Hopeful Research

Rumour has it that a privately funded research foundation is working 24/7 to find an antidote for the inevitable withdrawals that hundreds of thousands of Vancouverites will experience when the faces of Sylvester Stallone, Joan Rivers and Michael Jackson melt. If you are suffering any anxiety or acute fretfulness as to this impending transmogrification, you are advised to appear at midnight and begin the cue at B.C. Place stadium awaiting the coming of Dr Phil on Marshal MacLuhan’s specially designed Lear jet, the arrival of which all and sundry (mostly sundry) will be notified by the appearance of an Oprah blimp rising out of the bowels of the stadium to the celestial sounds of Celine Dion singing “O Magazine Forever.”

But if your situation is urgent and you need immediate attention, the Banner has set up a special hotline: 1.772.388.4072. Got that?

But for the moment it appears that this foggy-headed little town of ours will continue to host these cherished souls of this sacrosanct universe unto itself and members of the common media need not contemplate the dire alternatives at the thought of any such undue evacuations. Besides, the very notion of returning to the reporting of real news is enough to give a man assuaged by the nearness of greatness a serious head-rattle. And the boatload of trillions of dollars this congregation of dazzling stars generates in the world is not to be sneered at, especially by some measly upstart suggesting human values might be at risk. No, no, no. Vancouver’s share of this bounty must not be impinged upon by the egregious grandstanding of an over-forty moralist. Dispatch that uninvited party-crasher back to the streets to be among his own, the burgeoning numbers of homeless and hungry, the mentally ill becoming sicker from massive neglect and the diseased who are at risk of being pulverized by grocery store owners while the cops harangue the homeless in their enforcement of the safe streets law. And who wants to hear from seniors on welfare being criminalized with fraud charges as they accept gifts from their families to make it through another day? Dispatch the silly nuisance of a scribe with all the authority of a Lady Macbeth, “Out damned spot! Out!” Because surely our Vancouver economy must not risk either trickling downward or in any measure flowing haphazardly into the coffers of a socially conscientious society. Especially if such a movement were to offend the sensiblilties of our celebrities.