ISSUE ONE

OPENING SALVO

The English Bay Banner features the work of intellectuals who are not easily snookered by the sensationalists at the common media. The very real dilemmas facing each and every one of us who want to live a moral life, one full of visible integrity, are discussed seriously in The Banner.

Life and death issues are already crowding our lives demanding our awarenesses and insisting on informed decisions. We don’t need the fabrications of the establishment reporters and newshounds, too many of whom are huffing and puffing along to get a canine sniff of some minor news morsel they can inflate into a catastrophe. This hackneyed approach is losing all credibility.

Now, Vancouverites and people anywhere interested in unbridled commentary, can get real reading satisfaction and join a literary revolution which aims to thoroughly agitate those standard-bearers of our culture of grief and death.

The English Bay Banner is intended as a challenge to live in truth. Raise one today. -Ides

You can make a difference. 

Indifference Means Joining the Club

The owner of the Super Valu store on Davie Street is a member of the Hells Angels. His name is Ross Mclellan.

Whether he was financed by this biker gang to purchase this Super Valu franchise and is now syphoning profits back to this gang is not known. But that he participates with full member status in the activities of this murky organization certainly may lead any reasonable person to suspect a connection between this Super Valu store and the fortunes of the biker gang.

As a resident of the west end and one who is already exasperated with a host of social ills manifest in our society, I am dismayed that this individual has been operating with impunity right here in our neighbourhood. What precisely happened to our oft vaunted community values?

By patronizing this location we offer our tacit support of the activities of this group. Drug dealing, prostitution, bullying and murder all contribute to their collective curriculum vitae.

And notice below just some of the brand names being showcased on the shelves of this store, the corporate owners of which having shown absolute indifference to the fact that they are trading with a member of the Hells Angels. So much for their family values.

And which complicit banker is receiving the deposits from this shadowy owner? And do the employees have a choice here? Can they afford to do the noble thing and forfeit their paycheques?

And as to why there hasn’t been more of an uproar and why the common media hasn’t called for a boycott earlier, all these questions can perhaps be answered with an - all together now! Voices uplifted please, for a resounding rendition of that old banal standard -‘Ka-ching! Ka-Ching! It's more money we're making! Ka-Ching Ka-Ching!’

A PERSONAL ANECDOTE
Not too long ago, I discovered from my balcony a young lad laying prone on the grass in the front yard. Worried, I attended to him and found him semi-conscious and unable to walk, his mouth frothing. I called upon my neighbour, Bruce, to help me get the boy of about 12 into his van and drive him to the hospital. While Bruce and I were hauling the kid into the van, a male teenager came strolling up to us and after prodding confessed that the boy had been drinking and was stoned on cocaine. It was a known fact about town the Hells Angels were responsible for the hard drugs which had been arriving of late.

Bruce drove the child to the emergency ward where the overdosing boy had his stomach pumped. We were informed later that had the child not gotten there when he did it is likely he would not have survived. His life's little window would have closed about 15 minutes more of laying there on the grass, abandoned by his frightened friends.

The Hells Angels in that neck of B.C. are owners of hotels, handlers of the strippers, and have been muscling into the pot growing business, once the territory of the aging hippies and pacifist draft dodgers who still populate that area.

While the RCMP are handing out speeding tickets and following cars from pubs to snare an impaired driver, the criminal gang goes about its narcotic peddling affairs unfettered. And some day soon a 12 year old will have his lights put out for not getting to an emergency ward on time.

Corporate friends? 

A Gay Dazed Parade

Know you’re busy so let’s just get rolling. Let’s peek at the mail for Faisal and find, appropriate for this first issue, a parade!

Hey Faisal!

Lucky me! Roll up your Torah for a while and eat your heart out. Here I am in the Big Ol’ VanQver recording live (and later some notes in learned retro-spect). Yippie! (And they’re here too!) I’m at the very First Annual Gay Pride Parade on Davie St. no less. Besides, I just had to escape T.O. Another falafel and grits at Gretzky’s and I’d have upchucked all over my brand new spats.
Anyway, I got wind of this event from Lulu on Church St at Sailor’s last week and boy did I need a break from those Yonge St rent-a-boys anyway so Mebought a quck tix and here I yam!

Holy Hanna. Had to get up at 6 for a good spot here on the main drag. Got one of those Rainbow Coalition lollypops all sugared up, pocketed some ExTC for the main event and all is Green for Go. There’s a blimp above me but I can’t quite make out who it’s about.

I hear music! Oop. False alarm. It’s the Otis gang doing a sound check piping xmas carols through the open window of the book depository. A real yawner.
9 a.m. Just popped the X. Boy, and already a ton of people. I’m a little squished up against the rope with a horde of barbarians mixed up with cheering queers behind me. Could be trouble. I’m told the theme for this first-ever is ‘tolerance’ so we’re supposed to expect an anything goes kinda gig. I’m down with that.

Here it comes! Float numero uno behind a big brass band playing “When the saints…” I can just make out the banner. Whoa! Right on, bro! It’s the Brotherhood of Union Goons step-dancing to We Shall Overcome or is it Solidarity Forever… I’m not up on their song list but boy can they shake it! This is just too good! Right on brothers! The Sally Ann Band is marching in behind their float renditioning Jesus Loves Me… hey tolerance you know?! Hey wow! This float’s a biggie! Number 2 float is, hang on, I need my glasses… yup, it’s the Columbine Swat Team, somewhat hidden behind these circled wagons, neat effect though. You can hear these popping gunshot sounds in thedistance. Somebody with a bullhorn is yelling out a version of the theme song from MASH. Whoa. That ExTC is on the march. Whew. Take a deep breath. Breathe baby. There. That’s better.

Parade Reveller 

Dazed con't.

Hey right on! This next float is a shared job. Three logos. Shell, Greenpeace and Philip Morris. Hey neat eh? Oh I get it. The Greenpeacers are toking on the Philip Morris Float while pumping gas. Way cool. Here comes a clown handing out recycled balloon condoms. Nice lips too. Thanks buddy! Luv ya! MeThinks I’m gonna wait for that blow up machine.

Now here’s a strange one. It’s a Swedish job with all these blond bombshell types standing, sort of prancing actually, behind these occupied wheelchairs. I can’t make out the banner. Hang on. Ah ha! You betcha! The Brain-Damaged EuthanAsian Syringe Manufacturers Society. Gotta love it, eh?! Hey! Here comes the boys in scarlet! What would a parade be without the RCMP?! Yup. On horses too! Winnie hee haw! Support Your Rural RCMPeezies. You got it brother! Hey, this RCMPeezie guy wearing a pink “Starlight Tours Forever” button, just handed me a popsicle with this injun face on it and a little wind-up horsey. Oh. What a riot! You wind it up and it poops out a parking ticket. Terrific! (I dumped the popsicle. It had this sweet grassy taste, ya’know?) And you should see these guys. They’re wearing bullet proof everythings and they’ve got gadgets up the yin yang and guns and looks like a little grenade action on his belt there. Neat! Yay Canada!

Breathe baby breathe. Man that ExTC is right up there with that blimp. Still can’t make that out.

Next! Here comes another one. This one’s super-garish! I luv it! Hang on. Gotta read the banner you know, eh? There it is… coming into view now. Hang on. The Military Machine Cog-Selling Lipstick Merchant Marines. OK. I’m down with that.

Uh oh. Here’s the first real bummer float. Veddy poor taste. Micks for Mutual Masturbation just doesn’t work for me. Polite applause is all. Really girls.
Oh wow. Here comes a hippy. “Spiked apple juice man?” I flashed him my best peace sign and winked an X and he got it. Cool dude.

Hey dig it! Another coalition float. Coming into view. Coming… coming… Ah! Good shit man! It’s the KKK Anti-Defamation League in cahoots with Grey Power with fancy dancers all a hub-bubblin. Does it get any better?

Oh that blimp? I can make out the name now. It’s the Hindenburg 2 and it’s just dropped its payload of fliers… Fags for Free Speech and Syphilis. The timing was perfect. These cheerleaders showed up just when the first fliers mapped the crowd… Give me an A! A! Give me an I! I! Give me a D! D!…Give me a Zed! Huh?

Holy hell’s bells. Another band. And they’re playing our song, Faisal! It’s the Evangelical Palestinians for Seven Virgins in Heaven singing YMCA! wearing kilts full of suspicious looking pipes. Neat.

At this point, I hadda take a leak and get some air. And the biffy was down the block a ways. So I turned off my mike. Things were getting a little testicular anyway. En route I spied the Serial Killers for the Abolishment of DNA Testing rear-end the Neverland float witnessed by the Lawspeek Dancing Band of Thieves (“We charge by the syllable!”). Works for them I guess.

The guy making a killing though was the dude selling toe grease to the goose stepping Pro-Life Dikes. Man, I should have thought of that.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. I woke up in Central Park with Santa’s toque, a sore ass and my train ticket glued to my ear. So here I yam at Broadway Station waiting on my choo-choo ride home. Oh shit. Here comes that same gang of rap-yappin a-holes that were on the train from East Van. My fucken luck, eh? Catch me later at Sailor’s. I’m gonna need a drink. Luv and kisses, Adolf.

Look at me, Mom! Aren't I just it? 

The AmerAchilles Heel

The face of American capitalism is etched with myriad personal trials and yet fiercely triumphal as though sculpted with a daring and confident hand. And considering, given its relatively youthful place in world affairs, that it has secured its place as premier superpower, the United States has executed an astonishing feat. Especially given the fact that the country has been populated by one kind of immigrant mixing with another since its inception, this singular charge to preeminence is staggering for the varied dimensions of its accomplishment.

The corner store market operated by people of Asian or East Indian background are still quite common and stand to this day as testaments of the American freedom of commerce. On a micro-scale they represent the fundamentals of capitalism: fair price being set by whomever from whatever culture but in keeping with the faceless market demand.

But fundamentals are changing in a subtle way and have been for some time now since the advent of the computer, and its ability to trace trends and establish new values, sometimes falsely supported values.

To wit, huge corporations have recently been found guilty of making unsupportable reports as to the value of their futures (and Canadian investment institutions have not been exempt in similar skullduggery of late - insider trading and such).

A “new world order” was promised by George Bush Sr. some years back and it seemed to include exporting the American culture aggressively, and some of the corporate goop which accompanies that culture. The other worlds (oft referred to as third world countries) have taken considerable exception to this mass exportation of American corporate values… and from a philosophical perspective may be well placed to question the American rules of economic engagement.

The private markets of yesteryear which became massive hits (MacDonalds, A&W, Wal-Mart etc.) have gone public, which is to say they are now traded on the public stock markets of the world in an ever-increasingly unstable world environment. This form of trading then may not necessarily reflect the true value of the business itself, hence the book-cooking by beancounting minions and accountants to cover everybody’s butt, especially the guy’s butt who’s signing their grossly inflated paycheques.

Trading on the public markets has become complex and electronically accessible in such a way that if one man sneezes at the CEO level the stock of that company can plunge, not necessarily reflecting its value. Or the company can make blatantly false claims, invest your money in wild schemes in one of those third world countries and rape that country’s resources. This has become so serious in recent years that new organizations boasting “ethical fund” investments are attempting to appeal to the more righteous investors.

Something is seriously amiss here. When, for example, very recently North Korea popped off a cheap little test missile of minor military consequence, the American markets trembled, staggering down a few points right across the board, representing billions of dollars of gambling. What happened to some semblance of ‘stay the course, America is strong?’ Is the American economy suffering from a lack of patriotism? Is it vulnerable to electronic panic?

When the little madman, Osama-bin-Whomever targeted the Twin Trade Towers might he have fingered this weakness in the American psyche? Consequent of this massive assault on innocent civilians, one thing did become clear: the airlines have suffered immensely and the American economy was laid out as weak on that flank. The bizarre little madman made a fascinating point: Americans are likely to give up their base of principles in favour of covering their asses or in the case of the electronic markets, stashing their wallets.

This is the AmerAchilles Heel. Good old greed. The Great American Way which led to the influx of millions of immigrants seeking to enrich their lives not only with reasonable wealth but goodness and family life has become a shadowy world of sneaky investors, and merging corporate parent companies which would sell out Mom’s Apple Pie in a flash. Just ask Martha Stewart, who, interestingly has been wholeheartedly embraced again by scads of shareholders happily blithe about her indecent morals in the boardroom.

The rot at the top is palpable and the so-called trickle down effect of wealth to the poor can now be spied as a hoax. What is trickling down is the entire society, as it collapses under its own massive avarice. We are witnessing, methinks, the fall of America. The messages of its media playing upon judgement, grief and death may comprise a macabre self-fulfilling prophecy as the easily frightened stakeholders undermine the whole economy by pulling their stakes out of the game first. And with America, goes any country stupid enough to have gotten into bed with a blind behemoth. In our present global climate, there’s a troubling queue of willing bedfellows waiting to bask in their moment.

If Americans don’t wake up fast, they can kiss their grotesquely self-precious lifestyles good-bye. And that gloriously sculpted face of Yankee capitalism will end up in the mud, peering uselessly in the direction of China.

MOTHER KNOWS BEST?

The poor people of Vancouver who are trying to eek out a life on the streets thanks to vicious cuts in welfare payments and professional hounds who drive the ‘cheaters’ off the rolls are growing, apparently in embarrassing numbers. And they have been getting their share of attention lately in the common media.

One columnist went so far as to interview a panhandler afflicted with schizophrenia and then the next week the mother of the poor soul (who works two blocks away from where her son panhandles and didn’t know it), who advised one and all not to give them money because it goes to drugs. One can imagine the resounding roar of thanks from all the non-druggie destitute people walking the cruel sidewalks that day.

What's a Good Girl To Do?

Then west ender Holly Macdonald made a couple of appearances in the media, one with a letter to the editor of our establishment paper and then on the news, railing against the sight of the homeless and how they’re going to discourage tourists from spending money here. Then on about the volume of litter on the streets as if the visibility of the homeless and the litter were of equal dismay to her snobbish sensibilities.

Poor little Holly. What’s a good little girl to do, huh? But you got your pretty little picture in the paper and all was good in the eyes of God again.

The Common Media Hatch a New Yawner

A free paper arrived in Vancouver “hot off the press” (at least according to its editor, Gordon Kurenov). This new daily featured newswire stories from the usual international associations and its parent companies, the David Black Group, Canwest, and Torstar. Make a big splash with St Paddy’s Day coverage, add a couple of human interest local pieces and lightweight newsie items, throw in some movies and celebrity 'gossip' and voila, another vehicle to sanction corporate advertising.

What is curious to this writer is why the executives at Canwest, having strategized themselves into a 3.35 billion debtload are counting on this same bland formula to somehow bail them out of their desperate position. Could it be that Scotiabank’s proposal to underwrite their current fiscal dilemma has provided them this new impetus to do the same old, same old, all over again?

Independent editor’s voices in this country are being swallowed by these corporate machines who penetrate the local marketplaces and kneecap the traditional paper’s advertising rates until they put the independently established standard-bearer out of business. These tactics are well known to anyone who had dealings with Conrad Black’s Hollinger Publishing enterprises during his newspaper expansion in Canada’s cities and towns throughout the ‘90’s. The crass bullying of this disgraced megalomaniac has now been adopted by the rest of the mega-publishers who appear now willing to invite the faceless chartered bankers into the inner sanctums of the editorial boards of this country. So now we can expect "news" from those same strategists who contrived to invent hidden fees and other diabolical ways to grope into your pockets.

THE "REAL" DAVINCI CODE?
This week the History Channel showcased a thinly veiled promotion of The Davinci Code under the guise of critiquing it. (Notice the ads from Random House for special deals on the book?) In its entire two hours of really not saying anything it managed also not to mention the book that Brown likely usurped in the first place for his material - The Dead Sea Revelation, by our very own Vancouver author R Harry Langen, (see "http://www.deadsearevelation.com" for details).

30 million sales later and D Brown continues to sail on taking credit for Langen's ideas because nobody in the common media can be bothered to investigate Langen's claims and challenge Brown.

No Canadian lawyers will take his case on contingency (no champions there - no surprise) and Ron Howard of Opie fame has managed to misplace his Mayberry morals by not responding to Langen's letter asking him to do the right thing and not proceed with the movie until he investigates Langen's claim. No surprise there either, really, when one considers that Hollywood is apparently immune to charges of immorality. Even the award winning director Peter Jackson of The Lord of the Rings is currently embroiled suing the movie producer New Line Cinema for not paying him his share of DVD royalties.

Looks to this writer like the dark forces are winning after all.

A quiet morning on English Bay 

A Sunday Stroll

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Was awakened by a flock of overexcited gulls this a.m. at about 6. Bird gossip must be rich around here. My studio tends to be dark so on this spectacularly bright morning at 8:45ish I slipped into the park by Lost Lagoon in a flash. I passed the tennis courts, a half populated group of 12 courts and this time I noticed that you have to pay $9.50 an hour and book ahead. No poor folk hereabouts going to Wimbeldon any time soon.

Sat down on the rather too rigid park bench facing the green-headed ducks all a dippin' and the two majestic swans, their beaks darting in and out of the ragged shore foliage. A few more people around than last time as this is a Sunday a.m. and quite a good proportion of them are joggers, in groups and pairs mostly. The singles are zoned out on their tunes stuck in the ears and the female pairs are ever chatting, the male pairs more determined and grim-faced. (Their $200 runners demand a solemn comportment.) The sun on the small lake, this nook of it being quite neatly tucked away, threw glittering reflections all around those dear little duckies and with the arched pedestrian bridge spanning just downcreek the scene had a European feel to it.

Took notes on my script, On the Border of Light setting out the storyline for the day Benoit meets Ides, the same day his mother dies. After a bit, I mosied on over to the seawall to let the embrace of the seaweedy ocean swell over me and negotiated among the mommies running pushing their baby carriages, the strollers and the dogs (all unbelievin' as master gets down to scoop. They always knew their shit didn't stink).

I counted six freighters in the bay and imagined all those men layin' about on union wages nursing a hangover or in town somewhere working on one. These people passing me each sporting their own gait, a tell-tale thing for sure. Some look like they're walking into the ground, shoulders thrust forward, defying adversity. Others frumping about long having given up on any notion of suave. Others all a'jiggle, obviously desperate for the running. One woman with her shoulders pinched and her little hands held high by her chest, puffing out with beads of sweat threatening to melt her agonized countenance. One carriage-pushing mom has to hold up her rhythm to admonish baby, "No growling now." Ah, such a joyous lot.

I could make out the mountains in the distance of Vancouver Island shrouded slightly by a dirty air. Off the bench and rounding the corner I check out the artist's rendering of seascapes and faces. Art might be subjective but this guy holding forth about Picasso and Cubism is definitely in the objectively mediocre phase. Davie Street is all a glitter amidst the apartment highrises and I can see all the way up to Thurlow (about 8 blocks). This main artery was host to many of my youthful shenanigans, playing poker with Montreal drag queens at 3 a.m. at George's restaurant right there by the beach. They'd get wailin' drunk and climb up on the table and do some wild version of dancing as they hiked up their dresses and laughed wickedly at the world. Vulgar, pathetic and rich. And generously bad at poker. And I recall conversations with all those Davie Street teen hustlers who are probably dead by now, not having escaped the plague of the '80's, which seems to have migrated successfully to Africa after metamorphosing into a manageable disease here in Vancouver with HIV positives everywhere taking expensive medications, their faces slightly twisted, eyes agog, their necks prematurely roostered.

I catch snatches of conversations and still I hear most people chatting with a defensive kind of anxiety in their vocal manner. I used to have a girlfriend who would respond to almost everything I said with, "But..." and then proceed to set me straight, about the weather even. We didn't last long. "But..." I'd rather listen to those minor waves cascading having crossed the breadth of the whole ocean and now each with a separate story for me. Telling me secrets. So poetic. From whimsical youth to ancient tragedies replayed.

I've been thinking a lot lately about painting. Just noodling in my head about it as though I'm familiar with it from some previous life of brilliant art-making. These images in my head will have to find their manifestation from these keys I'm tapping. Well homeward now and I see someone has spent their artistry on piling a few rocks on top of each other on bases of boulders by the beach and with five of these little precarious sculptures I imagine the artist has made his statement... about the arbitrariness of it all, the haphazard way we each survive, barely managing to brook the wind.

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