THE LATE SUPPER RADIO SHOW

Copyright: Harry Langen, 

July 2012, Vancouver, B.C.

I witnessed life and joy the first time watching Molly in the kitchen. I was at peace watching my mother in the kitchen as she shared her joy preparing a table. She certainly left her impression… on a lot of people. She was an award-winning teacher.

And now I am in a kitchen of sorts and you, dear listeners, are invited by me, Uncle Harry, to my table for a late supper. So wash your ears before you come to the table and I’ll pass the bread.

*   *   *

This radio program is about you. Your hope and your fears. And you’ll be given anopportunity to talk it out, with all of us. You will be given a chance to call in and have your voice heard. Occasionally you’ll hear from special guests and co-hosts but always remember this program is about you; and it’s my job, your Uncle Harry, to free you from your fear. If I fail you’ll let me know. But I won’t find a bridge to jump over because between the two of us we’ll create optimism.

We are, of course, the words we speak but more dangerously the words we hear. It’s the words we hear which may provoke violence. Uncle Harry wants to keep you out of jail. So listen up.

We’re going to talk about your mortal frame… the pretty thing you look at in that warped mirror. But before we do let’s get situated. I’m broadcasting from Canada. Dictators are falling like pawns everywhere and civilians are being massacred… but not here and not likely ever here in Canada.

Morning loons across the lake; elk in the public park in Banff; moose strolling in the lake at Bracebridge; colourful native dugouts on the wild west coast; and the hospitality of the maritimers who still have that engaging twang in their voice and whose homes are always open to the hungry. Warm ovens, bread and beans with molasses. Lord-tunderin’ Jesus, and Lobster from Nova Scotia and those Frenchy Gallic boys and girls from St Catherine’s and Notre Dame de Grace in Montreal who would thrill anyone with their charm and excitement in the sack. I celebrate living in Canada, with all its warts and all our complaints, but easily one of the best countries on this threatened globe, a vast land and so full of wonder its experience is nearly overwhelming.

Our Constitition guarantees us rights and freedoms that other mixed-up countries today are coveting. Thank God I’m a Canuck. Just ask the Peruvians who would beseech me so often with: “Take me to Canada! Take me to Canada!” Seven million in Lima is a lot of voices.

* * *

Now let’s get on with your mortal frame.

Perhaps you will have seen what I have seen – an illustration of an infant being born, then growing into an adolescent, a man and then finally at the end of this illustrative ark, a man dying in all his feebleness and some fear. Your Uncle Harry was 15 when he first saw this East Indian display of Hindu theology; framing all of us, freezing our balls in that mortal narrative but with a hint of reincarnation. So it was obvious in this illustration that we are enclosed by time, at least in our current form, and somewhere in the midst of this adventure we call life there may be meaning.

Einstein tried to teach us that “man is who he is in relationship to other men.” Now while I enjoy something private in common with Einstein, I did not share this opinion. I believed that each man, each individual must be first outlined by his relationship to the personality of the infinite, then may he know himself. After all, seven billion zeroes add up to nothing. And I for one did not want to add up to a zero.  If all men are fools must I also be a fool?

Knowing this personality of the infinite and being affirmed by nature, you are one, not a zero, and may be free to increase your very self, that spiritual outline which may indeed defy death. Such fierce muscles you will have, of the infinite sort.  

The memory of a good man may increase the body of that personality of the infinite. And your own muscular body of spirit. And increase your pleasure and capacity for pleasure.

We are the words we speak. And more perilously we are the words we hear. It’s the words we hear which may provoke violence. So perhaps it would be wise not to lend your ears to voices which may prematurely thrust you through that mortal frame.

But let’s get back to joy.

I recall hosting a little TV show in Nelson, B.C. The theme was “What does it mean to live at the top of your form?” It was entitled Meeting at the Top. The format was simple. Once a week I would write something teddibly important, read my monologue from the teleprompter, half cut; then interview the stellar personalities of the artsy fartsy Nelson community.

Well, one night I was hosting the head of the Philosophy dept at Selkirk College; the theatre manager (being desperate as I was for stellar thinkers and a chemistry professor from Selkirk. After rather forgettable answers from the Philosophy dude (who managed to lose his job for lack of student interest in philosophy and the theatre manager who was terrified of me quoting Aleister Crowley, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” The chemistry professor thrilled all and sundry with his candid and brave reply. He explained: “I was living at the top of my form when I was walking to school during lovely weather to teach my classes. And this feeling of bliss returned for three mornings during my walk.” He hesitated. Left us all hanging on his next words until I had to ask: “What happened?” He replied to the camera and his live TV audience “I became afraid.”

And there went his joy.   

To conclude this teddibly impahtant monologue Uncle Harry will now share with you something about the Words We Hear… and how very seriously they can impact you.

When children hear words of encouragement and flattery they respond with that glow of joy, that first taste of bliss.

But when they hear : “You’re useless! You are worth nothing to me or your mother! You were a mistake of nature!” That child will remember those hurtful words all its life, more lasting than your least favourite tattoo. … and that child will likely behave in a way which lives DOWN to those words.

Parents are the furnace of creation much longer than just a term of pregnancy. They hold that child’s soul in their grasp for many years. Let us all become formed by words of beauty and charitable thought and each of us, one at a time, may change this neighbourhood, this uncivilized city, this precious globe. It is by words of Light we may unstitch the infected blanket we have cast over the delicate face of earth.

Every day we may speak in Light. Every season we may bring lasting warmth.

*   *   *

WONDERS AND ABOMINATIONS

What is wonderful to them is an abomination to some. Why are we so easily enchanted by abominations?

Special effects in movies, guns being pulled out pointed at each other, grim stories, negative endings, violence.

Does anybody any more discover the wonder of quiet walk in a park without noise, every footfall affirmed by nature, by every sound of twig cracking, by every birdsong?

Why not? This is more of a mystery to me than the universe itself. The universe is quiet in its activity. It’s compassionate and it’s fierce. And yes, it is mysterious. It is infinite. But shall we be left out? 

We cannot afford, perhaps, the opinions we live by, cultivated by a corrupt culture. But surely we can afford the love of our Father.

When you walk alone at sunrise and you smell the sea and hear its endless secrets as each wave crests upon the sand you may know then you belong as a unit in a loving universe.

But why are we so enchanted by abominations? Violence. Killing… and then we emulate this, especially young people, who want to be considered cool in their society, in their clique, in this culture… who go out and find in their language endless ways to invoke violence. That I consider Black Magic.

We have also the opportunity to reach out, to allow to enter into us something promising, something of a more continuously enjoyable essence… what I am might consider, and perhaps what you might consider, Good Magic. The magic of your every day.

People who are dying, who have been diagnosed as being terminal, their lives become per day more dramatic, and they face each day and then each moment more honestly, and perhaps more intimately connected to the personality of the infinite… and then they’re alive. More alive than they’ve ever been before… but why do we have to wait until the mask of death is wrapped around our face before we realize how exciting, how dramatic, how thoroughly inventive God is and how easily we may know Him or Her intimately and with continuity each day while we are full of health and with that exuberant ability to run through the forest alone each footfall being affirmed by not only the ground our foot falls upon, but the movement of the clouds, by the flutter of every leaf on every tree reaffirming our magnificence as an individual human being, with never, never a negative thought.

Our minds are engineered by the personality of the infinite to permit continuity of joy. Our bodies are designed to permit continuity of joy… yet we live in a culture full of abominations and lacking in wonder which denies us and denies our young adults and our children the possibility of continuity of joy.

 

'MAKING' A LIVING

Uncle Harry’s mind works in mysterious ways. He invites you to perform like an intellectual gymnast on his dubiously thin mat. So: ready to tumble?

 

Let’s talk about "Making" a Living

 

Most of my adult life since I left home at 16 and travelled from Toronto to Vancouver to 'find' myself, I have been almost totally distracted with this concept of "making" a living. From job to job - ranch manager's assistant, False Creek wall builder, bus boy/waiter, writer, editor, ad salesman, publisher and on and on and after working with so many different sorts and all shapes of people with all manner of morals or none at all and with entreprenurial efforts galore, it has finally dawned on me that the idea of 'making' a living is pure hogslop.

Each of us in this capitalist culture eventually, it seems, become owned by money. Our moods are affected, our attitudes are formed, our opinions of others, and finally even our spiritual outlines are all defined by this business of making money, making a living. Is money in our genes? Are we genetically predisposed to hunger money?

Your smiley banker is all a’twitter selling us mortgages. The word mortgage actually means “Death debt.” Be sure to compliment them on their smile. 

What happened to living? I accept capitalism as a system that is best designed for our western culture and one that may indeed offer real opportunities for anyone to prosper and enjoy the fruit of their labours. But greed is replacing civility and good manners and as we import more foreigners into our midst we allow them to contribute their own version of capitalism and there we are again enchanted with another dazzling means of profiteering.

This mental infection was brought into sharp focus recently with the alleged theft and use of cocaine by a senior officer of the RCMP. This organization has fumbled its way into one scandal after the other in recent years and the old pride of their pretty uniform has been seriously diminished. These scarlet-draped folks have been an iconic Canadian symbol so ingrained that tourists here are still buying little statuettes of these fellows on horseback pointing spears at each other, grinning and bearing our flag.  But greed, misconduct with women and some corruption has sullied their duds.

So we’re back to greed. Greed makes thugs of us all.

And greed can take many forms. Even our sacred institutions have been profoundly injured by the sexual greed of its various priesthoods. Teachers are accused regularly of diddling with children and among Boy Scout leaders the same shameful behaviour is becoming exposed.

With the loss of a good weekly sermon and some minor commitment to religious service in our lives to put a cap on our day-to-day greed, we are becoming almost hysterical about 'making' a living and gorging ourselves on whatever indulgences we fancy. And to hell with anybody who may be chagrined by pornographic conduct.

In this climate, would it surprise any of us if sexual maniacs became urban heroes? Isn’t Luka pretty?

May I make a little suggestion here? How about we arrest this trend of impersonal gimmie gimmie, and enjoy more face-to-face conversations which require some intellect and thoughtfulness and which allow for one simple discovery: the magnificence of the individual and his connection to the divine.

To hell with greed.

With more of us taking that one step (turning off their games, their little phones, their infernal music, and their TV's), more of us may be inclined to return to living and be less hobbled and hysterical about 'making' a living.

Uncle Victor believes that kind of Living can rebuild our genetic structure to the advancement of our children and theirs.

We can enhance the spiritual field into which our children our born by our moral conduct today… and defeat greed.

 

Toodling Along

 

Let's toodle along tonight together as we observe the city named after a certain Captain whose followers eventually evicted a certain chief by the name of Kahtsalano, renaming his homestead after a certain Fred Stanley... a Lord no less. Apparently Lords outrank Chiefs. This animated commentary is about how we move in our modern world.

After awaking in my calm environment, I stroll out in the morn of a fine summer day to be assaulted with mayhem on the streets. Noise and vile drivers.

Anyone wearing sandals or floppies can expect an involuntary pedicure at traffic lights. Text-distracted ragers are among the gamers who after each hit-and-run mark up a few more points for bragging rights.

Bus drivers barrel through red lights and to keep up with the Jones' the speeding paramedics crank up the sirens at ear-splitting screams to scoop up another soul passed out from over-Jonesing. Trucks, not fit for the road, are forever delivering most of what you can grow in your backyard.  With commuters all charging into narrow lanes and bottlenecks at the same time, who can really blame the cyclists for having evacuated the street and squeezed onto the cluttered sidewalks where scooters, skateboarders, drunk pedestrians, and those groups of foreign students smoking in herds of seemingly blind human beings hogging the walkway alongside long-leashed doggies pooping along at every pole.

And Lord bless us all, make room for the crackhead. You know the one heading against the red light, getting tossed into the air by a driver on speed and clambering back up for that next hoot; or the one scratching at the sidewalk for some invisible rock he or she imagines they'll find.

Welcome to Lotus Land. Super-Natural Vancouver. Chaos barely in control. Writhing and convulsing.

Then try the bars for a little suave action and discover all the baseball-capped guys plopped on their buttocks camping in their beer while the dance music wafts through one ear and gets lost in a cloud of dope smoke. Who needs to go to a movie to watch zombies?

Oh well. Let's change the subject and talk about goofing along. From marriage to divorce lawyers on the hunt for wallets and single-hosed men searching for alimony money while ex-wives and single mothers toodle along in the bars teasing those other men still camped out with that music wafting.

OK. Something more interesting perhaps... more positive. We spend a fair whack of moolah watching how the professionals move along. Throwing balls at each other or batting balls at each other or smacking little balls in tiny holes (sound effects of sports inserted) or just smacking at each other's bloody faces with big gloves on is all part of our move-it-along culture. And we amble along into long cues to empty our wallets to get our front row seats at these mob-infested events. And there the mob again camps swilling elegantly from Styrofoam cups.

Now how ‘bout 'bout instead of watching bloodsports live in arenas at 120 bucks per clip, why not lay off sports tickets for a while? In the U.S. alone, 410 billion is spent annually on what the hucksters call live sports events. That’s a movement of capital that surprised even Yours Truly.

So let’s ask our American friends to abstain from attending professional sports for one year and that ticket value of 400 billion will be sent northward to us Canucks to reduce our national debt. In return, we Canucks promise not to sing our national anthem at these aforementioned non-events. And furthermore we Canucks will swear an oath on the TV Guide no less NOT to watch any American sitcoms for a whole humourless year.

Please note: that 400 billion will drastically reduce our national debt from 587 billion to the paltry sum of 187 billion. 

Now wasn’t that swell?

Now moving right along… In an earlier show, I mentioned the chemistry professor who admitted on my live TV show that after three mornings of enjoying bliss walking to work he had become afraid… afraid I believe of the intensity of such joy being delivered with continuity. Probably changing his very perception of time.

I would like to add something to his story. Something of my own.

Yes, on those spring morns I am assaulted by noise and the chaos of our culture in high gear. But I can walk away even through the gauntlet on Hastings street side-stepping the violence and the desperation of the addicts and only a couple of blocks away can I find a park where healthy young men play in the sun in a cool morning summer breeze. And in ten or 15 minutes as I continue walking I approach another park with deep trails amidst towering trees and am alone then. Alone, better to hear the hints of the myriad rustling leaves in the ancient cedars, the birdsong, the scurrying of the ground animals, the call of the loon across the misty pond and I witness the absolute quietness of the white swans in the distance in their majestic flow.

Here in this land of Kahtsalano, with every sound, smell and sight of days gone and now, my footfalls, each of them, are affirmed by nature. And I am increased. My spiritual body is filled and I am acknowledged as belonging to that one holy movement, imbued then by the simple light, absorbed then in that creative fiat, embraced by the arms of a loving infinite being, swept into the divine exhalation. At that endless moment I am man, the triumphant. 

*   *   * 

THE FIRST KISS

Mine was sloppy and if yours wasn’t you were an early and perhaps precocious Lothario. Or you’re lying. Not counting the quickie little pecks you might have been coerced to pop on your ten year old neighbour thanks to your cheery bullying chums, let’s revisit that more serious effort of planting that first one when you were at least old enough to know you really did want to kiss that fantasy lover. Whatever form that immature fantasy might have taken. But we need to exclude pet-kissing and grammy-splats. And in this day and age of gay marriages and transsexual beings, we will include gay smooches and kissing transexual flesh-peddlers. See that. I’m a real liberal.

Now as to mine: her name was Betty. She was in my junior class at high school. She was blonde with long curls, a rather passable face but lovely smile and, great sense of humour and scary smart. So after our first and only date on the front porch of her parents’ house I steeled myself for my first romantic plopper. It was a shy job but she allowed for the kiss and my shyness and all was right with the world. Well for a day or two anyway. As youngins are liable to get on with their rambunctiousness finding a new toy at almost every turn. But that little memory remains oddly rather vivid and I do wish Betty well to this day… and just hope she isn’t listening. I’m sure I’ve stepped on a couple of her lovely toes (which I never did see). Over to you, Lotharios, Casanovas and Marquis de Sade spook-alikes. Oops. Almost did forget: Nerds welcome to report too. We won’t use your real name if you don’t.

Being after midnight (better be you brats!) let’s talk about 
LOSING ONE’S VIRGINITY.

What is it exactly? Can you actually lose it? Do you then have to find it again? Did it ever get lost? Did you lose it when as George, my classmate in private grade school asked, “Is it a sin to think evil?” or did you lose it when, against the precepts of the Cathechism, you touched your private parts? Still a seriously unholy sin to some priests. Well, what do they know? Unfortunately from what we’ve been hearing of late a little too much I’d say.

Do you lose your virginity when you fall in love or fall in love with the idea of love and let someone touch you in that private area? Or do you lose it when you actually physically climax? But when young men masturbate, they climax. Are they losing their virginity by their own hand or does it have to be someone else’s hand? Or do they lose their virginity when they use their own hand to help someone else climax? Or does it have to be mutual?

Grade schoolers are offering b-jobs for homework help or to score points inside their cliques. Mostly girls that is. All that yummy twinky lipstick all over that private thingie. Yum yum? Or Yecch? With all the Hollywood slop-kissing going on alongside the gorilla groping, is it any wonder our children are emulating animals?

But let’s get back to that juicy subject: How does one lose one’s virginity? By penetration of one body into another? Well does that or doesn’t that include fellatio?

Obviously, this is an adult show… that’s why it’s supposed to be on at midnight. So no cheating please.

How ‘bout this scenario. You both get naked. Get all heated up and one of you enjoys a premature splash. Who lost their virginity or have they both?

Who knows? Catholics can always go to confession, admit their wayward lust, say their penance and start pocket-pooling all over again. And just out of curiosity: just where did those radical Muslims find all those 12 virgins to conjoin with in heaven after their noble suicidal, child-killing bombardments? Did Mohammed keep them in his closet?

Speaking of closets, how do gay guys lose their virginity? Maybe one of Luka’s pen pals can give us a hint.

I don’t recall quite when I lost mine, not knowing what losing it meant in the first place but I’m sure I’ll find it somewhere along the path of my broken dreams, strewn about and cluttered as they are with my clouded sexual memories of lusty victories and drunken bedroom adventures. 

THE LAST TOUCH

As I had been living thousands of miles away from my family, the only time I recall touching them last was when they were in their coffins. Not so much for them obviously but more for me as a weird way of reassuring myself that they were indeed gone. The top of their cold hands became this eerie remembrance that I have now of my last touch of these loved ones. I tried to recall the last time I touched my mother when she was alive; as she had outlived Dad by seven years. To my chagrin I could not, but do recall having been a reasonably affectionate son upon my visits with her and she was always gregariously affectionate with me; so perhaps all those collective touches and hugs are enough. I occasionally speculate as to whether or not my Mom and Dad were somehow aware of my touching them in their coffin – it would certainly please me if I did know that they were appreciative of my little gesture of affection but I haven’t and don’t expect to raise that dark blanket in this lifetime at least.

But I wonder what you, dear co-hosts and listeners, may recall of the last time you touched a loved one prior to their death and whether or not this touch held any special meaning for you.

SPOOKS AND APPARITIONS OF LOVED ONES

I’ve never seen one. Or at least I don’t think so. I did see though one time when I was naked and hallucinating on mescaline outside a cave in Big Sur the face of a wise woman in the clouds accompanied by voices of angels laughing. But my mother had a better story. A little background here might help. After she successfully got her husband the proper care for the balance of his life – 18 years – she found a decent man with whom to share her love. They built a beautiful A frame cottage together by a lake in mid-northern Ontario close to a lovely little village called Bracebridge. Driving alone on one rainy night her amour lost control of his car and it tipped into the lake on his way home to their cottage. He was a big 80 year old, tough as nails and there was evidence that he had scratched desperately at the windows and car ceiling in vain until he drowned. A spooky death. Shortly after while mother was awaking in their communal bed she saw a beautiful bird alight just outside her window, perched there gazing at her. She told me she was absolutely sure it was Harold, her lover, come back to let her know that he was alright. I believed her, she was so intent and convinced and relieved to have him appear like that. That was her only ghost story she ever told me. This may not qualify but 

I do recall witnessing a spiritual gauzy breath emit from a doctor in Peru who was descended from shamans. He was talking to a group of us about the healing trial we were to undergo. There was no questioning his brilliance and I didn’t question his breath either. And I was promised once by an important man in my life, one I considered a righteous teacher, that I would be visited by his presence in the form of the scent of his favourite pipe smoke. Hasn’t happened yet. It’s been a few years but I can wait and this man had a weird sense of time anyway. And I don’t have any spook or ghost stories to offer but maybe you do. Let’s start with our esteemed co-hosts, Shawn and Braedon and hear theirs and then we’ll get to yours… so you’ve got a few minutes then to conjure your best spirits. Just one little request: try to keep it out of the zombie zone. Too many of those ass-dragging across my TV screen lately.

THE CELIBATE LIFE

Now that we’ve covered the seedier parts of the show and slipped through some spookier trails, let’s walk in some holier shoes shall we?

I believe I’ve met a few truly celibate priests. Might be harder now with the news of seminarians involved with games like How fast can we lose our virginity behind these hallowed halls?

But this one priest, a Jesuit, who has generally managed to avoid conversation with me despite being my sister-in-law’s brother, did manage however to challenge me to explain to him if I understood his commitment to being celibate in favour of his love of church and Jesus and so on. (I do wish these guys would get the pronunciation at least right: it’s Yeshua.) He was righteously angry when he unloaded on me his life-long endurance of celibacy. That was persuasion enough and a much nobler witnessing than an evangelist weeping on TV after being exposed for diddling with babes or boys under the guise of being holier than all and sundry.

I just don’t see the reason for celibacy. By not having sex does that mean somehow your halo is brighter? Or rounder? Or higher. Methinks not. By not having sex there is a tacit admission that they don’t have much of a clue about consummating one’s love and that essential element of any marriage.

But at least they don’t have to waste any time searching the hallowed halls for elusive virgins or little virginities.

ORIGINAL GRACE

Catholic dogma would have us believe that all human souls are born into original sin. This coming from the activity of Adam having been tempted by Eve to eat the apple from the tree of knowledge. Hence guilt. 

I, for one, prefer to eat from the tree of knowledge. And since then it has occurred to me that I was not born into a state of sin but in reality was born into a state of grace. Innocently given by nature with a clear slate. A soul readied by God and may be ready for God as one experiences the magnificence of one’s own humanity. 

It is also now clear to me that given our moral conduct every day, we may enhance the spiritual field into which our children are born. This conduct supports Original Grace. Let our descendants then and all progeny world-wide be born into Original Grace. 

As to the various and rather absurd versions of our human genesis (check Scientology for a real looper on that point) give me a tasty apple any time. 

Depression or Grace?

OUR CLINICAL DEPRESSION


I am clinically optimistic, so much so I believe that all of you out there who have been diagnosed as “clinically depressed” may shake that diagnosis in a relatively simple way. Start by not believing it. Then as you awaken each day b in the warmth and embrace of the sunrise shake a leg and face that day day with a will to persevere and know always that your effort may bre affirmed by nature. 

And upon seeing this, your sense of optimism may increase your appetite for life. 

Life enjoys being known and you may be a knower. 

Those who would have us believe we are doomed to illness are in the business of selling pharmaceuticals. They are not true care-givers and apparently are more interested in writing scrips which shackle you to the illusion that you are hopelessly depressed as they enhance their income.

Shake a leg and let that sunrise show you a new way. Persevere to health. And be affirmed even by birdsong.

*   *   *

After arriving alone from Toronto in 1968 Uncle Harry has observed changes in the social mosaic of Vancouver. In those days there was a debate being feebly bandied about by intellectuals about the Canadian identity. What or who is a Canadian? Having been the founder of the debating club at my high school, I was always up for a good mind-rattling discourse on vague ideas. Somewhat more mature now, I view a society by the fundamental values it embraces and then how much the people actually live by those values. This living I believe will shape the identity of a country.

Now as I scan the lay of that spiritual landscape, as it were, I am dismayed; and almost every day that distraught state of mind might deepen were I not to hold fast to my unreasonable optimism. While we native Canadians (I’m of an ancestry that arrived in Nova Scotiabefore Canada was called Canada in the mid 1700’s) fumbled around navel-gazing about who we are and what makes a Canadian,  successive federal governments swung wide the gates to well-heeled immigrants. At first blush, especially with the Honourable Pierre Trudeau’s effective pitching of that new word “multiculturalism,” we, the great grandchildren of pioneers, nodded our willing ascent and clapped ourselves on the back for our tolerance and new worldliness.

   That’s when, from my perspective, the bloodless revolution began. This country is only one effective legal argument away from hosting on our turf Radio Communism.

   It has become painfully obvious to me as a man on the street that this huge influx of immigrants, from Asia particularly, did not, in the main, come here to enhance Canadianism.

   Generalization is not fair, I know, so let’s go tip-toeing through this morass. I will write only about that which I observe. On Robson by Denman, the Koreans gather in cues for dinner. Always pleasant to witness the laughter of young people but where’s the sound of English? The East Indians gather in multi-family houses in Surrey and the smell of baked salmon, hot dogs or Canadian bacon (ahem) is hardly pervasive. Broiled tongue-in-cheek sometimes though. (Would that be mine?) I don’t know where the young Chinese are tribalizing but with our Chinatown rotting on the vine, it isn’t Keefer or Pender streets. Night-time in Chinatown is akin to a stroll in Hiroshima, circa 1945. I can imagine what the tourists must think as they scurry away from that dead zone in favour of T shirt purchases in Gastown. The restaurateurs in Chinatown are scratching their heads perhaps wondering why service with a scowl didn’t quite cut it. The Filipinos on Fraser Street congregate in restaurants reinforcing their culture among themselves. And it’s especially disturbing to me to have to negotiate my way past or through or around the knots of young immigrants standing on the sidewalk outside their English schools, smoking and sharing their stories in guess-what language? Not mine.

   We are the words we speak. We are the words we hear. And language is a warm hand-made quilt. We are each of us wrapped in that unique culture, inherent in it is our history as a people. There are still remnants of the hippie heyday on Fourth Avenue. The American draft dodgers have successfully integrated, their own accents being subsumed into our Canuckian mix.

   Two incidents, I unfortunately witnessed recently, speak volumes. An elderly woman, clearly in distress, was staggering on Gore street by Keefer by a red light. As it turned green, the drivers, almost ALL Asian, picked their way around her even after she fell on her face to the asphalt. No one stopped. I held out my hand to stop the traffic and approached the Asian elder. By then a store owner (Asian) finally peered out from his door and reluctantly came over to help me help her off the street. I then waved down a police car. I didn’t smell alcohol on her breath. She was ill. A young woman on an overcrowded Skytrain (Asian) was texting right by the door. As passengers were cramming themselves in, she stood her ground and all had to squeeze by her. The long curly hair of the lady in front of the texter was now in her face. She looked downright peeved but didn’t move.

   These incidents illustrate the absolute lack of Canadian politeness for which we native Canadians are so well reputed, even around the globe. But have we natives become so polite, almost to the point of collective obsequiousness, that we will allow our culture, our language to become extinct? Is my quilt burning?

   Allow me to conclude with a simple experiment we can all try at home. Take a big jug of clear water and add a dab of red ink. Shake. See how it goes a little pink? Now add a large dollop of red ink. Shake. Now it’s going red, n’est-ce pas? Now tell me: do we seriously believe that if we keep adding red ink that this jug will not lose its original colour altogether?

   When a Vancouver catastrophe hits all of us (i.e. the big quake), who do you think is going to be helping whom?

   Having been the victim of much social abuse over the years for my own uniqueness, it would not be fair nor true to call me a racist. Tolerance is defined as a. Leeway for variation from a standard. b. The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.

   As for me, the borders of my “leeway” are in sight. And my willingness to deviate from a specified value is verging exhaustion.

*    *    *

My father knew what it was to be a Canadian. Our family arrived in the mid-1700’s before Canada was even entitled that. It was known then as Nova Scotia. My ancestors were potato farmers from Ireland and interestingly they evacuated Ireland before the potato famine. So I suppose it’s fair to say I’m a Canadian. .. 7^th generation.

And Dad at 19 crossed the river at Rimini, Italy, in 1943 and after witnessing all his chums being slaughtered by the Nazis was left for dead, he crawled back to his camp, sent back to England to recover after sustaining a rifle-shot to his shoulder, barely missing an artery, and shrapnel across his knees. Then from his hospital bed he wrote to his mother: “I’m going back to the front.” The Brits didn’t let him. Too much damage. So he became a husband, father and lawyer.

It’s OK to be a bit of a flag-waving Canadian but rest assured, dear listener, I do welcome all immigrants but I do not welcome any tribalizing on their part. Shrinks call it xenophobia. But I believe it’s fair to say they’re here to mix and enjoy and contribute to our culture. And hopefully enhance it with their own unique advances.

Encounter at Crab Park

Last summer, strolling through Crab Park, I encountered people carrying paper plates of hot food and then saw the cue, at least 100 strong. Having time to kill I opted to join the freebie feed-in and just as I did was informed by a young woman that it was for abused native Indian lesbians only – some sort of support protest against deadbeat or violent men. I felt a little foolish for not noticing that the line-up was indeed all women with dark hair. (But I suppose the hot dogs might have been a giveaway.)

Oh well, something good did come out of this rebuke of my presence in line there. An inspiration I can only describe as profound and meaningful descended upon me with the weight of a pregnant dove. In keeping with my deep sense of social justice for all, next summer at Crab Park I will be hosting a freebie feed-in (pulled pork) of my own: for stuttering, beakless Jewish homosexual grandfathers with hairlips. (No ringers please.)

Donations of looky-loos will be gratefully accepted on site on behalf of the Foundation to Establish a Retirement Home for Exhausted Hollywood Vampires and Zombies and to offset the cost of memorial services for spotted North Korean lab rats.   

 SID'S PLACE
(Reference to Sideras’ Place, MacLean’s Magazine 1974)

Oh give me a solid piece of ground
that we may share to worship on
Where calmness and serenity live and breathe
to practice art full living that we may
Where birds sing sweetly to their midnight suns
that still brighten hopeful faces
Where the ayre is soft and green
grasses grow to kneel upon
Where you and I are more than one
living in ernest another life begun
Where all you see is what we do
and all I see is what you see too
Where all life’s a prayer and every
wearer worthy of the cloth well spun
Off the loom of who cares for us
in all times, at all spaces, in warm and gentle places
Where we may only live to share
our lives together on this dulled lump
Where with the graces we abide, the whole knot
seen dancing together in a parking lot
Uncut by bard nor seer
untouched by awful peer
Where any star may seer
us two among the many and the few
often pray I still do.

To TedNow why are there in the heavens, constellations
growing like flaming flowers bright
With shapes and patterns so well defined?
It springs to mind, in thoughtful torrents now that
There is God with yet another crown, and yet another crown…

-Johnson Hartman