your ears; we want you to hear all the good stuff. And tinnitus, if you are unlucky enough to get that, will drive you mad. Exercise, keep your weight reasonable, cuz it’s damn near impossible to lose weight when you’re over 60. And yes – use sunscreen

Mental Health: Your brain is getting older too. You’re going to need to ‘use it or lose it,’ so start finding ways to stimulate your brain. Crosswords, Sudoku, crafts, learning a musical instrument – these are all proven to help keep your brain ticking over properly. There are tricks and tips you can learn to help you remember why you went in to the next room, or where you left your keys. If you are feeling low, you may be depressed, and that’s no way to spend your Golden Years. Your brain is precious; see a doctor or a counselor if you want to keep it working properly.

It IS later than you think. But it ain’t over ‘til it’s over. So many people tell me they wish they hadn’t waited until retirement to pursue their dreams of being in the arts or music or theatre. Well, it’s now or never. Listen to your heart. There will always be people out there with ideas about what you should be doing or not doing, but not everyone’s thoughts are worth your consideration. Smile, nod, and do what you gotta do.

Do you know what your passion in life is? It’s what you are doing or what you want to be doing, every day. It’s what you think about, talk about, study, practice, look up on the internet, argue with others about. That’s your passion. It doesn’t have to earn you a dime; if you want to do it, the reward is the pleasure you get from doing it. So do it.

It’s worked for me!

It’s Father’s Day, Like it or Not

In North America, Father’s Day was first celebrated in Spokane, Washington in 1910, when a young Arkansan woman named Sonora Smart Dobb organized a day of praise for people like her own father, a single parent and Civil War veteran, who raised six children. It would have remained a local issue, and faded away in time, except that Dodd, after a twenty year break, decided to revisit the idea of the celebration, and to up the volume by promoting the Day at a national level.

In the 30s, with the help of the Father’s Day Council founded by the New York Associated Men’s Wear Retailers, she and her supporters pumped up the commercial volume, and, by the mid-1980’s, had made Father’s Day into a Second Christmas for the men’s gift-oriented industries.

Cue the cascade of cutesy Father’s Day gifts … ties, funky t shirts, things for the car and/or garage, and a slew of macho oriented bumpf. Not much chocolate, though, I have noticed. You never really find a “Day after Father’s Day Half Price CHOCOLATE” sale, do you?

I’m not a big fan of the patriarchy. Wasn’t keen on growing up under it, really hated the ‘glass ceiling’ and the way women have to work two or three times as hard as a guy to get a seat at the table where men naturally choose to sit at it’s head, as though it is their due by birth. Never liked the preponderance of males in every position of power from the local cops to the clergy and prime ministers or presidents. Never liked men making decisions that would affect my day to day life, my voting rights, or my sex life. Just never liked it.

I spent nearly a year in an orphanage when I was five, so that my mum and sister could recover from a very difficult childbirth they’d endured. Although my parents would come and visit me when they could, a five year old is a walking hot bed of childhood diseases, so I was kept away from my sister, who was quite fragile.

Having actual parents, while living in an orphanage filled with kids who had no parents, made me the one eyed child in the land of the blind; I knew that I was incredibly lucky to actually have parents, even if my whole ‘family’ thing was currently on hold.

Not all parents are created equal. While I know that there are a lot of people out there who had good fathers, or believe that they themselves are good fathers, there’s also a lot of guys that didn’t do so good at the father game, for any number of reasons. Some times there are cultural issues at play – some families keep kids away from their fathers until the kids are old enough to interact semi-responsibly. Some fathers may struggle with how best to relate to their kids, because they themselves had a less than adequate father/child relationship. Some dads walk away from their responsibilities, maybe because they are unable to cope, or maybe because they don’t know how fast life – and youth – speeds by. And then there are those who can’t imagine taking responsibility for their part in the child’s birth and childhood.

How do we define a good father? No one seems to know exactly what constitutes the ideal dad. Sometimes we think we know what qualities we would have liked to have in a father, and some people actually did get a dad that really did fulfill our stated and unstated needs. It takes all kinds, and there are all kinds of dads.

I have mixed feelings about Father’s Day. Unlike a lot of my friends, I didn’t get the Leave It To Beaver family lifestyle of the 50s. I’m glad for those of my friends who have fond memories of their dads … but I’m not one of those people.

Every Father’s Day I smile and nod when people write about warm, loving interactions with their dads or dad figures. That was just not my experience. And the funny thing about those people who grew up having dads whom they admired or adored is how difficult it is for them to comprehend that a lot of other kids didn’t get that kind of attention, and can’t relate to the connection other fathers and kids enjoyed. Some kids lost their dad very early, to death, divorce, or disinterest. Some kids received no attention, or, worse, received the wrong kinds of attention, the kind that landed them in psychotherapy for decades.

So there are some people who are feeling a little testy today, who will be staying off social media, and avoiding the ‘highlight reels’ that a lot of people will be sharing of their childhood memories. Some might be dreading a visit to a dad who didn’t quite cut it when it came to parenting. And there will be many, many others wishing that their dads were alive so that they could share one more moment with them.

On Father’s Day, pretty much everyone will put a happy face on their upbringing, whether or not they had a good relationship with their dads. But a lot of time, they’re not being honest, to themselves or to others. Pretending that things are fine when they most definitely are not can make people feel like they are alone, and can even make them feel like they are bad people for not having had a good dad.

Truth is, all of us on this planet – whether we are fathers or grown up kids – are human, fallible, needy, and imperfect. Whatever you are feeling today, there are many feeling the exact same way.

So – Bless them all, bless them all. Bless the good dads, the not so good dads, the happy dads and the sad dads. Bless the dads who lifted up their kids, high enough to touch the moon, and the ones who might as well have been ON the moon themselves.

Happy Father’s Day, Dads. Enjoy your day.

(resussitated from my 2019 column, first seen at https://bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2019/06/16/roxanne-tellier-its-fathers-day-like-it-or-not/

Our Gordie

Everyone has a story of the first time they heard or saw Gordon Lightfoot. For me, it was in 1969, at Montreal’s Place Des Arts. His words and music drew me into another world. And his band, with Red Shea on lead guitar, and bassist John Stockfish, fit the folk-based sound to a tee. I was won over immediately and completely.

He was as Canadian as they come, starting as a choir boy in St. Paul’s United Church in Orillia, and making his first appearance at Massey Hall in Toronto at the age of 12. He would go on to play there 170 more times throughout his career. Some call Massey “The House that Gord Built.”

We called him Gord, or Gordie, because in Canada, our idols and icons are of the people. No matter how big and famous a Canadian gets, they’ll always be someone that you could run into on the street, in a bar, at a sporting event. Gord’s gym was in the Sheraton Hotel, where he regularly worked out six days a week, and he was frequently seen passing thru the Sheraton lobby, on his way there. The year of the first O’Cannabis event, held adjacent to Canadian Music Week‘s site, I saw him cruising the aisles, checking out the paraphernalia. When I turned the corner, and ran into film critic Jim Slotek , Jim excitedly told me that he’d just taken a selfie with Gord.

Lightfoot sang Canada’s stories, and he played in every part of it. He cared so much about getting our story right that he even corrected his own lyrics to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald when information on the wreck was updated in 2010; the line, “At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in; he said…“; was changed to, “At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then he said….” And he changed the line “In a musty old hall” to ” In a rustic old hall” when parishioners of the Maritime Cathedral took offence at the notion that their hall was musty.

In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gord was asked to sing for us on Canada Day. The legendary sound engineer and musician Doug McClement remembered the day well, writing,

“So here’s my favourite of the dozen times I was lucky to record Mr. Gordon Lightfoot. June 11, 2020 on the front porch of his home in Rosedale. (across the street from Drake’s house) for the Toronto Canada Day special when we were all still distancing. His road manager told us “Here’s the deal. Get all set up and ready. No soundcheck. He’s coming out the front door, doing the two songs once, then going back in the house. So you better nail it, cause he will”. Nothing like a little pressure to get you focused. But with Terry Walker and Don Spence on cameras, and Shelagh O’Brien calling the shots, we were in good shape.“

When Gord’s management team announced the cancellation of his U.S. and Canadian concert schedule for 2023,” for “some health related issues,” many of us worried. After all, at 84, most people would be kicking back and relaxing, not gallivanting all over North America like a young pup. While people longed to see him one more time, there comes a time when you’re allowed to rest.

But we were right to worry. On the evening of May 1, 2023, at Toronto’s Sunnybrooke Health Sciences Centre, Gordon Lightfoot passed away of natural causes.

The day after his death, the Mariners’ Church in Detroit rang it’s bell a total of 30 times; 29 tolled for each of the crewman lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald. The final bell rang for Lightfoot himself.

A public visitation was held at St. Paul’s United Church, in his hometown of Orillia, and drew more than 2400 people. It was followed by a private funeral on May 8, 2023.

It’s been just over a week since we lost Gordie, but we can’t stop thinking about him. A petition is circulating at Toronto’s City Hall, requesting that Dundas Square be renamed to the Gordon Lightfoot Square. There’s also talk of a statue being erected in, or outside of, his beloved Massey Hall.

Lightfoot’s passing left Canada bereft. We’d lost our Gordie. But Canadians tend to look on the bright side; at least we had had the benefit of him, and his wonderful songs, for all of those years.

For more than sixty years, Gordon Lightfoot was one of the brightest stars in Canada.

But at the end of the day, he’ll always be remembered as ‘Our Gordie,” and a great Canadian.

Spurious George Santos Part I

By Roxanne Tellier

Although I’ve been collecting information and working on this blog for over a week, I still can’t tell you with any certainty that I truly have a handle on who and what kind of person George Santos really is, other than a future Dancing with the Stars contestant, who is currently staying just one step ahead of the Justice Department, who are, it is said, not happy with his fiddling of his FEC paperwork.

Literally every day a new scandal drops, and I have more salacious goodies to factor into all of the craziness that I’ve learned to date.

Is George Santos a victim? A sad, chubby child with glasses who desperately wanted people to like him? He still kinda looks like a kid whose mom drops him off at Congress with a packed lunch.

Is he a grifter, with such sticky fingers that he can’t stop himself from helping himself to other people’s money and property?

Is he a pathological liar, compulsively and constantly making up stories, and then having to make up more stories to cover up the previous stories, in a web of extensive and elaborate lies, even when all of the lying will eventually be exposed and cause him harm? Santos must believe his own lies, as he lacks the telltale signs and body language, like blinking and fidgeting, that usually accompany mendacities told to cover up wrongdoing.

Is he a cinephile who can no longer differentiate the world of cinema from reality, thus opting to model himself after Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the film “Catch Me If You Can,” and merging that with Tom Cruise’s slimy pick-up artist and master manipulator in “Magnolia”?

Is he a master of manipulation, who has become skilled at ‘mirroring’ techniques? In interviews prior to winning his election, Santos is frequently seen mirroring the interviewer, imitating the verbal or nonverbal behavioral characteristics of the other. This technique is often used as a method of manipulation by salespeople, cult leaders, or anyone trying to persuade others to join or support their cause.

Is he a straight-out sociopath, determined to ‘make it’ by any means possible, who, with the former guy, Trump, as his guide, thought that politics seemed like a great place to pad your pockets if you are unable to be shamed or embarrassed, and have no difficulty in saying whatever gets you what you want, when you want it?

Or is he perhaps the sum of all of these things? Maybe he’s living and acting out the role of a pathological liar and kleptomaniac, damaged by an abusive childhood, who lacks any form of self-awareness, and who has banked on the authorities just not being able to catch him before he cashes out and achieves whatever form of fame, fortune, and power he’s believed he has deserved for all of his life.

All I am certain of, is that he chose the right party to worm his way into. Like is drawn to like. Flies to honey. Republicans to charlatans and scoundrels.

If you were to hang a bad guy fly strip in a Republican convention of GOP wannabees, you’d be amazed at how many con artists, frauds, fabulists, liars, miscreants, reprobates, villains, self-proclaimed victims and martyrs would be stuck to it by the end of the day.

So it should come as no surprise that George Santos, the new U.S. representative for New York‘s 3rd congressional district, was not only attracted to the Republican party, but that the party’s biggest liars and con men have absorbed him into their midst like urine into a Depends. He’s a team player, and this team’s special play is lying with a side order of denying. The conman has already conned his way into Congress, and onto a couple of low-level committees on which he’s laughably unqualified to be of service – the Committee on Small Business and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

With a razor-thin majority in Congress, Kevin McCarthy, who was only crowned Speaker of the House after a humiliating 15 rounds of Mother, May I, apparently only learned after the fact that Sam Miele, a Santos aide, had been impersonating the Chief of Staff of House Speaker McCarthy and sucking down donations for the Santos campaign by pretending that McCarthy was rooting for Santos. Asked how that little bit of shady telephone work would affect Santos’ place in the party, McCarthy claimed that, “It happened—I know they corrected it, but I was not notified about that until a later date.”

(more breaking news: Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the powerful lawmaker who backed Santos during the campaign, has been drawn into l’Affaire Santos for her endorsement. Donors have been telling reporters that they feel betrayed by Stefanik’s commendation.)

In truth, McCarthy’s hands are tied. He needs warm Republican bodies to keep that tiny majority, and if the price to do so is not being able to believe a single word that flows from the mouth of a member of your own conference, nor of being able to trust what he will be found to have done, or is doing, on a daily basis, McCarthy will take that deal. If he ever had any shame, he lost it years ago, all for the chance to lead a party that has, as Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres of New York’s District 15 put it, “(House Republicans have ) sunk to the level of self-parody.”

They may be disregarding the slow drip, drip, drip of revelations of Santos’ tales of another life in which he was always the star attraction, and never the sweeper, but as the noose tightens around Santos’ neck, there have been cries of seizing his passport on the grounds that investigations into his financials, from both U.S. and Brazilian authorities, make him a flight risk.

How craven are McCarthy and the majority of Republican leaders who have, for now, decided to treat Santos as they would any other member of the House, knowing that he is a security risk with access to classified briefings?

Fascinating, yes? Let’s take a closer look at this Man who would be – King? Vice-President? President? Don’t laugh – there’s already been speculations that it could happen, in an America that, only a few years ago, chose a reality TV star to be president of the United States.

In an era of polarized politics, where voters choose political leaders merely in the hopes of defeating the other party, just winning is enough. They will vote against their own interests just for the momentary rush of beating the other side.

Voters see lying as the currency of politics, everywhere on the globe. The lies just bounce right off the voters, and even when media fact-checkers share the lies and deceit, the voters just don’t care … as long as it’s their guy that wins.

But as used as Americans have become to their leaders lying to them, they must have some idea that there’s a difference between strategically lying and fabricating a life. The hope of winning a race would be motivation for strategic lying but Santos chose to create a character that would be all things to all people – a gay, half-black Jew-ish Republican, who loves his mother, dogs, and whatever else you’re having. His lies are not debatable – they’re straight out lies. And yet, it’s ingenious; Santos has pretended to be all things to all people and both parties. He is a GOP Frankenstein, a creation of cynicism and lies that are defended with even more fantastic lies.

And all he had to do was hope that no one would care enough, or be curious enough, to lift the lid, and reveal the ugliness hiding under the whipped cream.

Santos says that he’s not a criminal for lying about his resume. Everybody does it. But in the context of a run for Congress, his constant lying and reframing of reality is an assault on a democracy that has been being used as a punching bag for more than half a decade already.

Who is the real George Santos? What was so horrible about his life that he had to invent a whole new life in order to feel good about himself? Did he go to college, did he work, and at what kind of jobs? We’re learning all about the things that weren’t true, but little of George Santos’ real life.

This might take a while, so I’m going to have to split this baby into two or three parts, over the next few days. So let’s end here, and in Part Two, we’ll discuss Santos: How it All Began – The Early Lies

How Many Books Do I Have Left to Read?

by Roxanne Tellier

When I was a little kid, I dropped a candy onto the ground. My mother picked it up, brushed it off, and said, “Here you go. It’s fine.”

“But it’s got some dirt on it, mum! I can’t eat dirt!”

“Nonsense,” she said. “You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die.”

My little kid brain was flabbergasted. A peck of dirt? How much was a peck? (It’s eight quarts.) And – before you die? At what point does the dirt eating begin? Can it be done in stages? Or do you have to start shoveling this ‘peck’ of dirt in at some point in your life when your body can better process dirt? As a four- or five-year-old, I was pretty sure that dying was many, many years in the future, but that timing apparently had something to do with a large consumption of dirt. Could I stave off that fateful day, in some faraway time, if it depended on my ability to assimilate dirt into my regular diet?

As a child, death is a million years away. It’s not something kids think about, or factor into their life plans. I mean, sure, OLD people die. But not kids. Or so I thought. The years I’ve lived since those days would prove me sadly wrong on that hypothesis.

Now, I’m old. Just had another birthday, looked at the calendar, and yep … I’m old. Not old/old, not quite yet, but on a path that will inevitably lead to me being – old. And I’m good with that. Because I could rhyme off a list of people who’ve been on this long journey with me that didn’t make it to this age, and others who are praying they get to see their next birthday.

I know now that getting old is a gift that not everyone is assured of receiving.

Most of the time I don’t think about the future. I’m retired. I don’t need to work. I have a roof over my head, and people that love me. I’m luckier than a large portion of humanity in the year 2022.

I don’t fear death, maybe because I don’t believe there’s anything after that final sleep – which, if I have a choice in the matter, would be my preferred way to go. For a brief while after I die, those that love or like me will experience a Roxanne-shaped hole in their world, but in time, that hole will fill up with all of the other minutiae of life. As it should.

But now and again, like when I read things like this study that just came out, about how many books I can expect to read in my lifetime – well now – that hits home.

Literary Hub has done some calculations that took me aback. By taking stats from the Social Security Life Expectancy Calculator, and defining readers as “average” (people who read 12 books per year,) “voracious” (50 books per year) OR “super readers” (80 books per year) they produced charts that predict how many more books you are likely to read in your lifetime.

You can check the link, (Literary Hub ) or crunch the numbers for yourself – in 2021, StatsCan noted that average life expectancy in Canada is 79.9 years for men and 84 years for women. I would consider myself an “extra super reader”, since I read well over 100 books a year.

I had to brace myself when I realized that I might only be able to read about 1500 books between this birthday and my final day. That means it’s time to cull the herd, in order to leave room for the books I really, really, really want to read.

Out with books I thought I should read, since they made some literary list. If a subject is not interesting, I have no time to develop an interest. Books that take over 100 pages to get to a starting point – gone. That 900-page romance that I might have enjoyed if I ever got to a beach – banished from the stack.

Have you seen the stack? This is just one – there’s a second stack just like this in the other room. These are the unread books that I thought I might enjoy if I ever found some ‘spare time.’ Oh – and beyond the front line, is a second group of books. That’s right, these shelves are two rows deep.

And the stacks of unread books compete with the seven other tall bookcases filled with books that I’ve already read, and thought I might read again some day. I’m beginning to suspect that’s not in the cards.

The penny has well and truly dropped. Life is too short to suffer through a book you just don’t like, and it’s definitely too short to waste on reading that book that someone else thought you might like.

Even more, that same sensibility is now pushing me towards examining what else is extraneous in my life. How many more television series or videos do I have time to watch? How many winter coats do I really need? How many more of these columns will I write? Will I ever get around to the jewelry projects I’ve been putting off for – oh, it can’t really be 25 years since I took that course!

Social media can be a fun timewaster, but perhaps I could spend less time on there, and more in my garden! Flora and fauna don’t pick fights or talk back, and they’re prettier than most of the people who like to argue about nonsense on Facebook.

Rather than rely on other people’s definitions of how best to pare down for the inevitable, I will now define every item in my possession by the measurement of how much time we have left to spend together.

And, just to be safe … I think I’ll avoid eating any dirt. Wanna keep that peck down a quart.