Roxanne Tellier – Page 30 – frustratedboomers

Motown: The Musical

The sixties were a glorious time, unlikely to ever be repeated or rivalled. The fifties had been a cautious decade, where women stayed home after marrying to take care of their men, kids didn’t sass parents, and no one questioned authority in the family or in their country. Well, at least on the surface.

But the sixties were all about breaking free of rigid expectations. The kids were loud, and demanding that their culture be not only accepted but respected. Feminism, the civil rights movement, and counter culture in general flourished. And into this heady mix, Berry Gordy, a guy from Detroit, working out of a house on W. Grand Blvd, brought his own dream to life by creating Motown – Hitsville U.S.A.

Trailer

Motown: The Musical is a heady ride, a pastiche of the songs that mirrored and urged on a youth culture exploding in front of our parents’ shocked eyes. The story, written by Gordy, traces the determination , grit and greed that was necessary to bring the music of young, black performers out into the open , and into the spotlight, after decades of being relegated to touring under Jim Crow laws and on the Chitlin’ Circuit.

Much of early rock and roll was unacceptable to a white, uptight audience in North America. The music written and performed by black artists was routinely filtered through clean cut and very white vocalists who better exemplified what the society of the day wanted to see and hear. As Sam Phillips, the man who discovered Elvis once said “If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.”

The charts of the day were wide-ranging; a radio station’s top ten might include everything from rock to country to instrumental movie soundtracks, to a song scooped from a Broadway musical. And into this blessedly catholic mix, Gordy dropped the songs that exploded minds once closed to racial diversity.

When I first heard Motown songs, they were often filtered through the music of The Beatles, and other British groups who were eagerly seizing upon this new form, a rhythm and blues concoction that stepped all over early rock and roll structure, and brought attention to lyrics with heart and soul, accompanied by dazzling melodies and angelic harmonies.

The Beatles, always hip to finding hits where others might not have looked, recorded three Motown hits for their second album, With The Beatles, in 1963; “Money”, Smokey Robinson’s “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me,” and The Marvelettes “Please Mr Postman.”

“Money (That’s What I Want,) “was the first hit for Gordy, on the Tamla label operated pre-Motown, and released in 1959. And right from the beginning, Gordy was ruthless. “Singer Barrett Strong claims that he co-wrote the song with Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford. His name was removed from the copyright registration three years after the song was written, restored in 1987 when the copyright was renewed, and then excised again the next year. Gordy has stated that Strong’s name was only included because of a clerical error.”

But Motown’s legal scramblings and shenanigans didn’t come to our attention until years later. What we were hearing and enjoying were songs that burst out of the radio, as Martha and the Vandellas called us to come “Dancin’ In the Streets.”

Gordy’s musical stable included The Temptations, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, The Marvelettes and Marvin Gaye. He loved to pit the performers against each other, believing that “competition breeds champions.” He was a showman who understood what the people wanted, and the young artists that flocked to his label soon learned that their street cred was about to be vigorously scrubbed off them.

“Maxine Powell ran the only in-house finishing school at any American record label. Most people have probably never heard of Powell, who died this week, but music fans have unknowingly enjoyed her handiwork at Motown since the ‘60s.

“When I opened up, in 1964, the finishing school, the purpose was to help the artists become class, to know what to do on stage and off stage, because they did come from humble beginnings. Some of them from the projects and some of them were using street language. Some were rude and crude, you understand, but with me, it’s not where you come from, it’s where you’re going.”

It was Powell’s job to teach the likes of Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, Martha Reeves, Tammi Terrell, The Marvelettes, The Velvelettes, and Smokey Robinson how to present themselves charmingly during interviews, performances, and off-stage public appearances. When they were in Detroit, Motown singers were required to attend two-hour session with Powell, learning public speaking, posture, walking, stage presence, etiquette, and personal grooming. Powell had studied African-American cosmetology at the renowned Madam C.J. Walker training school in Indianapolis.” (http://dangerousminds.net/comments/motowns_charm_school)

Motown: The Musical takes all of that background and lays it out beautifully at our feet. Over 50 songs from the rich catalogue are sampled, in small or large bites, and the audience visibly thrills, sitting a little taller in their seats, as their own musical memories are stimulated.

Josh Tower plays Berry Gordy, whose long love affair with Diana Ross, portrayed by the lovely Allison Semmes, is pivotal to his life. Consequently, a large part of the musical is devoted to her work, first as a teen, and one of The Supremes, through her machinations to become the acknowledged star of the group, her foray into film, to her eventual break with Gordy and Motown.

But it’s tiny Michael Jackson, ably brought to life by Leon Outlaw Jr., (the role is shared between Outlaw and Nathaniel Cullors,) who steals our hearts. Outlaw plays the young Berry Gordy, and a young Stevie Wonder, whose over-bearing stage mom terrifies Gordy. But it’s when we hear Outlaw as the 10 year old Michael Jackson auditioning with the song, “Who’s Loving You,” that we’re galvanized.

The song was written by Smokey Robinson for his group The Miracles, who recorded the song in 1960 for their first Motown album. The song was issued as the b-side to The Jackson 5’s first single, “I Want You Back” in 1969. And of course, Michael went on to extraordinary heights … we still feel his loss. But back then, that little kid with the big voice could be depended on to knock it out of the park pretty much every time he came to bat. The Jackson 5 were so huge in the sixties that they received the ultimate compliment of the time – their own animated TV series.

We dip, dip, dip through other artists and their contributions to the legend. Jesse Nager plays Smokey Robinson, a long time Gordy friend, while Jarran Muse plays a suitably conflicted Marvin Gaye, whose greatest songs were nearly never accepted by the label.

“The first Marvin Gaye album credited as being produced by the artist himself, What’s Going On is a unified concept album consisting of nine songs, most of which lead into the next. It has also been categorized as a song cycle; the album ends on a reprise of the album’s opening theme. The album is told from the point of view of a Vietnam War veteran returning to the country he had been fighting for, and seeing only hatred, suffering, and injustice. Gaye’s introspective lyrics discuss themes of drug abuse, poverty, and the Vietnam War. He has also been credited with criticizing global warming before the public outcry against it had become prominent.

… Gaye approached Gordy with the “What’s Going On” song while in California where Gordy had relocated. Gordy took a profound dislike to the song, calling it “the worst thing I ever heard in my life”. Gaye, who had also begun recording some songs that would later be featured on his later album, Let’s Get It On responded by going on strike from recording anything else for the label unless Gordy relented. Motown executive Harry Balk later recalled that he had tried to get Gordy to release the song to which Gordy replied to Balk, “that Dizzy Gillespie stuff in the middle, that scatting, it’s old.” Most of Motown’s Quality Control Department team also turned the song down, with Balk later stating that “they were used to the ‘baby baby’ stuff, and this was a little hard for them to grasp.” Gordy also felt the song was too political to be a hit on radio and too unusual compared with what was considered a part of the popular music sound of that time to be commercially successful.

With the help of Motown sales executive Barney Ales, Harry Balk got the song released to record stores, sending 100,000 copies of the song without Gordy’s knowledge, on January 17, 1971, with another 100,000 copies sent after that success.” (Wikipedia.com)

The musical is set in 1983, as the cream of the Motown crop returns for the 25^th anniversary of Motown Records, held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Gordy, fuming over the slights and spats of the past, is determined not to attend the ceremonies. But his memories, and the cajoling of family and friends, including Smokey, finally get him to relent. He and Diana have a smoochy smooch, ‘we cool,” moment, and everyone sings.

The quasi happy ending, however, completely bypasses what many believe to be the high point of the show … Michael Jackson’s return to perform a medley of Jackson 5 hits with his brothers, followed by a solo performance of “Billie Jean,” that showed us that the kid had blossomed into a formidable man … with a mean “Moon Walk.”

I loved Motown: The Musical. I’d highly recommend it not only to those of us who lived through those halcyon days, but to anyone aspiring to a career in this business of show, as some of the trickiest moves and manipulations on the parts of both artists and managers are still in play today.

But definitely … come for the music. That ‘sweet, sweet music’ will get you every time.

Living in the FaceBook Bubble

Dang! It always happens … I’m all gung ho about something I want to write about, and I get some of the research done, and then … life intervenes. Or, more accurately, social media. I’m looking at you, Facebook!

Oh, that Facebook. That sapper of time, that playground for those avoiding actual work, that stew of emotions so many of us find ourselves soaking in. I can give you a dozen reasons why being on Facebook is a good thing, with it’s ability to connect us to long lost friends and relatives around the world. But the honest truth is that most of us are just plain addicted to the rush of recognition we feel when someone out there ‘likes’ our posts.

And that’s part of the problem. We naturally tend to gather around ourselves those of like minds, and soon our interactions may be more about living in a bubble of agreement than actual dialogue. Any dissenting voice can be drowned out by a supporter, which neatly nips in the bud the chance to hear other sides to an argument. Facebook’s own algorhythms contribute to this bubble, since the sorting function places posts higher in your news feed if they’re from like-minded friends. Soon, your view of the world can become distorted, leading you to believe that absolutely everyone, everywhere, feels exactly like you do. And then to be surprised when that does not turn out to actually be true.

The upcoming election has preoccupied me for some time – I truly feel that whoever is elected to steer Canada’s boat over the next four years will shape Canada’s future, for better or worse. Frankly, I cannot wait for it to be over. I intend to fight the good fight, right up until the last vote is counted, and then get a freakin’ life. Enough is too much, when it comes to politics. There are so many more enjoyable ways to spend my days.

What has been most surprising to me in the last few weeks is something I’ve seen coming, but have never seen so up-close and personal before. Divisiveness, knee jerking, vicious verbal assaults, and cruel name-calling have gone from being issues visible in the rear view mirror, to sitting right next to us in the passenger seat, breathing coffee and garlic in our faces. A seemingly innocuous remark can instantly transform your social media experience into a full-fledged WWE tag-team smack down presided over by Vince McMahon himself.

Yeah, it’s everywhere, I know. It’s in all politics, social media, and mass media. We can’t turn on our televisions or listen to our radios without hearing screaming hosts and responsive listeners blaring their opinionated and often misguided or misinformed thoughts, speaking over each other, and literally and figuratively giving each other the finger. Over the last few years, a lack of civility has gone from being politically incorrect to being highly rated entertainment, the more lurid and hyperventilated, the better.

And so, with two highly significant elections approaching, our own Canadian one on October 19^th, and the American race that will drag along to an illogical conclusion in 2016, we’re being bombarded with rhetoric, over-heated promises and denunciations, and the spectacle of grown men and women who believe they have what it takes to become the leaders of countries in the Free World, behaving like poorly informed members of a high school debate squad. On a losing team.

As Bob Rae said in his terrific book, What’s Happened to Politics, “The trouble with pursuing politics as a business is that it has helped to create a cynical, fractured electorate that doesn’t know whom to trust, or what to do.”

Career politicians have mined social media and harnessed the power of polls to find their supporters, which they then use in an effort to get elected to positions that seem to be little more than spring boards for their next kick at the electoral can. Less and less actual work appears to be getting done once they’ve secured their spot in the legislature; they’ve actually built large chunks of time into their tenure when the priority is re-election, rather than service to the taxpayers who are paying for their supposed expertise. Incessant campaigning squashes the possibility of responsible governance. That’s not devoting your life to public office and service – that’s devoting your life to BEING serviced. And apparently, it pays very well.

Once the politician’s fan base is in place, it’s carefully nurtured, by which I mean, manipulated , in such a way that it becomes unthinkable to actually parse either the actual words or deeds being done in the politician’s name. Partisan politics, as played by supporters who believe that a louder voice, and denial of reality, and most assuredly a lack of ability to tell truth from lies, has seeped into every crevice of our social and mass media.

The name players in the game, those leaders of the political parties and those fighting to become leaders, snap and point fingers at each other, defending minuscule slurs over the larger picture of policy and national stewardship. And their base, emulating their masters, surge to defend this silly display with ever increasing intensity and rabid vehemence.

The Emperor has no clothes. The pickin’s are slim in these upcoming elections. The distinctions between political parties are narrowing, as corporate dollars seduce the candidates. You can’t offend those who pay for you to play, so each candidate, no matter how invested in a cause, eventually finds themselves beholden to the money that put them into their seat. Consequently, debates revolve around safer issues, or promises clearly designed to sucker in the largest groups of emotionally driven voters.

We’re being fed slogans and talking points, while meaningful dialogue, and listening before replying, is seen as dated and old fashioned.

Which brings me back again to those of us who can’t get enough of Facebook and social media, a phenomena so virulent that it’s gone from being a pastime to an actual condition listed in the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) as Internet Addiction, judged to be more powerful and insidious than the physical addictions of nicotine or alcohol.

We addicts may partake of the real world, walking and talking amongst you, but it’s when we hit the ‘Net that our most intense thoughts and words are free to emerge. Safe behind our glowing monitors, we take our scalpels to those who don’t live inside the same bubbles that we do, and defend our beliefs and opinions, even if those opinions were formed mere minutes before and based solely on a click bait driven headline intended to attract us to a site that will grab our personal data and sell it to the highest bidder.

“Just a few more minutes … I’ve gotta school this fool whom I have never met on what’s REALLY going on!”

We can blame the media, we can blame a decay in political morals, we can blame a citizenry now more accustomed to a violent offense than a thoughtful defense. Yeah, let’s do that. Because it would be unthinkable to decide that how we conduct ourselves, in public or on the Internet, has more to do with allowing ourselves to descend into a caveman-like brutality, and less to do with “speaking our minds” and “brutal honesty.”

Just look at how many ‘likes’ that gets for Donald Trump.

(originally published Sept. 20/2015, in Bob Segarini’s “Don’t Believe A Word I Say”

Perspective

Is there anything more glorious than feeling better after being ill? We often take our human bodies for granted, and whimper when they’re damaged. But wondrously, for most of us, the majority of our ailments can be repaired by modern medicine.

We take a lot of things for granted until they’re gone or disappear for a while. Sleep, for instance. I’m blessed to be an ‘insta crash.’ When I’m tired, the slip between awareness and deep sleep goes almost unnoticed. I sleep, perhaps dream, and then awake, refreshed and ready for another day.

But so many suffer from insomnia. There are those who dread night time, because their struggle to get a good night’s sleep is like trying to wrestle a wild animal into submission. And over time, that becomes what they expect to happen, and so the dread becomes normal, and waking up achy and groggy commonplace.

We take walking for granted too. And yet the differences in how we walk are mind-boggling. I’ll never forget watching this short film a lifetime ago, and marvelling at how very differently our bodies can move. The images have never left me, and when I see a real life example of some of the more extreme walkers, I even mentally hear the music that accompanied their animated gait.

That’s the thing about being human; what seems commonplace loses it’s mystery and beauty over time. Every decade, more wonders appear in our world, and we cast aside the things we had before, sure that our old toys are no longer relevant or worthy. And yet, someone from a place that has not reached our level of technology would seize upon what we so eagerly toss on the dust heap, with joy.

It’s all relative. We’re constantly balancing where we are with where we’ve been, and where we hope to go. We make internal compromises, knowing that some of our actions will harm us, but assessing just how much harm we can do to ourselves without suffering unduly. It is the human condition.

Over a lifetime, it becomes harder to shrug off what we remember of how it felt to be innocent of experience, and to embrace the new that is always beckoning. We remember how vibrant and alive we were as kids, and how passionate our emotions felt, and how everything we experienced was for the first time, fresh and intense and life-changing.

We get better at the things we do, or maybe we just get more experienced. Either way, we become blasé, and start to judge those who’ve only just learned what it feels like we’ve always known. We forget the joy of novelty, and heaven help us, sometimes we mock those trying to do what we once did for the first time. How dare they try and do it differently and in their own way?

And with every year our fragile shells are getting older and less flexible, prone to wearing out and being damaged by a misstep or an unlucky chance encounter with something greater than ourselves, be it a virus or a Mack truck. Or a corporate raider, or a venture capitalist, for that matter. That’s when the rubber meets the road, and we find out what sort of base we’ve built for ourselves, internally.

If we were very lucky, our parents prepared us for both the good and bad that everyone encounters in life. I was blessed with a mother who survived hard times in her youth, and who instilled in me her ability to bounce back from whatever came along. Just last night I dreamt that I was penniless, homeless, and friendless, but in the dream, my mum appeared to show me the humour in the situation, and soon we were laughing and singing, ready to face the situation and begin again. Now, that’s a solid base. I’m a lucky woman to have had such a strong mother, who could put aside her own fears and troubles to raise me with the ultimate gift; the ability to survive any catastrophe that comes along, and to remember that we are stronger than adversity.

We live in interesting times. Some would say, we always have. Forces will always struggle to contain the masses who want autonomy over their own lives and thoughts. Change is inevitable, whether it be for the better or the worst. And yet we wonderful and very human beings seek to control what little we can; our bodies, our families, our fortunes, our realities.

In every generation, there will be those who revere the past, and those who want to destroy or rise about it. There will be those who say that today’s art is puerile and lacklustre in comparison to the art of their day. Some will plod along, making the best of their lot, while others will aim for the stars. Both will both fail and succeed. And it was ever so.

So, as awful as it is, it’s a good thing to get sick once in a while. Illness forces us to stop for a time, to step off the treadmill of what we and others expect of us. It’s a time to drink hot soups and read trashy magazines and sleep for hours while our antibodies and immune systems work tirelessly to get our fleshy selves back into a state fit to return to what needs to be done to keep us viable in our lives. We learn who cares about our well-being, who is kind, thoughtful and helpful, and sadly, we also learn that life will go on without us, no matter how important we think we are to the planet. Illness keeps us humble, because, in the end … we’re only here for as long as we’re supposed to be.

To quote David Lee Roth … “life goes on without me …”

(first published in Don’t Believe A Word I Say, September 13, 2015)

Climate Change What Climate Change? … The Aftermath

Climate change denial, or global warming denial, involves denial, dismissal, or unwarranted doubt about the scientific consensus on the rate and extent of global warming, the extent to which it is caused by humans, its impacts on nature and human society, or the potential for human actions to reduce these impacts. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial)

Part One: https://frustratedboomers.com/2015/08/12/climate-change-what-climate-change-part-one/

Part Two.https://frustratedboomers.com/2015/08/13/climate-change-what-climate-change-part-two/

It’s been a few days since I wrote parts one and two, and, not surprisingly, there have been those who have taken offense at my stance and my words.

Here’s one response:

“your blog part one is just name calling. It’s like you are standing on a soapbox and ranting. You won’t get anyone to listen to you talking like that. I’m p**sed off reading it, and I’m your friend. I am not convinced that mankind is contributing to climate change. And you call me names because I am still weighing the evidence, looking for proof.”

When I was writing part one, I weighed carefully how I should reference those still in denial of climate change, and how humans have contributed to the mess. I settled on “uninformed and part of the problem” as a way to describe this way of thinking.

Call me biased, but I think worrying about someone being offended by my words, while the majority of us are worried about becoming extinct if change is not acknowledged and tackled, is treading a little too close to a world where bruising people’s feelings is more important than facing the inconvenient truth.

“I’m no scientist, but …” Stop right there. No good comes from continuing that sentence. That’s mindless and lazy, and denies credence to the actual scientists, who are telling you what’s going on. It allows politicians to pander to a base that would prefer not to think about a future less cozy than the present.

Climate change is the most important and relevant issue we are dealing with today. All else pales in the face of drought and starvation, which people in other countries are already experiencing. The fact that we have felt only the periphery of the impact should be appreciated, but should also sound a clarion call for action.

And yet still, after decades of warnings … some are still “weighing the evidence?” On which scale? Who’s got their thumb on which side? And just how long is this weighing going to take, because while we’re weighing, the problem is compounding.

Imagine for a moment that you and 75% of mankind all believed firmly that, based on scientific data and research, a cataclysmic event was about to happen. Imagine also, that there was a chance that that event could be forestalled, if not completely prevented. At what point would you cease to stop talking about the problem, and actually start working to fix it?

At what point do you stop trying to reason with people who’ve had decades to see the reality of climate change and tell them to just get out of the damn way? This is not a win/lose argument, if you winning the argument means all of us suffering, and potentially mankind becoming extinct.

I can assure you, I will not gloat if I am right and you are wrong. If I am right, I’ll be too busy struggling to breathe, or begging for water to say “I told you so.” If you are right, what’s the worst that can happen?

As Secretary of State John Kerry said recently,

“If we make the necessary efforts to address this challenge – and supposing I’m wrong or scientists are wrong, 97 percent of them all wrong – supposing they are, what’s the worst that can happen? We put millions of people to work transitioning our energy, creating new and renewable and alternative; we make life healthier because we have less particulates in the air and cleaner air and more health; we give ourselves greater security through greater energy independence – that’s the downside. This is not a matter of politics or partisanship; it’s a matter of science and stewardship. And it’s not a matter of capacity; it’s a matter of willpower.”

Not making a decision IS making a decision; a decision that might well doom the rest of us to not taking a proactive stance in working with the environment.

I understand that the thought that your children and grandchildren will not live in the same world you grew up in is frightening, but denying the reality of the changes around you is not the solution. Mankind is contributing to climate change. We ARE guilty. But we are presumably intelligent and brave enough to accept these facts and work towards solutions.

Those palm forests being grown in the smouldering coals of decimated rainforests throughout Africa, Asia, North America, and South America, are financed and put into place by large corporations who place profit over humanity’s future, while the country’s leaders are bribed to look away from their country’s destruction.

“Palm foresting is linked to major issues such as deforestation, habitat degradation, climate change, animal cruelty and indigenous rights abuses in the countries where it is produced, as the land and forests must be cleared for the development of the oil palm plantations. According to the World Wildlife Fund, an area the equivalent size of 300 football fields of rainforest is cleared each hour to make way for palm oil production. This large-scale deforestation is pushing many species to extinction, and findings show that if nothing changes species like the orangutan could become extinct in the wild within the next 5-10 years, and Sumatran tigers less than 3 years.

In total, 50 million tons of palm oil is produced annually, supplying over 30% of the world’s vegetable oil production. This single vegetable oil is found in approximately 40-50% of household products in countries such as United States, Canada, Australia and England. Palm oil can be present in a wide variety of products, including: baked goods, confectionery, shampoo, cosmetics, cleaning agents, washing detergents and toothpaste.” (http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/Whats_the_issue.php

Look, no one is asking YOU, personally, to handle the enormous and expensive clean-up job that we need to do to try and save SOME of our species, and human life. It’s not down to you, personally, to have all the answers to how we continue to feed all the people in the world, or what we’ll do when oil runs out.

But it is down to you, and me, and everyone – every country, every world leader – to acknowledge that we can’t keep putting money over people. Those days, of mindlessly consuming without a thought to where all the goodies are coming from, are gone.

Every day that passes ensures further compounding of climate change effects. What was once thought to be safely decades or centuries away, now looks to be our problem, not our kids’. (And why were you leaving it to your kids and grandkids anyway? This is YOUR mess .. YOU clean it up.)

The time for dithering over climate change and who’s responsible, is over. It’s now time for action. Let politicians know we will not allow corporations to suck down our country’s resources at the expense of the people. Protest, campaign, work with eco activists. VOTE!.

It would be an awful shame to lose mankind over a fear of causing offense to others.

…

For an interesting read on what it means to accept climate change, and all of the fear and sorrow and regret you inevitably feel, I recommend this column.

As the writer says, “To cope with losing our world requires us to descend through the anger into mourning & sadness, not bypass them to jump onto the optimism bandwagon or escape into indifference.”

http://www.ecobuddhism.org/wisdom/psyche_and_spirit/tgg

Climate Change? What Climate Change? Part Two

Part One: /https://frustratedboomers.com/2015/08/12/climate-change-what-climate-change-part-one/

Why would politicians continue to argue whether or not a profit motive is bringing us to the brink of extinction? Why would countries continue to invest in corporations hell-bent on raping the planet’s natural resources, with no apparent plan for the future?

Because those who deny reality are actually the most frightened of us of all. There is certainly no way that the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Canada is unaware of what is known to be fact. And yet, Prime Minister Harper went so far as to fire or muzzle Canadian scientists, so that Canadians would not be privy to environmental information necessary when deciding the economic arc of the coming years.

They didn’t need to manipulate unwelcome news. They just decided not to show it.

In February of this year, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the Senate’s most vocal critic of the scientific consensus on climate change, and author of The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, tossed a snowball on the Senate floor as part of his case for why global warming is a hoax.

Fun Fact: Jim Inhofe is the chair of the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Governor Rick Scott of Florida, one of the states most likely to be ravaged by climate change in the very near future, has officially banned the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from using the phrases “climate change,” “global warming,” and “sustainability,” since 2011.

This is the political equivalent of an ostrich burying it’s head in the sand in order not to see an enemy coming.

Obama spoke to Floridians on Earth Day 2015, saying, ““We do not have time to deny the effects of climate change. Nowhere is it going to have a bigger impact than here in South Florida. Here in the Everglades you can see the effect of a changing planet.This harms freshwater wildlife. The salt water flows into aquifers that flow into the drinking water of 7 million South Floridians.”

“If we don’t act, there may not be an Everglades as we know it,” he added.

In California, Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought State of Emergency in January 2015 and imposed “strict conservation measures” state-wide. Californians have been suffering drought for four years, yet the actions being taken at citizen level amount to little more than “don’t water your lawn,” and “shower with a friend.” Corporations continue to literally suck the state dry for profit.

Five years after the explosion of the Deep Water Horizon, tar balls still wash to shore. In Oklahoma, the state acknowledged in March 2015 that the earthquakes rocking the state are linked to fracking.

British Columbia is already feeling severe effects from climate change. B.C.’s 17,000 glaciers are all melting, which means no late summer water supply, diminished hydro power production, and serious impacts on fisheries and spawning salmon.

Unprecedented damage has been done by wildfires, that started burning early in the year, and could continue burning longer than usual. Greenhouse gas emissions that are released during forest fires are another major concern. “We have the initial CO2 emissions during the fire, but then on that blackened landscape we have continued emissions over time.”

Climate models have indicated that B.C. will have more precipitation this winter, but that more of it will fall as rain rather than snow. That will increase the importance on how fresh water is stored and managed.

In the Prairies, drought is an ongoing issue, which has forced farmers to re-evaluate their cattle. If they sell or slaughter cows which they can’t afford to feed, the impact will have a long term effect on the availability of beef. It’s a one-two punch, with both grain and meat stores becoming sorely depleted.

Non-agricultural regions may welcome the thought of warmer winters, but the reality is that climate change will eventually have an impact on all us, whether through rising food prices, or through the health of children, as increased disease, freshwater shortages, and suffocating smog become commonplace.

In 2011, Environment Minister Peter Kent pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol, saying the “incompetent Liberal government” who signed the accord took little action to make the necessary greenhouse gas emission cuts. That, coupled with a failing economy, meant the move was necessary to save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties.

“The Kyoto Protocol, which expires next year, committed major industrial economies to reducing their annual CO2 emissions to below 1990 levels, while providing financial supports to developing nations to encourage them to follow suit eventually. Canada signed the accord in 1998 and ratified it in 2002 but was not on track to meet its legally binding targets.

The Conservatives have committed to 17 per cent cuts from 2005 levels by 2020, a much lower threshold to meet than cutting below 1990 emissions levels.” (CBC News, December 2011.)

During Toronto’s Pan Am Games, more than 300 delegates from 20 countries gathered at the Fairmont Royal York to urge those in power globally to make solid commitments for carbon reductions. In December, the UN Climate Summit will meet in Paris to present the latest facts and figures on this global issue.

Environment Canada recently announced that the country’s overall greenhouse gas output climbed 1.5 per cent between 2012 and 2013, continuing a slow, but steady, upward trend since the global recession of 2009.

So again, I ask, why are we not acting? Why must anyone interested in the latest facts on climate change dig deep into the internet, and sift through still dissenting voices shouting disinformation to that small group who refuse to accept human culpability? Why are we being coddled by politicians and a fence straddling media while evidence mounts that our children and grandchildren will pay a horrific price for our lack of planetary conservation?

Quite simply – understanding the extent of the damage, and the near impossibility of turning this sinking boat around, is too terrifying to imagine. 30 plus years of denial, of allowing lobbyists to turn mild disbelief or skepticism into a tug of war over scientific facts, of politicians lying to themselves, and then to us, in order to stay in power, has decimated the time and research that might have slowed, if not halted, our current reality.

A population aware of how dramatically climate change will impact on their daily lives would never elect any politician who’s denied the crisis.

So we’ve been sold a different future, a future where someone else will pay the price for our good times. Using the fear of the masses who have no viable ideas of their own of a future where oil is obsolete, politicians have doubled down on denial, stupidity and short term profit.

The attention has instead been focused on issues that appeal to present day thinking. Let’s talk about terrorism, or illegal immigration, or reproduction or gay rights. Let’s let the tension increase on inequality, and sex education and prison reform. A people divided on pressing, but ultimately minor, issues won’t have the resources or unity to rise up against a far more dangerous enemy – their own planet.

Lacking the imagination to picture a time when water will become the new gold standard, they see no other way to prosper through their election cycles than to protect the financial interests of those who profit from corporations allowed to take what they want of dwindling resources, without any compulsion to use environmental responsibility.

When political powers opted to create faux ‘scientific’ studies that didn’t accept science, they also failed to create an environment in which necessary change could flourish. The richest countries opted to continue doing what they knew how to do – capitalize on dwindling natural resources – rather than what they needed to do – encourage energy alternatives. In Canada, there has been no new funding for clean tech innovation since 2011.

The concept of human impact on the environment is not new. Rachel Carson released her book Silent Spring in 1962. The book introduced the idea of how our abuse of the planet was taking a toll on human life. Chemical companies ridiculed her words, but Americans were alarmed enough to rally for and get, a reversal in national pesticide policy, and a nationwide ban on DDT in 1972.

David Suzuki, an environmental activist since the mid-1970s, has been well known for criticizing government inaction on protecting the environment. The people valued his input, but didn’t pressure governments to act as vigorously as his words indicated. “In 2004, David Suzuki ranked fifth on the list of final nominees in a CBC Television series that asked viewers to select The Greatest Canadian of all Time. Suzuki was the top finalist still alive.”

So – we’ve known for decades that our actions impact upon our environment, and that our environment then impacts on our health. We’ve simply chosen to push that knowledge to the back of our minds, aided by politicians eager to appease corporations who have profited handsomely by deregulations and tax incentives further encouraging a rapacious appetite for natural resources and a reckless disregard for the health of the population.

The world’s developed countries agreed in 2010 to mobilize US$100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and reduce their emissions. Those commitments have fallen short by about US$70 billion, according to the World Bank. Brazil, China, India and South Africa are still waiting, in 2015, for those funds to arrive.

Ironically, while politicians are choosing to ignore or decry climate change, corporations are seizing upon the opportunity to profit from the reality. So while most humans and non-human species face the prospect of mass extinction, corporate interests ramp up activities that will further heighten the effects of climate change.

Exxon has partnered with Russia to look for more places to drill for oil in the Arctic seas.

Mining companies are taking advantage of record ice melt in places like Greenland, to dig for rich mineral resources like zinc, iron ore, uranium, copper, and gold. Biotech companies have invested millions in research for new vaccines to combat the diseases brought by heat-loving mosquitoes. Flood disaster planning is currently almost a billion-dollar industry and is expected to double by 2020. Monsanto continues to develop drought resistant GMO crop seeds despite growing protests from countries that have outlawed the use of GMOs.

The richest countries have created the problem, but it’s the poor nations who are having to deal with the realities.

The wealthy, who understand very well what’s at stake, are fortifying their estates, using green technology, and assuming their money will protect them indefinitely. But no matter how well protected anyone thinks they are, anywhere on the planet, you can’t fight a compounding rush to irreversible environmental disaster that has already seen 52% of non-human species become extinct in just the last 40 years. No matter how high on the hill you’ve built your fortress, you’re still dependent on the ‘little people’ growing your food, and on having uncontaminated water to drink.

The voices of those who understand climate change and it’s effect on humanity are becoming tinged with fright and despair. We are all a part of an environmental cycle; the food chain spares no one. As the glaciers and ice caps melt in the north, the shores of the south are rising.

In the oceans, “Warming temperatures are sucking oxygen out of waters even far out at sea, making enormous stretches of deep ocean hostile to marine life… These are not coastal dead zones, like the one that sprawls across the Gulf of Mexico, but great swaths of deep water that can reach thousands of miles offshore. Already naturally low in oxygen, these regions keep growing, spreading horizontally and vertically. Included are vast portions of the eastern Pacific, almost all of the Bay of Bengal, and an area of the Atlantic off West Africa as broad as the United States.

Globally, these low-oxygen areas have expanded by more than 1.7 million square miles (4.5 million square kilometers) in the past 50 years.

This phenomenon could transform the seas as much as global warming or ocean acidification will, rearranging where and what creatures eat and altering which species live or die. It already is starting to scramble ocean food chains and threatens to compound almost every other problem in the sea.” (National Geographic, March 2015.)

Drought, ongoing globalization and heightened political instability are having an increasing pressure on the global food system. Each new disaster – drought, hurricane, flood, typhoon – puts more strain on food production. When food and water become scarce, the people will riot. The very instability feared by climate deniers will occur, as panic sets in, followed by mass migration, death, territorial war, and the end of civilization as we know it.

Still unsure? Still easily swayed by those who will argue that “climate change is not so bad?”? Here’s a helpful link to how to understand and respond to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming.

http://grist.org/series/skeptics/

To read Part Three; https://frustratedboomers.com/2015/08/20/climate-change-what-climate-change-the-aftermath/

Climate Change? What Climate Change? Part One

Wouldn’t it be great if we knew what our regrets will someday be, before the fact, and when we still had time to do something about preventing them?

The single biggest issue facing the planet right now is climate change. Inequality would be second, but without a globalized approach to climate change, inequality is moot. As is war, reproductive rights, trophy hunting and gay marriage. Everything – no matter how deeply you care about it – is nothing but condiments to this picnic, issues to keep the population squabbling amongst themselves, and oblivious to the coming storm.

The wars in the Middle East are braided into the reality of climate change; Climate change drove the Syrian uprising, as drought and rising temperatures hurt agriculture, and pushed desperate people into conflict and exodus. With the cities already suffering from poverty, refugees from Iraq poured in and open conflict was inevitable. As was the migration of refugees pouring into Europe, fleeing war and starvation.

“In every South American country, concern over climate change is above the 90% mark, with this level of worry shared by Mexico, India, Tanzania and Morocco. Japan is one of the few highly advanced economies in the world to have a population as concerned about the risks of climate change.” (The Guardian, July 2015.)

The Eastern Mediterranean countries are drying out; East Africa, Somalia and Sudan are nearing crisis, and, closer to home, parts of Central America, especially Mexico, are short of water in countries reliant on agriculture.

If you still don’t believe in climate change, and mankind’s place in accelerating it, then you are not only uninformed, you are part of the problem. The people who mock the idea of their own personal impact on the planet, who brush aside 98% of established scientific fact as ‘junk science,’ are the same people who leave their litter behind in public parks; who carve their initials into bridges and railings; and who graffiti monuments. These people are incredibly selfish, and believe that the world revolves only around them, right this minute. In a childish fit of pique, they deny what’s happening globally, because it’s not currently affecting their well-being. They are, in a word, greedy. They not only want it all, they want yours as well, and see no problem with taking what they desire from others. What happens elsewhere is of no concern . If they can’t see it, if it doesn’t impact on their personal satisfaction, then they just don’t care.

Their numbers are dwindling, but they are a vocal group. They are the fools who toss a winter’s snowball on the floor of the Senate to prove their ignorance. They are the politicians who strip away environmental protections from their country’s resources, and pocket the blood money corporations funnel into their party’s war chest. They are the brainless citizens who look at all of the research and data showing irrefutable proof of ecological damage, and choose to ignore what they see.

In large part, this is because they either lack the imagination to imagine a world where water replaces gold as a standard, or because they understand just enough about what’s coming for their minds to simply shut down, unable to process such a scenario.

It is not until their trailer parks are swept into the ocean, or their crops dwindle to nothing that they finally see what bull-headed opposition to reality has wrought. . And then they blame everyone else for the destruction, and expect the government to pick up the tab.

Many will say there is no point in just one country tightening it’s belt on carbon emissions. After all, they’ll say, it’s China that’s really doing all the polluting, so why should we suffer while they profit?

Last year President Obama signed a pact with President Xi Jinping of China. China leads the world in overall carbon dioxide emissions, but Americans per head are the greatest generators of greenhouse gases.

This doesn’t guarantee that these two nations will keep their promise to reduce fossil-fuel use within a realistic timetable, but it does mean that corporations and free market capitalism, which look to make the most money in the shortest time, will find legal stumbling blocks to continued fracking and pumping crude oil. Investors will look to the next profitable venture, hopefully in renewable energy and green technology.

The world’s best scientists have tried to tell us for years that we are at a tipping point. It may already be too late to turn this situation around. Those countries around the world that we don’t think or care about – they are already suffering. Temperatures are soaring in India, small island countries are being assailed by sea-level rise and tropical cyclones. Droughts are no longer rare – and in America, California is entering it’s fourth year of drought, it’s deepest ground water almost completely depleted.

Some will tell you that what we’re seeing is the tail end of the Ice Age, which began somewhere between 18,000 and 80,000 years ago. The climate is always changing, it’s cyclical.

The climate has changed before; fossils and archaeology tell us that there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO₂(greenhouse gasses, but mainly CO₂ and methane) levels being lower than they are today.

But what’s happening now is accelerated. When CO₂ levels jumped rapidly in the past, the global warming that resulted was often the cause of mass extinctions.

CO₂ levels, rising global temperatures, ocean acidification, and rapid carbon emissions are generally known to decimate life on Earth.

Today we are emitting prodigious quantities of CO₂, at a rate faster than even the most destructive climate changes in earth’s past. The Rain Forests, nature’s lungs, which have played a huge part in clearing our air, are being decimated. Thanks to human activity, we seem to be on the verge of another mass extinction, and sooner rather than later.

I’ve stopped arguing with those who deny climate change. Life is too short. But I have to wonder … who profits from encouraging disbelief in scientific fact?

See Part Two.

https://frustratedboomers.com/2015/08/13/climate-change-what-climate-change-part-two/

and Part Three

https://frustratedboomers.com/2015/08/20/climate-change-what-climate-change-the-aftermath/

The Bare Necessities

(originally published August 8, 2015 – https://bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/roxanne-tellier-the-bare-necessities/ )

I woke up in a great mood this morning. With reason – the last few days have been filled with music and food and friends and more good food. I’m a simple person. My needs are few. Oh, I may grumble and stew and frown at times, but overall … I’m pretty much a human happy face emoji.

I fell off the career ladder at least a decade ago. These days, I can’t even manage the bottom rung. So, like so many others of my generation, I’ve got less work stress, but a heck of a lot more money stress. You take the good with the bad.

Not having a ‘real job’ means, unfortunately for those who read my columns, that I have a lot of time to spend on reading and researching and analyzing what goes on around the world. Not liking a lot of what I’m seeing, these days.

They say that time is money, but I don’t know that I’d make a very good rich person, no matter how I came by the moolah. Money’s pretty much useless once you’ve covered the basics, like water, food, shelter and clothing. After that, you have to make an effort to find things to spend on. It’s all relative. No shoes to new shoes is nice. No shoes to Louboutin’s is nice too, who doesn’t love a red sole? But shoes is shoes is shoes, really.

In an ideal world, no one would go hungry or homeless. Sadly, our world is not ideal, largely because of a lack of empathy and a lack of will. If you see a homeless person begging for food, your empathic response may be mitigated by an inability or an unwillingness to help.

In an ideal world, people who amassed wealth would be spending their efforts and money on finding solutions to real problems, like inequality or climate change, rather than casting a gimlet eye on what others are doing with their bodies (and especially private parts,) that offends their senses.

If what drives you to get up in the morning is a need to regulate other people’s uteri … get over yourself. If your face gets all red at the thought that there might be even one destitute person on welfare who’s using that whopping $25.00 a day to buy illegal drugs, you seriously need to re-consider calling yourself a Christian.

(Saddest of all – the average welfare payment in the U.S., at about $9,000.00 a year, is in the top 20% of all global income earners. That’s some pretty astounding inequality.)

In Friday’s closing monologue, Real Times’ Bill Maher talked about entitlement amongst the very wealthy, citing the Washington Post headline, “Rich Californians balk at limits: “We’re not all equal when it comes to water.”

“Now, I’m sure that the majority of very rich people have always been greedy and selfish, but, this crowd today takes it to a whole new level. Somehow it’s not enough to spend lavishly on themselves, they have to actively take from others; their water, their benefits, the last bits of beauty in the world.

In his non-apology apology, Dentist the Lion Hunter used the word ‘legal’ over and over; what he did was ‘legal.’ Sure. Because the rich buy politicians to write laws to say that whatever they want, is legal. Like our elections now. More than half the money given to presidential candidates so far has come from just 400 families. Perfectly legal. But you know, for that kind of money, the rich shouldn’t just get to tell politicians what to do. I think they should get to hunt them. That would be the ultimate trophy to go with your trophy kill, and your trophy car and your trophy wife. What could be better than a trophy Republican’s head on your wall? Scott Walker’s eyes already look like cheap taxidermy, and Chris Christie’s leg would make a lovely umbrella stand. And if that sounds wrong, we’ll make a law that says it’s legal.”

The machinations of elections in the U.S. and Canada are in full swing. It’s interesting to see that the would-be leaders are more passionate about how they’d save the economy than bigger and more pressing issues like climate change and inequality. I believe neither issue was raised in the first presidential nominee debate, and in the Canadian debate, Harper could not have been more indifferent to aggressively tackling either.

No, the sexy issue on the table is ISIS. Fear mongering has replaced any pretense of responsible leadership. The horrors of potential terrorism on our own soil, as unlikely as being hit by lightning while in the process of cashing your winning lotto ticket, have superseded the harsh realities that we actually do live with every day. Draconian laws that take away our rights and freedoms; irresponsible spending of tax dollars on politicians’ egos, while our infrastructure crumbles; the very real consequences of ignoring climate change while forest fires rage in B.C. and severe drought in the Prairies threatens our breadbasket… Nope … let’s talk about terrorism, regardless of the facts that the odds are 1 in 20 million that you’ll be in a terrorist attack. Because … fear is a thrill, just like a roller coaster ride.

What successful politicians understand, beyond how to spend other people’s money, is the soft underbelly of the public. Capitalizing on what motivates every soul to get up and get through another day. As the great prize fighter Rocky Marciano once said, “Hit the heart and the head will follow.” We like to think we’re level-headed, intelligent people, able to logically decide who will next lead our country. But in all of our choices, there are really only two choices – the rational reason, and the real reason. And the real reason is always … fear.

Politicians today work from the same Bible as super salesmen. Rather than have voters change their behaviour and opinions to adapt to their vision, they adapt to their constituents, learn their thought processes, and find out what keeps them awake at night. Sly, but effective.

Forget the separation of church and state, as important a concept as that may be. What we’ll hit ‘em with is fear. Fear that someone is doing something they shouldn’t be allowed to do, or that their home, family, religion, or money is under attack. And we’ll umbrella that message with a cry to patriotism, and a shout out to a God that is clearly always on our side. (He’s a multi-faced dude, that God.)

What that message means to every voter, whether in Canada or the U.S., is that the really important ‘things that really do happen and shouldn’t’ issues, are swept under the rug. Your odds of being in a terrorist attack are miniscule, but if you’re a First Nations youth, your odds of being fostered out from your family, or of your being arrested, are staggeringly high. In the United States, 49 percent of black males, 44 percent of Hispanic males and 38 percent of white males have been arrested by the age of 23. There’s some day to day stuff I’d rather see addressed.

I’m all for protecting the country, but not at the expense of the freedom of those of us who live here, and who physically and financially support the country. There is something indescribably obscene about a Prime Minister who fills Parliament and the media with carefully controlled images of himself, at a cost of billions of taxpayers’ money, while 1 in 7 Canadians (4.8 million people,) live in poverty.

Any would-be politician who told the truth to the people, who straight up said, “hey, we’re in big trouble. The party’s over. Time to clean up the mess,” would never get elected. Carefully controlled and contrived issues aimed at election and re-election sweep the bigger, inevitable crises in the making further under the rug, to be dealt with, sometime, somehow, by someone other than themselves.

There’s no better way to describe this sort of pandering and lala land thinking than with Donald Trump’s words on ‘ObamaCare’ at the debate. “It’s gotta go,” Repeal and replace with something terrific.”

“Something terrific.” Nothing that actually exists, or that may even be possible to create, just “something terrific.” I’ll get my interns on that , stat.

Here’s the thing. Politics used to be about choosing a leader who was smarter, more informed, with hopefully a better grasp on their emotions than you have, and a driving need to improve the well-being of their country. Now it’s about galvanizing dispirited, frustrated voters with rhetoric and appeals to base fears, by politicians who regard spending time actually running the country as detrimental to their real job of getting elected and then re-elected. It’s hard not to see the ridiculous squabbles in Parliament and Congress as anything but an unruly classroom of bratty twelve year olds, killing time until recess.

And what that ends up creating is a country where millions of voters can’t even cover the basics, like water, food, shelter and clothing. We’re so busy fighting an imaginary enemy that we don’t see the real adversary right in front of us; apathy, and surrender to whatever distorted messages corporations and politicians funnel into our increasingly empty heads.

It’s remarkable, really. From prosperity to austerity, from hope to despair, from security to nameless fear and dread. Quite a feat, when the most that the majority of us want to attain is a relatively bump free ride from birth to death.

I’ll take my bare necessities, seasoned with music, good friends, and the occasional delight of a delicious meal. And I’ll wash that down with a cold beer and a gratefulness for what I have.

Party For One

Toronto’s been sweltering in +90 degrees heat for the last several days. I’m not complaining… heat I can handle, it’s cold I can’t take.

But this is, of course, a time when the city’s electrical system is drastically over-loaded, with every home’s air conditioning units roaring. Our area is particularly hard hit; I’ve been having little brown outs and power cuts for months. I’ve been increasingly worried over the toll that this is taking on my computer and other sensitive devices.

But I hadn’t thought about the fridge.

With no warning, our fridge’s compressor decided to die. The inner fridge light still works, so we hadn’t noticed that everything in the side-by-side freezer was slowly thawing. Until last night.

And so today, I’m cooking up a storm in that same 90 degree heat. I’ve cooked dim sum and chicken wings and mini meat pies and sausage rolls and pizza and anything I think I can feasibly cook and keep chilled for a day or two.

I’m so glad that I’m able to save some of food. The shrimps and scallops won’t make it, which is a terrible waste of both money and resources. And I sure wish I hadn’t wanted to start a diet today, as the cooked goodies are really too hard to resist.

But it’s the saddest cocktail party I’ve ever attended.

Enjoy Every Sandwich

Somehow, at some point, without even realizing it, I’ve slipped into the “enjoy every sandwich” part of my life.

When Warren Zevon was diagnosed with a deadly cancer, and told he had only months to live, he appeared on David Letterman’s show in October, 2002 as the night’s only guest. He spoke about what he’d no longer have to worry about (high cholesterol, getting fat, going bald, and the future of technology.) He’d decided to spend what remained of the rest of his life reading, and writing and recording songs.

Letterman asked Zevon if his condition had taught him anything about life and death. ”How much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich,” Zevon answered.

Now, I’m not kicking it in a few months – as far as I know – but that expression really resonated with me. Still, it was only this week that I actually found myself inside that feeling.

My husband called one morning, just checking in, and he asked me what I was doing. I knew the correct answer should have been “packing up stuff and throwing stuff away,” but what I said instead was, “I’m eating a sandwich, and I can’t believe how wonderful it is.”

I took two pieces of a good light rye bread, spread some butter and mustard on them, and added a package of sliced corned beef. And it was good. It was exactly what I wanted and needed at that moment, and it tasted like it should, and it entered into my stomach as gracefully as Nadia Comeneci sticking a perfect ten point landing.

“Enjoy every sandwich.” We like to think that we’re living our lives as best as we can, but how many of us are really aware of what’s around us, at any given time? How often do we cling to out-dated thoughts and feelings, just because we’ve always had them? Do we really have to live long enough to become senile to finally have that perfect second childhood?

Just as an exercise, really think about what you’d do if you knew you had only six months to live. Would you keep flossing? Would you enter a prolonged drink and/or drug coma? Would you say ‘yes’ when people asked for favours, even though you knew you wouldn’t live long enough for them to reciprocate? Would you keep on going to a joe job that pays the bills, but breaks your spirit?

Would you mow the lawn, but never take a few minutes to sit in the shade and smell that fresh cut grass? Would you argue over trivialities and events that will be gone and forgotten before you are? Would the acquiring of money or goods occupy your time? Would you give an honest compliment to someone without worrying that it would swell their head?

Would you travel to somewhere you’d never been, or prefer to stay close to home and loved ones? Or would you be greedy of the last of your time, frantically trying to pack experiences into those fleeting months? Would you watch more TV, go to more movies, enjoy more music, eat more chocolate?

In reality, we’re all living under that doctor’s prediction of imminent death, but none of us wants to believe it. We could be gone in an instant, hit with something nasty and medical, or something large and unyielding, like a Mack truck.

If you are lucky enough to get old, and then older still, you begin to realize that more of your friends and celebrity idols are now deceased than alive. It’s a cruel joke. By the time you finally realize what’s important in life – your teeth, your health, your loves and friends – they’re already on the wane. Just the ability to control when you have to pee becomes challenging, never mind the last time you could get aroused or be assured that you could have a rock hard erection.

The things we never really thought about , never really appreciated, become the very things we look back on in amazement that they ever worked, marveling at the beauty and complexity of the everyday, and realizing how little attention is given to simple joys.

Every day, in some small way, I realize I’m less able to do some things that I took for granted. I can’t use a rotary can opener anymore, so I have an electrical one. But if there’s a power outage, that option is off the table. Small thing, right? But lives are nothing but small things, one piled on top of the other.

When we moved to the suburbs, I had infinite energy and ridiculous physical strength for a small woman. I schlepped home huge, ungainly items on my bike, planted intricate gardens, moved stones and small boulders for landscaping … I felt like I could almost literally leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Now, I sit under the gazebo occasionally, and watch the raspberry bushes take over the garden. When I think about where we’ll next live, I have to mentally assess exactly how close amenities must be in order to be accessible. This is not surrendering to age – it’s embracing a new reality.

For years I blustered that I could learn to drive a car if I really wanted to. Now I know that I’m the world’s worst passenger, and that my being behind the wheel of a vehicle would be selfish, and would endanger others.

When I was a kid, my Albertan grandparents were old – really old, in their late nineties. My grandmother had walked to Alberta behind a covered wagon, all the way from North Dakota. Her brother had been one of the first mounties, way back before the North-West Mounted Police became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They had seen a lot of life, and still enjoyed family get togethers, and often times held huge parties where there was far too much food, and the booze flowed like water. Drunken mishaps were common.

They listened to the radio, and never had an interest in television. They sat, and smoked, and drank endless cups of coffee. They would sit quietly beside each other for hours, just enjoying whatever came into their day. They loved to have the grandkids visit, and they spoiled me rotten. They would serve me milk in tall aluminum glasses that gave the milk an otherworldly zing.

They were both gone before I was a teenager. But what I remember most about them was their incredible acceptance of life in all of it’s facets. No matter what they were told about a family member’s misdeeds, or a world event, they always said, “ah … he’s alright,” “ah .. it’ll be alright.” Because no matter what happens, if you live long enough, it WILL be alright. This too shall pass, so pass me the salt and let’s season this sucker.

What they knew, and what it takes all of us so long to really understand, is that this … this here, this moment, this weather, this house, this person, this meal, this now, not the last now or the next now … is important enough to wallow in. And if it is not, if it’s irksome or painful or distasteful, you can stop or walk away, you can work to change the situation or accept it, you can say, “NO! this is not what I want!” and that’s nobody’s business or right but your own.

A lot of people, especially of my generation, and in Canada, were raised to be rather reluctant to ask too much of each other. Parents who lived through the Great Depression were careful with their money, their time, and their praise. I remember being very appreciative of small surprises, never expecting too much, and then being ecstatic when something wonderful would happen, even if that “something wonderful” was nothing more than a small unexpected treat of chocolate.

Then we boomers hit the 80’s and the 90’s, mass and very conspicuous consumption set in, and we became like junkies, who needed more and more to experience even a small hit of joy. It wasn’t enough to just have a car, it had to be a BMW, and you didn’t want a house, you wanted a Monster Home.

Well, times changed. There’s huge economic inequality, political uncertainty, and our own last roundup is impending. How we conduct ourselves, how we live through what’s remaining of our lives, is completely up to ourselves. We can spend each day terrified of the next, worried that we’ll outlive our money, but not realizing that it’s far more likely we’ll outlive our friends. We can wail and moan about the injustice and indignity of aging, but we must also understand that each day above ground is a day that someone else might not get to experience.

I want to open my eyes to what is right in front of me. I want my good friends to know that I really love them, even if sometimes that means that I have to walk away from them for a while. I want to stop believing that there is always a way to fix a bad situation, and accept that sometimes things can’t be fixed. I want to soak up the sun, really feel the heat and the chill of the seasons, wear shorts in the summer and snuggle in plushy robes and flannel sheets in the winter.

There’s a garden out back, and a lake down the street. When we move, I don’t want to be able to count the times I enjoyed either on just my fingers and toes. When my cat wakes me at five a.m., his big eyes and lovely face close to mine in pretended ecstasy while his agenda is clearly breakfast and an escape out the back door, I want to laugh and hug him, knowing that his time with me will be short, but that his catty essence enriches my life.

Warren Zevon lived longer than predicted; the few months he thought he’d have stretched to over a year. And in that time, he wrote and released a wonderful album, “The Wind,” won two Grammys, the album itself receiving the award for Best Contemporary Folk Album of 2003. He joked to the media that he just hoped to live long enough to see the next James Bond film, which he did, and he got to stick around long enough to see the birth of twin grandsons.

Knowing he was close to his expiration date didn’t paralyze him; it gave him a vitality and a renewed determination to live and experience life, balls to the wall, pedal to the metal.

And most of all … he learned to enjoy every sandwich.

first written and published in Bob Segarini’s “Don’t Believe A Word I Say” July 19/15

Toronto Gets It’s Summer On. Hilarity Ensues

I know that Weird Al Yankovic is on tour, which presumably means he’s kind of busy, but hopefully someone’s been keeping him updated on the wacky goings on in Toronto this week. Hard to believe he wouldn’t want to opine on recent events during his July 18th Casino Rama gig.

In one day, the hashtag #DeadRaccoonTO had nearly three times the number of tweets compared to #TO2015, the official hashtag for the 2015 Pan Am Games.

Image by Steve Kearns

Oh, Toronto. You never cease to amaze and amuse me. On a hot Thursday morning, Jason Wagar spotted a dead raccoon lying on the curb at Yonge and Church. He immediately notified #311Toronto to report the poor creature, and with that customary diligence and alacrity we’ve come to expect from our public servants, they sprang into action … 14 hours later.

Within a few hours of Wagar’s tweet, local residents had created a makeshift memorial around Conrad the Raccoon’s body, complete with flowers, a framed photo of a raccoon, and written tributes to a life well lived. Someone even inserted a cigarette into the stilled paw.

City Councillor Norm Kelly, perhaps hip to the negative scrutiny being given to the City’s employees, on this the day before the official opening of the Pan Am games, added his Twitter voice, requesting that there be an immediate pickup of the corpse, which had by now been lying on a major city intersection in the unrelenting heat for at least six hours.

But Kelly, an old hand on Twitter, having done his job, now began contributing to the fun, at one point even asking that residents leave their recycling bins open overnight, to honour the phenom.

The city finally responded at 11 p.m., with a blasé city employee noting, “geeze .. it’s just a dead raccoon.”

And Norm’s final word on the matter? “Damn … life’s so short.”

The story went viral, of course, with varying voices weighing in. One commentator mentioned how good Toronto had it … in Edmonton, he said, “when a corroded lamp post succumbs to age and collapses dead on the street; the city has a standard practice of at least a three day viewing which I think is a bit much given the number of lamp post deaths; really how much grief and remorse can one handle.”

Of course, there were some who wanted to take the opportunity to rant on governance and the traditionally lackadaisical attitude of many public servants. But summer fun will out, and as the story travelled around the globe, even wilder speculating began. Who killed Conrad Raccoon?

“Is no-one going to investigate this? I mean how did he die? I feel like this should have been a mission in L.A. Noire.“ Followed by the assurance that “Investigations are ongoing.”

Really, we needed something to take the attention off the Pan Am Games, and the ridiculousness caused by bureaucrats who take themselves and their duties far too seriously.

Everyone’s weighing in on the HOV lanes, and the insanity of overtaxing an already past-capacity highway system, where the GTA’s rush hour is now all day, every day. (HOV (high occupancy vehicles) lanes are the new express lanes meant to speed athletes and officials to competitions on time, but are also open to vehicles having three or more occupants.)

The lanes didn’t get off to a good start, when torrential rains in June actually began to peel away chunks of the recently placed diamond-shaped lane markers, and had to be replaced.

Although the lanes were supposed to be limited to the actual Games period, from July 10 to 26^th, the city threw commuters a fast one when the new rules of the HOV road went into effect on June 29th.

Toronto police are heavily enforcing the rules for temporary (HOV) lanes, with fines of $110 for illegal HOV use on provincial highways (plus 3 demerit points,) and of $85 fines on city highways (Gardiner and Don Valley.)

Toronto police reported that “We didn’t start off on a great note. There were higher than normal collisions and we didn’t have the compliance numbers we were hoping.”

Indeed.

Some fuming commuters are saying the lanes are doubling and tripling their travel times. Former Toronto mayor Rob Ford admitted to driving alone in the lanes, breaking the law as he moves in and out of the lanes.

“Go in and out, obviously,” Ford said. “You gotta watch the cops over your shoulder… I have to get to where I have to go.” He added that he sees a lot of other people doing the same thing, so that must make it alright, right?

But Toronto … you’ll never be as wacky as Montreal. Here’s how they handle their summer commuting difficulties …

http://www.mtlblog.com/2015/07/its-official-montreal-will-be-transformed-into-a-1000-foot-slip-n-slide-this-summer/#

And then there’s our official Pan Am Games internet site, toronto2015.org, which seems to have failed to understood exactly how the Internet works, stating ,

“Links to this Site are not permitted except with the written consent of TO2015™. If you wish to link to the Site, you must submit a written request to TO2015™ to do so. Requests for written consent can be sent to branduse@toronto2015.org. TO2015™ reserves the right to withhold its consent to link, such right to be exercised in its sole and unfettered discretion.”

The website’s terms of use, written in incomprehensible gibberish by the Pan Am Games lawyers, has not used any technical method to stop search engines from indexing and linking to the site, so they are effectively forcing search engines such as Google to break their rules.

The Register (theregister.co.uk) sent the following message to the site.

“We would like to seek permission to link to your website for a story we are writing about how ludicrous it is that you are requesting people to ask permission to link to your site. It is only fair that we warn you the article is likely to be critical of yourselves and contain a good degree of mockery.

We should also note that we will link to your site regardless of your response. But all the same, it’s nice to have permission. And before you ask: there’s no need to ask us for permission to link to the story when it’s up. It happens all the time. “

The response to their email perfectly summed up the situation:

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: branduse@toronto2015.org. Technical details of permanent failure…

And we haven’t even hit the dog days of summer yet … I can’t wait to see what happens next!

(first published at Bob Segarini’s Don’t Believe A Word I Say, July 12/2015)