July 2020 – frustratedboomers

Everybody Hurts

by Roxanne Tellier

Like many, I’ve suffered from depression and anxiety since I was a young child. Poor old Joe Btfsplk, the Andy Capp character who lived under a cloud at all times, had nothing on me. I had an ulcer by the time I was ten years old, and toyed with the idea of suicide throughout my teens.

Sadly, that’s not at all unusual. Right now, there are people all around you struggling with sadness and fear, and often those sufferers can’t really put a finger on why they feel like they do, or what they can do to stop feeling so miserable. Over 7% of people in North America admit to suffering from depression, and, amongst those in the 15-29 age range, suicide is the leading cause of death.

It’s the famous ‘Black Dog,” a state of depression characterized by a lack of will to do anything. A lack of dopamine stimulating pleasure centres of the brain. Anhedonia. Reduced motivation. A reduction of anticipatory pleasure (wanting), reduced consummatory pleasure (liking), and deficits in reinforcement learning. In short, a really unpleasant way to go through life.

And yet – there’s still so much stigma around admitting that you have a mental health issue. It’s almost the last taboo. People will confess to murder or drug trafficking before they’ll admit they’re barely able to get out of bed – even to get more drugs.

For the last couple of decades, many of us have been told that our depression was caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. I understand why that happened – my hunch is that doctors and social scientists wanted to have some ‘real’ bogeyman to pin the tail on the depression donkey. But in truth, it’s a very, very small percentage of depressives that can be helped by treating a chemical imbalance. And yet, most doctors will first experiment on our poor brains, trying this or that drug, before looking to see if there could be some other explanation for this aching sadness.

Pills didn’t work for me. I tried more than a few, from the mildest to the heaviest. But once I realized that they weren’t helping, and that I could very well instead develop an addiction to them, to add to my other addictions, and thus create yet another reason to be depressed, I ditched the meds.

In truth, for many, depression and anxiety are not caused by a chemical imbalance in our brains. It is far more likely that we’re attempting to deal with crippling social issues that we cannot control or rise above. Situational depression is very often why we’re so scarily morose and unable to cope with life.

In a recent book called Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression & the Unexpected Solutions, award-winning journalist Johann Hari described how, after years of research, travel to countries with wildly different attitudes and treatments for depression, and after documenting multiple experiments, he uncovered nine real causes of depression and anxiety. That led him to scientists who are working on seven very different solutions, that appear to be having more success than the treatments used in the past.

His first epiphany came when he realized that every one of the social and psychological causes of depression and anxiety had something in common; they were all forms of disconnection. In each case, they were situations in which we feel cut off from something we innately need, but seemed to have lost in the course of our lives.

“We need to feel we belong to a group; we need to feel we have a stable future; we need to feel that we are valued; we need to feel we have meaning and purpose in our lives.”

While two of these causes are biological, the rest Johann discovered were related to social and personal disconnection.

The other causes of depression include:

Disconnection from others
Disconnection from childhood trauma
Disconnection from meaningful work
Disconnection from meaningful values
Disconnection from status
Disconnection from a hopeful future
Disconnection from nature

Mr. Hari describes nine solutions for resolving cultural disconnection, all of which involve social and cultural reconnection. By reconnecting with the most important pillars of our lives – what we consider our values, our purpose, and what work we consider meaningful, and by reaching out to our friends, families, and communities, we can improve our mental health, while elevating our relationship with, and hopes for, our futures.

Hari believes that the meaning of ‘antidepressant’ should be expanded from simply meaning a chemical antidepressant, to anything that makes people feel less depressed and anxious.

However, he cautions, “For something as devastating as depression—the worst thing I have ever been through—we need every strategy and tool on the table.”

In putting together this column, I looked up some current information on how Americans are handling the chaos of the trump administration. These figures show the past year’s prevalence of major depressive episode among U.S. adults aged 18 or older in 2017.

An estimated 17.3 million adults in the United States had at least one major depressive episode. This number represented 7.1% of all U.S. adults.
The prevalence of major depressive episode was higher among adult females (8.7%) compared to males (5.3%).
The prevalence of adults with a major depressive episode was highest among individuals aged 18-25 (13.1%).
The prevalence of major depressive episode was highest among adults reporting identifying as being of two or more races (11.3%).

North Americans are indeed experiencing more depressive episodes, in the last five years. It seems like the combination of politics and mental health is not … healthy.

“The American Psychiatric Association reported that from 2016 to 2017, the proportion of adults who described themselves as more anxious than the previous year was 36 percent. In 2017, more than 17 million American adults had at least one major depressive episode, as did three million adolescents ages 12 to 17.Forty million adults now suffer from an anxiety disorder — nearly 20 percent of the adult population. (These are the known cases of depression and anxiety. The actual numbers must be dumbfounding.)

The really sorrowful reports concern suicide. Among all Americans, the suicide rate increased by 33 percent between 1999 and 2017.” (The New York Tmes, January 2020)

I dread seeing the figures for the years 2018—2020 when they are finally released. There has simply never been a harder time for many people, suffering under the multiple burdens of a global pandemic, a collapsing economy, a lack of equality, and a dawning recognition that the ‘normal’ we took for granted most of our lives, is really only beneficial to a small percentage of the population … and that doesn’t include you or me.

I highly recommend Lost Connections for anyone seeking to understand a little more about their own depression, and how to see, and understand, the ‘hurt’ so many of us live with on a daily basis. Kindness only kills when we deny it to ourselves and others.

No Sex Please We’re Plaguish

by Roxanne Tellier

Sum-sum-summertime! Toronto is in the middle of what seems like an unending heatwave. (And was that a tornado that just whizzed through my neighbourhood?)

But, to be honest, I don’t mind the heat that much. I’m already staying inside most of the time, except to feed the critters, water the plants, and hit the ‘senior hour’ at the grocery store, because that’s where all the cool kids hang out.

Around the house, I can wear minimal clothing, and the lockdown means much fewer people just ‘dropping by,’ so my COVID hair and added avoirdupois aren’t the issues they’d be were I trying to socialize.

No, I don’t mind summer too much. Winter, now winter I truly hate, because winter hates me. Winter means dark days, depression, cold, damp, and my old bones crying out for warmth. I was born in winter, and winter will probably be the death of me.

Summer’s okay. Well, except for chocolate. Summer wants to melt my chocolate. But apart from that, I’m good.

How about you? How’s your sex life? Let’s talk about sex, baby. Porn. Over-active hormones. The basic human need for people to interact, flirt with each other, get together, and press the flesh, nudge nudge wink wink.

Sex will always, always, always be more important to the passionate person, attempting to harness that raging and undeniable libido, than nearly anything else but raw survival. In the middle of fleeing a zombie attack, it is virtually guaranteed that at least one person will be unable to stop themselves from dropping trou and getting it on, be it with the living and/or the dead.

And that’s just as true during a once in a century, global pandemic.

Of course, that drives ‘spiritual leaders’ insane, because they know, from personal experience, that their doctrines are worth nothing in the face of passion. Sex is a stronger impulse than the need to worship. You’re a lot less likely to be tithing if you need that money to find and keep a honey….

What I’m saying is – it’s human nature to want to find a partner. And usually sex is a large part of the partnership. And nothing anyone says is strong enough to stop a human with a high sex drive and raging hormones from inserting part A into part B. It’s going to happen, even in the middle of a pandemic.

It happened when people worried about dying from venereal diseases like syphilis or gonorrhea. It happened when getting the crabs was a social faux pas. It happened when herpes came along, and when HIV/AIDS arrived on the scene. We still got together. We still gambled our sexual health on those people with enough chemistry to entice us to let down our guards, because no one that good looking could possibly be carrying a disease. You know that’s how we rolled.

Prior to this outbreak, Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, Happn, Hinge – all of those apps sat unashamedly on the phone screens of people of all ages and inclinations. People loved being able to ‘swipe right’ to see who else might be out there. And they still do. Libido. Curiosity. Boredom. Swipe, swipe, swipe.

So now, they’ve got these new ads on TV for dating companies, promising to match people up, regardless of people being locked down. People around the world will always crave human connection. But these ads make me laugh, then shake my head. Human nature. People gonna hook up, no matter what or when.

I’m just not sure that watching people watching other people, and critiquing how they cook, exercise or iron their clothing, is really the right way to encourage a prospective dating client.

In this new normal, many people can’t actually be physically together – they can’t touch, kiss, hug, have sex – but they experience virtual relationships, over their laptops, on Zoom, by phone. Some will decide to ‘Netflix and chill’ simultaneously. They’re bonding, they say. It’s just that they’re physically miles apart.

Seems to work for at least some of them. To me, I just wonder when the novelty will wear off, like it did with the Tamagotchi virtual pets. I wonder what ever happened to mine. I haven’t fed it since 1998.

Remember a couple of years back, when everyone was worried that teens would ruin their future sex lives by getting addicted to sex sites like Pornhub? The worry was that people – not just teens – would become desensitized to the idea of having sex with others, because of how easy it would be to have sex with yourself, the person who truly knows what turns your sexual crank.

Today, there are few adults, male or female, that have not visited a porn site at some time.

I remember reading similar warnings when vibrators and other sex toys became ubiquitous. When the people enjoy that much control over their own sexuality, governments get nervous. They need people to be controllable.

And remember all those magazine articles taking the sides of those people who had high, low or zero sex drives, and how to deal with those ‘needs’? (Spoiler alert; any level is fine. But you’ll be happiest if you partner with someone who is on the same wave length.)

This COVID thing … it’s a doozie. The virus has been found in saliva, semen, and feces. You can barely tell if you’re coming or going.

Luckily for you, most world governments have laid down some info on how to deal with these urges. They’re advocating masturbation, as a good way to keep it to yourself. Just be sure to wash your hands and sex toys with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after getting your self on.

They’re saying that you should be good to go if you’ve got a steady partner, that you live with. But they do warn that close contact, including sex, is best kept within a small circle of friends. Oh, you naughty government, with your wicked advice!

So where does that leave our wannabe Leisure Suit Larrys? Not in a great place. That ‘thing going on’ is gonna be a problem.

While we’re talking about partners, spare a thought for those of us who are in relationships. About a month into the lockdown, it was already getting hairy. We have all discovered that there CAN be too much togetherness. As a friend said recently, “It’s true that we’re all going to be so happy when we finally can get together with those we love and have missed. Just not those people that we’ve been locked down with… those people can go to hell… “

But hey! Look at the bright side. A research paper came out today that should radically kickstart a search for a vaccine and cure – the state of the penis is implicated. There may be erectile dysfunction to worry about! Ventilator/Schmentilator. If there’s a penis somewhere that is unable to erect, we must sound the alarms!

“ Despite being a trivial matter for patients in intensive care units (ICUs), erectile dysfunction (ED) is a likely consequence of COVID-19 for survivors, and considering the high transmissibility of the infection and the higher contagion rates among elderly men, a worrying phenomenon for a large part of affected patients.

… Endothelial dysfunction, subclinical hypogonadism, psychological distress and impaired pulmonary hemodynamics all contribute to the potential onset of ED. Additionally, COVID-19 might exacerbate cardiovascular conditions; therefore, further increasing the risk of ED. Testicular function in COVID-19 patients requires careful investigation for the unclear association with testosterone deficiency and the possible consequences for reproductive health. Treatment with phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors might be beneficial for both COVID-19 and ED.” (NCBI.NIM.NIH. GOV.)

Truth be told, there’s always been some people who like to be in relationships, but would really rather not deal with another person, in person. They don’t want the hassle of dealing with someone else’s needs. Or smells. Or laundry. For those people, this quarantine is a little slice of heaven.

Still, I know there’s hope, down the line. Someday, there will be hugs again. At some point we’ll all emerge from our caves like hibernating bears, and stagger about, clutching at each other.

And all we’ll have to do is get over our terror of other people’s COVID cooties.

Summer of Song Redux

by Roxanne Tellier

I’ve been overwhelmed, recently, with the events swirling around us. It’s too much. And today, although I had planned a look into trump and Ford’s plans to re-open schools this fall, I’m gonna take a pass, and a day off. Instead of current affairs, let’s enjoy the summer sun, and take a stroll down Memory Lane, to this slightly edited column that I first wrote in August of 2015.

How very different things look now, from the perspective of 2020, and this time of plague! Seems almost naughty to see people gathered together, without masks or social distancing! And I’m not sure if any of the places I mentioned then, are open now. Never mind… Take my hand, come along with me on the wayback machine, and forget about life for a while ….

**************************************

Idaho. Lower Salmon River. Playing guitar around campfire. MR

This is not likely to ever make the cut as a ‘best summer.’ I’m well past cavorting on beaches, fending off amorous, slight intoxicated hotties while sprinting across hot sand in an improbable bikini, and then gathering around a romantic campfire eating s’mores, while some talented and ‘mature’ looking fellow strums a guitar for a singalong.

Nope, them days are long gone, if they ever existed. And they probably only ever belonged to Annette Funicello – she may have even held the copyright on Beach Blanket Bingos … and maybe Bob, in his Stockton youth, could lay claim to the times. The Beach Boys definitely had a lock on the sound of summer itself.

Canadian summers were always a little more sedate. Maybe it’s because Canadian winters, being endlessly cold and dark, except in beer commercials, ramp up the anticipation for a few days of sun and relaxation until nothing – and certainly not the few weeks of uncertain rain or shine we generally ‘enjoy’ – can quite compete with the hype.

Canadian beach sand can be very hot, but the water, primarily lake-derived, rarely gets over the temperature of a cold bath. An intrepid Canuck would-be swimmer learns early that the proper beach protocol is to dip in a toe, shiver, and then gird your loins for a plunge into the freezing liquid, where you immediately duck under until all but your head is submerged. You must then yell to your fellow revelers, a phrase as Canadian as, “take off, eh” ….

“It’s not so bad once you’re in!”

For the timid and the dreamy, a trip to the beach is more likely to involve stumbling over the jagged stones on the shore in your flip flops, hoping to catch just enough of a breeze and spray to cool down.

There are many incredibly lovely lakes in Ontario… Sand Dunes comes to mind, where we once spent a few hours, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other families determined to have just one fun day in the sun, and trying to keep the flies and the sand off the sandwiches.

Torontonians can ferry out to the Toronto Islands, with families heading straight for Centreville, where apparently the sun is always shining on Far Enough Farm and the kiddie rides. You can bring a picnic, and rent a bike, a canoe, or a kayak, while humming the Cowsill’s “Indian Lake.” The daring head for the clothing-optional beach on the western shore of Hanlan’s Point.

It was all so different when I was a kid. Even beyond the fantasies induced by Beach Party flicks, Elvis romps, and Beach Boys songs. In the sixties, come summer, a kid was usually on his or her own, barring maybe a couple of week stint in a community day camp, and most of the time, my sister and I would have to fend for ourselves in the heat.

Montreal summers were glaringly bright, the sun reflecting harshly off the concrete, and the crowded, standing room only, buses reeked of sweat, garlic, and dime store perfume. It was a time to check out Jarry Park to catch the Expos, or to take an insanely long bus ride out to Belmont Park, which was falling apart in a wonderfully creepy fashion. The arcade reeked of burnt popcorn and worse, and the rides – especially the Wild Mouse – were suspect. But a kid could spend a whole day there for under a buck, including bus fare.

As a teen, my summers were mainly city bound. My girlfriends and I would start tanning in the spring, lying bonelessly in our back yards, slathered from head to toe in baby oil. The truly fashionable used sun reflectors to capture every ray. This ritual was necessary before heading toe the local outdoor community pool, where it would have been beyond devastating to appear with any part of your body revealed to be ‘fish belly white.’

The cool kids would always gather near the pool’s deep end, clustered by age group or appearance. Few would actually swim; pool water, with its high chlorine content, could do a real number on our Summer Blonde or lemon streaked hair. And bathing suits, pre-spandex, tended to stretch out with or without much exertion. No, we were there to see and be seen, our transistor radios blaring, and fingers crossed that the boys would see beyond our gawky physique to the teen angel concealed within. Those were the Peggy March, ‘I Will Follow Him’ days, when even the most casual encounter with the opposite sex meant that we were going to be together forever … or at least until school was back in session.

It was either summer school or a summer job in the sixties. Kids would try to get hired at the hot gathering spots, like the Dairy Queen, the Orange Julep, or the A&W. One of the benefits of working at any place where other kids hung out was that the owners were usually savvy enough to keep their radios set to a happening station, like CFOX, where Dean Hagopian, Charles P. Rodney (Chuckie) Chandler, or Roger Scott played the hits.

By 1969, CKGM-FM has morphed into CHOM-FM, and the music got really groovy. Doug Pringle was the city’s top DJ, and he was THE voice of Montreal for years, entertaining us with new music, while letting us listen in on his interviews with everyone from Marc Bolan to Jesse Winchester, with multiple stops in between.

The summer of ’72 brought the Watergate Scandal, the horror of 11 Israeli athletes being murdered at the Munich Olympics, and the first talk of the IRA planting car bombs in Ireland.

But we were far more interested in listening to Seals and Croft.

By ’76, single again, and with the Olympics in full swing in Montreal, my footsteps kept time to the music. When I wasn’t hanging out at the Olympic Village, I was cruising Crescent Street, dancing to disco in my platform sandals. Soon I’d leave for Toronto, but in the summer of ’76, the city was mine, and I was taking my joy to the streets.

The summer of 1983. New wave was now firmly established in the charts and in the street. We’d gone from girl Groups like The Go Gos and The Bangles owning the summer charts in 1980, ’81, and ’82, to a more mature sound emerging as the artists of the 70s, like Martha Davis of The Motels, lost their youths and innocence, just like the rest of us. The boomers, once again, were growing older as a group, with the music guiding our journey.

The Tragically Hip, who appeared on the scene in 1987, burst out of the gate sounding like the voice of Canada. ‘Blow at High Dough’, ’38 Years Old,’ and ‘Fifty Mission Cap’ pulled a Maple Leaf flag over the band, but in 1998, they nailed Ontario summers forever with ‘Bobcaygeon.’

These days there aren’t as many songs that, for me, capture that ‘summery’ feeling. Hitting it in the summer is not the same as having a classic summer song. Sure, you had Nelly’s ‘Hot in Here’ in 2002, but that was mainly about getting jiggy, in any season. 2010s ‘California Gurls’ by Katy Perry was fun, but couldn’t hold a candle to either the Beach Boys, or even the Van Halen rendition of ‘California Girls.’

I’m the first to admit that I’m well out of the new music loop. Still, I’d gladly stack any of my summer songs against any that have come along in the last decade and a half. From the innocence of the Loving Spoonful’s ‘Rain on the Roof’ to the Who’s raucous, ‘Summertime Blues,’ Martha and the Vandella’s ‘Heatwave,’ and The Kinks louche ‘Sunny Afternoon,’ to the brassy horns of Chicago’s ‘Saturday in the Park.’ I’ve got a full house AND a royal flush of bona fide summer time music.

And that’s even before I pull out Billy Stewart’s 1966 hybrid of ‘Summertime’ that insists you feel the heat of the ‘hot’ summertime.

It’s summer. Find that Walkman you packed away a decade ago, fire up your favorite collection of greatest golden oldie summertime tunes on CD, and head on down to the nearest boardwalk. As the Doors once told us, ‘Summer’s almost gone,’ and before you know it, you’ll be saying, ‘See you in September.’

Pande-Malaise

by Roxanne Tellier

Got an email from a friend the other day, headed “Enough already!” Like so many of us – especially we older folks – she’s sick and tired of being locked down, exasperated with the conflicting information we’ve received, really scared of leaving her home unless it’s absolutely necessary, and furious with the scoffers who put her health in danger with their refusal to wear a mask.

Really doesn’t help that we’ve had a lot of very hot days in the last few weeks. Everything’s a little worse when the heat sets in, and you’ve spent far more time with the same person than you ever counted on doing, way back when you first hooked up, and you both had lives, and jobs to go to.

Combine that with any amount of time on social media, and it’s a recipe for disaster, divorce, or defenestration. Gonna have to go on a diet, cut way back on my media, social or terrestrial, before I blow a fuse.

I’m just not made for these times, but, here’s the thing, though … nobody in today’s citizenry is really mentally equipped to handle months and months of isolation, waiting in lines, sacrificing, or accommodating crazy conditions, or for rallying around a flag in support of their nation. Our parents were, but that was then, and not at all like now, when the rallying cry and demand that one’s personal rights be respected is drowning out the cries of those actually fearful of becoming sick or dying. And those cries jockey for place with the cries for social justice, equality, an end to police brutality, and the need for a haircut and somewhere to enjoy a cold beer.

In many places in the world, strong leadership and a compliant citizenry have beaten back the worst of this modern plague. The key is to stay vigilant, and to follow the public health guidelines. Little by little, we’re moving in the right direction.

Not so in the US, natch, where the Feckless Leader has politicized the infectious disease, and has been rewarded with the deaths of nearly 130,000 Americans. After months of downplaying the seriousness of this pandemic, and sloughing the jobs off onto his sycophantic state governors, the new talking point out of the White House is that Americans “need to live with it.”

Apparently, trump has now realized that this bug is not going away so easily, and might still be a problem in November, when he hopes to be re-elected. Top officials are therefore pushing the need for life to move forward, regardless of reality, all in an effort to try and force the economy back to pre-pandemic days.

“The virus is with us, but we need to live with it. “

Hmm.. I think I’d rather avoid getting a terrible disease by doing a few simple things, like washing my hands, wearing a mask, and social distancing But hey… you do you.

“The cure shouldn’t be worse than the disease,” trump intoned, by which he meant that he needed you guys – the voters, the essential workers – to get out there and get the economy restarted so that he could brag about it, and get re-elected. He sure as heck wasn’t gonna go be a greeter at WalMart or load a truck. And he never, ever cared if going out there got you killed. Not his problem, he kept telling you.

Talking points. Grand scale bull pucky. Lies, fantasy, magical thinking, “And then one day, it will just go away, like a miracle.” Seems a tad naïve coming from a 74 year old.

But sadly – too many of his adoring fans buy what he’s selling. It’s all branding, his words get repeated like they’re gospel, and like good little monkeys, the cultists swallow the dis- and misinformation they’re fed.

We gotta stop this, folks. Time to STOP with the retweeting and share of his moronic pronouncements, the pictures of his giant butt with a suspicious stain on the crotch, the inane flag and daughter molesting … yeah, it’s funny to you because you don’t like the guy, or his supporters, but all you’re doing is reinforcing his importance in their eyes.

Remember that it was the billions of dollars worth of free publicity given to him by mainstream and social media that won him the office in 2016! Repeating his name, showing his photo, making a fashion idol of his wife and daughter… and noting his lack of ability to be a hundred per cent sure which is which… is not helping. People are stupid. They have a lot to do, a lot to see, they’re working, they’re dealing with their lives, and you repeating his name over and over like it’s gonna summon CandyMan just gives more credence to him, in their eyes.

““You have Donald Trump coming along and getting all this coverage without spending a dime,” said Paul Senatori, chief analytics officer at Portland-based mediaQuant.

The real estate magnate got $4.96 billion in free earned media in the year leading up to the presidential election. He received $5.6 billion throughout the entirety of his campaign, more than Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio combined.

Over the past 12 months, the president-elect received more than $800 million in free earned broadcast media, compared to $666 million for Clinton, and $2.6 billion in free earned online news attention, compared to $1.6 billion for his rival. He edged out her and other major political names in American and worldwide newspapers as well.“ (The Street, Nov 2016)

He’s ugly, he’s stupid, his family sucks baboons. We know. And if anyone recognizes how tempting it is to post or share another unflattering photo of that gang, it’s me. But we have to stop handing him another term.

Meanwhile, we’ve got this whole summer to get through, and some of us are having a harder time with it than others. Geez, if you’re not getting a government cheque of some kind, or doing an ‘essential worker’ job that hopefully won’t get you sick, there’s hard times and troubles a coming. I don’t think most of us realized how interconnected we all were until we got to this place in time, and for many, it’s a disaster.

On the other hand – refusing to face reality because it’s too negative, well, that’s a lot like pretending you’re Sandra Bullock in Bird Box. And we all know that blindfold is not gonna stop the monsters from coming. Being willfully blind to reality is not gonna help.

Sure, it’s better to ‘think positively’ but trump’s playing cheerleader for the States hasn’t stopped 130 thousand deaths. How’s that working out for him? Or them?

There’s things we have to discuss, bloody big things, like the economy, racism and police brutality, equality, how our banking systems work, what we do with our ‘dirty’ money, how we feel about our own political systems, and what happens if things go even worse down South. All of that is not going to go away, no matter how willfully a blind eye we turn to it. In this case, thinking positively is pretty much down to having a good income regardless of the circumstances, and not caring about how others are doing. In other words… that’s privilege, bud.

In truth, things could be worse. A lot worse. And look how much HASN’T gone wrong yet. Though I may be speaking too soon ….

I wanna talk about how we can move forward to a new normal, because that old normal wasn’t great for very many people. Let’s shake it up, let’s talk about progress, moving forward, helping each other, building futures for our kids and grandkids, remembering that, because of COVID-19, we haven’t been really paying a lot of attention to climate change, but it never stopped while we looked away.

I’m still reeling from the realization that, while we’re just trying to get through this year, Premier Ford’s been putting into place some pretty nasty things that made ZERO sense, but that he’s claimed are important to the economy. I fail to see how allowing environmental degradation, and cutting off protections for our land and water, helps anyone but his cronies.

“On April 1, citing the pandemic, the government suspended a broad swath of environmental protection law, effectively allowing the province to push forward environmentally significant projects or policy changes ⁠— even those that don’t relate to COVID-19 ⁠— without consulting or notifying the public.” (National Observer, May 2020)

Why? Because he could, and you were too busy just trying to survive to notice.

But on the other hand, consider this. We have a chance to change our world, to demand that it change, because ‘business as usual’ has taken a holiday.

As my buddy Michael Scrivener and I dissected this COVIDy world over lunch the other day, (well, someone has to take it apart and put it back together PROPERLY!) we mused on the things that seemed unlikely to ever return. Like ‘power suits,’ ties, even pants, which for some reason seems one of the first things a guy likes to divest himself of, given half a chance. Commuting – why? Who would want to suffer an hour or more on public transit, now braving far worse than the lack of a seat, or a fellow passenger’s bad breath, when one could simply plop oneself down in front of a home computer – pantless, if desired – and get started on the day with a coffee at hand that didn’t cost $5?

Even the most controlling middle manager would likely prefer to torment you by twitter or private message than to budge his middle class butt from his middle class bungalow in some much less expensive suburb far far away.

And then what about commercial real estate? Why rent an entire floor in a downtown office tower if your satellite workers are themselves paying for the roof over their heads?

Ah, you say, but what then of all those towers blocking our sight-lines? Would they be empty vessels, swaying in the breeze?

Well, how about the people reclaim that territory? Most of those buildings already have multiple elevator banks in place, that divvy up the floors. You could easily put the remaining office types in the higher floors, whisked up and away to their offices with expensive views, while leaving the lower floors for better usage.

Like rejigging all that lovely square footage into rent controlled apartments and rentable rooms for the homeless, the elderly, anyone who loves this city but can’t afford to live in it. Why not create floors of work and practice studios for artists, musicians, dancers? And while you’re at it…, put in some performance spaces, big and empty enough to allow social distancing.

It’s your world. The sky COULD be the limit. You wanna think positive? Start right here with what matters to you. Think about how YOU would fix this world. We need to use this ‘pause’ in the world turning to see that the old normal had quite a lot wrong with how it worked, but if we work cooperatively, and demand progressive change, we might be able to turn this Titanic disaster into a luxury cruise.

Eyes on the prize! Only you can prevent Kanye West from becoming president!