New News Blogs

Thanks to another comment, we have added a new link to the blog known as "Downtown Eastside Enquirer."

You've got to love a blog that calls Sam Sullivan, Vancouver's "do nothing mayor."

You can find this link on the right hand side of the page scrolling down...or click here.

Also, please note that we have added "NowPublic.com," yet another alternative news source near the top of the page on the right hand side.

Please use and enjoy these 2 new resources.

Great Comment on the DTES

This comment was sent in this evening in response to Elizabeth James' posting and my post, "The Povertarians."

It was so good I felt it deserved a posting of its own:

William Simpson's story with the Carnegie is, sorry to say, not a rare example, they often bar people without due process of any sort. My favorite example is the head of security says "You're barred" the barred man says "what for?"Security explains: " Never mind that! Just get out!"

Power corrupts, and absolute power over an abject population tends to corrupt absolutely. When there is no accountability, no way for the common member to resolve his grievance, let alone get the grievance on a staff person's file, things get out of balance.

There is a "Incident Report Book" at Carnegie in which members can be written up by security. This can be done with out a person's knowledge. Incidents in this book will be automatically entered into the computer and will stay there for three years. All without them even knowing about it! How much sense does that make?

If you want someone to stop doing something, wouldn't you go ahead and tell them when they've crossed the line? Secret write-ups are so iron curtain, how in the world do they help to resolve anything? They are only good for building a case for a punitive strike.And then what happens when a member tries to get something on record and resolve a staff person's behavior? There's no way to get it on paper at all, and in fact, complaints could be dismissed out of hand because it turns out you're cpmplaining to the boss about his girlfriend! But how were you to know, unless you've read the DTESenquirer blog?

I'd like to see more people from outside the DTES write to Judy Bader, she's the boss of Jaquie Forbes Roberts, the woman from the City of Vancouver who wrote the letter that barred William Simpson.

I say from outside because so many inside live in 10x10 rooms without computers, and on the streets and such. The City knows exactly who they are picking on, and they know exactly how little resources they have to protect themselves against egregious abuses of power, like the barring of William Simpson.

At the Movies

Rented 3 movies 3 the other day:

THE HUMAN STAIN

It's often difficult to film a good book. The best movies usually come from not particularly great books. I don't know how many people go out of their way to read "Gone With the Wind." "Casablanca" was being scripted as it was being written, up to the last day.

Any book by Philip Roth is going to be worth reading; he's one of the great American writers. And his books are rich in thought and interior monologue, so simply recording the story line on film isn't always going to be satisfactory.

And in this case, we have Gary Sinise playing Roth's famous alter ego, Nathan Zukerman - an odd piece of casting - and muttering homilies off screen as a narrator.

Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman and Ed Harris are always watchable.

The story itself is rich and fascinating as it deals with the Great American Issue - Race - and love and betrayal.

Not great...but damn good.

MUNICH

After the murder of Israeli athletes at the '72 Olympic Games in Munich, Golda Meir ordered the assassination of the murderers by a very covert cell of Mossad operatives.

Spielberg has made a roller coaster of a film. We follow this band of killers from Rome to Paris, Athens, Lebanon, London and Amsterdam, half cheering them on, half horrified at their efforts.

The film is peculiarly well-balanced in its "sympathies." It neither applauds nor condemns these men, who are in any event condemned to lives of torment and uncertain futures by their own acts.

It is fascinating to see Daniel Craig playing a Jewish South African assassin, only a year before he emerged as James Bond.

Geoffrey Rush is wonderful as the Mossad control agent.

Eric Bana is an odd duck and not my favorite actor, but he does a fine job here as Avner, the central character, who is on screen throughout.

The movie was nominated for dozens of awards, including Best Picture and Best Director honors at the Academy Awards, losing the first to "Crash," and the second to Ang Lee for "Brokeback Mountian."

Helluva good movie.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS

The first of 2 movies that Clint Eastwood made (simultaneously) about the battle for Iwo Jima during WWII. The second film is "Letters from Iwo Jima," showing the point of view of the Japanese. Both films were nominated and won many honors.

Eastwood is a first-rate consummate film maker, one of the best ever. And this is a powerful and sad and thoughtful movie.

Of course, there are many battle scenes and they are terrifying and bloody and "realistic." We are not presented with gushing spurting blood-for-the-sake-of-blood, but frightening moments that simulate the moment to moment little horrors of war.

The bayoneting of Japanese soldiers is not offered as triumph, but as awful necessity. We realize that these are not the hated enemy as they die, but men.

The full story here, however, is about the aftermath, the lingering of the PR campaign that followed the famous photograph of the men raising the flag on the hill.

And that story belongs largely to Ira Hayes, the Native American, who felt so deeply that he didn't deserve this label of "hero." Hayes is played by the Manitoba Ojibwa actor, Adam Beach, who already has quite a resume, including a dozen episodes of "Law and Order:SVU" this season.

Somewhere in the back of my ancient head, I know that the Ira Hayes story was told before in the movies, but I can't seem to find it this morning.

The battle scenes do go on, but this is a fine movie and it stays with you after you've taken the disc out of the player.

From a Magazine Piece Two years Ago

TONY & ME


“Don’t ask me just how it happened, I wish I knew.
I can’t believe that it happened, and still it’s true…”


Irving Berlin wrote the words and music. Rogers and Hammerstein were producing “Annie Get Your Gun” on Broadway as a vehicle for Ethel Merman. When the movie was made, Howard Keel got the role of Frank Butler, but MGM felt Judy Garland couldn’t cut the mustard, so they threw Betty Hutton into the buckskin.

The song is called “I got lost in Her Arms,” and the crowd at Sam Yehia’s old Plazazz Room in the former Plaza Hotel at the foot of Capilano Road in North Vancouver was not particularly attentive. Couples argued about the daily banalities they thought they had left behind them. The regulars had already seen Ella and Dizzy, so it was going to take a lot to impress them. It was 1983 and the housing market was still in a deep hole.

Tony Bennett had come a long way from “I know I’d Go From Rags to Riches.” But the Beatles, the Stones, and Bob Dylan had just about rung the death knoll for crooners and the interpreters of the Great American Songbook.

It would be another few years before Tony’s son, Danny said, “Dad, I want you to make a video for this MTV thing.”

Of course, Tony thought that was nuts. Of course, it rocketed his fortunes to the moon. The Much crowd saw this totally cool old guy dancing around and they ate him up. His fee multiplied tenfold over the next few years.

But, on this night, in North Vancouver in 1983, Tony Bennett was ignoring it all and doing his thing. When he got to the song’s most important line, Tony did that signature gesture of his. Instead of singing it, Tony declaimed, like he was Marc Antony rousing the rabble at the forum, “I got lost…but look what I found!” And he clapped his right hand across his heart just to nail the point.

Now I was sitting in the second row. When Tony hit this moment, I burst into tears. O.K. I’m a geek. I freely confess it.

The next day we’re up in Tony’s suite, the two-story Ginger Rogers Suite with the winding staircase that Miss Rogers had danced down only a few months earlier. The Great Acts are always gracious. Tony is tripping out on my Sony tape recorder. He’s doing a monologue first on the elegant design of this machine, then, on the particular light in the Vancouver sky that makes this region of the world so paintable.

I tell him how deeply moved I was by his work the night before. Of course, he’s grateful and kind. Then I tell him that I have a theory about why some people just won’t sit still and listen. “You’re so immediate. There’s an emotional impact that you send out that is so direct. I think for many people it’s just too much, too real.”

“You know only one other person ever told me that before, and that was Mable Mercer.”

The next day there’s a message on my home answering machine.

“Hey, David. It’s Tony Bennett. I’m at the hotel. So many people have told me that they heard the interview and they loved it. I’d really like to play tennis. So if you’d like to play tennis, give me a call. This is Tony Bennett. I’m at the hotel.”

We go to a bubble in North Vancouver and we hit some singles for a while. I get him laughing right away. I call him to the net after a few minutes. “You know, Tony, I think you’ll settle down and hit some better balls once you get over the fact that Dave Berner’s on the other side of the net.”

Later, we hit some doubles and then he holds court in the lounge, entertaining a whole gang of us with stories about having dinners with a few down-home folk like George Burns and Rosemary Clooney.

Now, back in June of this year, Tony Bennett opened the Vancouver International Jazz Festival with an extraordinary evening at the Orpheum. The man is a day or two shy of his eightieth birthday. I warned my friend that we might not hear the best he can give. He might cheat on some of the notes; he might not have the pipes. Ha!

After a wonderful, inventive opening set with Brad Turner on piano, Darren Radtke on bass and Bernie Arai on drums, Tony stepped out in a dark blue suit and gold tie. He picked the mike off the piano and killed for more than an hour and a half. He hit every note and then some. He built stories and emotions and crescendos. We howled and screamed. We wouldn’t let the guy go, and when, after four or five encores, he finally disappeared in the wings, we were still on our feet begging for more. The great saloon singer, knocking them dead in a refurbished opera house, and, on two occasions, without a mike. Just stand on the stage and hit the back wall with the stuff The Great Arranger gave you.

My friend, Geoff, on Salt Spring Island is 78 and when he doesn’t answer the phone on the first ring, it’s because he’s up on his roof fiddling with his water reclamation system. Dal Richards is about 270 and he’s booked with gigs into the next century. Jimmy Pattison is getting up there and he only works 26 hours a day, nine days a week.
And you’re thinking about retirement?

Ella sings

Ella and Oscar - There's 3 little words that spell m-u-s-i-c

More Oscar

A few more things about Oscar.

Read Gene Lees bio, "The Will to Swing," and see if you can find the great CBC 2 hour documentary, "In the Key of Oscar." I taped it and still have the VHS.

And get "The Canadiana Suite" on CD. It's gorgeous.

The updated obit from today's NY Times is here.

Oscar Peterson - You Look Good To Me

And again...

How beautiful, how exquisite is this?

Merry Christmas to All - From Weatherhaven

Merry Christmas to All - From Weatherhaven

Elizabeth James Posts In

Further to this morning's item on the Carnegie Centre, following is Liz James', local activist, email:

24 December 2007


Dear Mr. Ridge:

For both you, your colleague Ms. Forbes-Roberts, and myself, I sincerely regret the need to send this message out on Christmas Eve. However, politics and bureaucracy appear to have little respect for the season - this one or any other.

The Grinch, it seems, has struck at the heart of the Carnegie Centre.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=9a0f844c-28d3-4b54-912a-130079fe3f80&k=92106
To be up front - the websites and blogs in question have not been my usual internet stamping ground, but that's beside the point. Christmas Eve, or any other day in this extended "season of goodwill", is not the time to make the City's point. This is especially so in the case of an administration that makes much politically hay out of actually caring about the homeless people on its streets.

So, to any and all Grinches who may have played a part in the decision to bar William Simpson from the Centre, and to prevent him from taking his democratically-elected seat at Board Meetings, merely for having the temerity to disagree with your management style - shame on you.

You have confirmed that the dark side of the world Charles Dickens wrote of so eloquently is alive and thriving on the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth James
Box 16090, RPO Lynn Valley,
NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C.
V7J 3S9

VICTOR IS POSTING AGAIN - STAND BACK OR SING

David

It has happened again. On two occasions I have posted a note on your blog criticizing Kim Capri.

On both occasions, a defender has posted a comment attacking you for my thoughts. Clearly this person (a) doesn't understand how blogs work, (b) doesn't understand politics (c) is a slow reader. I
can only conclude this guy is a relative of Kim's, perhaps a dim-witted cousin through an incestuous marriage, like the characters in the movie Deliverance.

So, I invite Mr. Deliverance to move his finger slowly across the print while I explain.

First. blogs are public forum for comment, part of a legacy stretching back to graffiti in ancient Greece and broadsheets in Elizabethan times. People in the 17th century didn't attack the boys who pasted the broadsheets to the wall. Likewise, we don't attack the blogger for posted comments.

Second, politicians are criticized when they make stupid comments. It's part of the game, in BC particularly. Premiers Vander Zalm, Harcourt and Clark were hounded out of office by vigourous media criticism. So was Kim Campbell. All of these people have considerable intellectual acumen.
By comparison, Kim Capri has the intellectual depth of a dust bunny and her typical comments are just as fluffy. It is not misogyny (Mr. Deliverance spelled it wrong) to point this out any more than it's "anti-male" to describe Larry Campbell as a drunken bully. In both cases, it's an opinion of a politician based on observation.

In the spirit of the season I propose a truce. I will cease commenting on Ms. Capri's stupid comments if she agrees to stop making them. If this doesn't work and I post another comment, it is hoped Mr. Deliverance won't attack David for my opinions.

I can hear the banjo strumming Silent Night.

Oscar Peterson Dead at 82

He was a very young 24, when producer Norman Granz was in a taxi heading for the Montreal airport to head back to New York.

Granz asked the cabbie who was playing the piano on the radio.

He quickly had the cabbie turn around and head back to town.

The next thing the world knew, Oscar Peterson was playing on the stage at Carnegie Hall.

Not long afterwards, Oscar was playing in a club and Art Tatum came in. Oscar, having worshipped and adored Tatum since forever, froze. Couldn't play a note.

Tatum came to the lip of the band stand and said, "Oscar, just play!"

And, until very recently, that's exactly what Oscar has been doing - magnificently, thrillingly.

When I was a teen, my mother (May she rest in peace.) and I were watching Oscar play live on the Ed Sullivan Show. With tears in her eyes, my mom (not a bad Sunday player herself) said, "David, Bach would have loved this!"

I was so blessed to grow up around that kind of sensibility.

Norman Granz became, among many, many other things in jazz, the agent for Ella and Oscar at the same time. How's that for a little talent pool?

Here is the NY Times obituary.

Below is one of his typically inventive in-the-moment highly complex, structured and beautiful pieces.

Thank God for the modern technologies that have captured these sounds and hold them for us.

Oscar Peterson -The Quartet Live feat.Joe Pas-Soft Winds

Some Great Christmas Noodling

"The Povertarians"

We've been caling them "poverty pimps "for years now.

Those righteous enabling fools who pull down six figure salaries and benefits from various levels of government and pretend to be helping the poor, while making damn sure that nothing ever changes.

But in a marvelous and very funny column in the Sun this morning, Miro Cernetig introduces us to a man who on the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Centre but who is not allowed in the Centre because he disagrees with management.

This is the story of the DTES in a nutshell. You must read it to fully understand the waste and autocracy and hypocrisy of the culture that has been built there over the years.

Remember that there is no 4 block jurisdiction on earth with more money or more social programs than the DTES, which continues to be a fetid open sore.

Foreign Raid

The US has spent over $5 Billion on arms aid to Pakistan, thinking the cash would go to fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Of course, most of the money went to fighting India.

Hahahaha...

Pathetic.

Read about this debacle here.

America is a country without health care for 45 Million citizens.

Mel Torme - The Christmas Song

REWARDS OF GOOD WORK

Hello David -

We read your article in the Province with regards to the Ruttan's crusade on assisting the young drug users in the B.C. area.

Our grandson, now 21 and a user of controlled substance since he was 14 finally asked for help and was very fortunate to have been selected for the Portage program in Quebec. The Vancouver Coastal Health has sponsored his treatment. He has been with Portage since May 1 of this year. We are proud to say that he has successfully completed his first faze of the treatment.

We personally feel that his success is totally the result of those caring individuals like the Ruttan's and the wonderful councillors that are there for these young troubled individuals 24/7. But of course, we must not forget that the individaul must want to be helped.

We are flying to Montreal next week for his well earned congratulations and be a part of the Bye-Bye ceremony, as it is called when this section of treatment is over. As we quote the words of the Councillors at Portage " this intelligent young man with limitless potential has every chance of becoming a useful member of society". Like the Ruttan's we would not give up either. We were informed by our grandson of the treatment center to start up in Keremeos in 2008 but did not know who to give the credit to until we read your article.

We send our congratulations to all those involved with this undertaking. Yes, this is the route to take and not the free handout of drugs, pipes and needles.

Our sincere thanksMolly & Barney Ziola (Grandparents)Tamara Ziola (Mother)

On Homelessness

About 10 years ago, a friend and I met with Liberal Member of Parliament, Hedy Fry, in her office in the Denman Mall.

I'll never forget this encounter.

We made the appointment to discuss an idea we had.

We wanted to open the Burrard St. armories to the homeless as a shelter for a dozen or so days over the coldest part of the season in December and January. The site had heat, hot water, beds, cots, mattresses, blankets, lights, a kitchen and about 100 cadets who marched back and forth all day.

All we were asking of Dr. Fry was that she speak to the Minister of Defense. My friend was a former City Councillor and we felt confident we could get the City onside.

Dr. Fry was so not interested in seeing us.

Her first response was that her research had indicated clearly that homeless people liked being homeless and that they would always chose homelessness because it gave them a sense of independence.

I told her that I lived in False Creek and that I had spoken several times with people living under the Burrard Bridge. To a man, they had all said they would be happy to get in out of the cold.

Her next response was that this was just "a band-aid measure. You're not going to cure poverty."

I was shocked by this kind of idiocy.

I told her that I wasn't a Christian. "But wasn't it Jesus who said, "The Poor shall always be amongst you.""

Here is the school to which I belong.

Almost all human endeavour, and especially the helping kind, is a "band-aid" measure. We do a bit of this, we do a bit of that and we make the world a slightly better, safer place. We push the marble a little further up the hill. Only once or twice in a generation does a Curie or a Salk come along and significantly change the order of things.

The rabbis teach that if you save a soul, you save the universe.

How much can any of us expect to do?

I spent ten years running a treatment centre. I didn't save the world, but I helped many people and I'm both proud and humbled by this experience. If I visit a senior in a care home for an hour, that isn't worthwhile?

Let's leave the Worst and Least deserving Member of Parliament for now and go to today's news.

Jeff Birmingham and his girlfriend - we learn in this morning's Province - collected $1,100 worth of Canadian Tire "money," brought it to Canadian Tire, who matched it and allowed Jeff to buy $2,200 worth of goodies for the poor.

He bought 60 sleeping bags, 60 pairs of socks and 20 thermal blankets.

Please don't write me and tell me from your deepest wells of cynicism that this lovely couple wasted their energies. I applaud them. Bless them for their kindness and thoughtfulness. Their "band-aid measure" will keep some people warm.

IN another Province story, we learn that 5 churches in the tricities area have been taking in as many as 250 homeless people. That's the good news. The sick news is the NIMBY neighbours in the full spirit of Anti-Christmas, are kvetching.

This is a story of Hope and caring and, simultaneously, a story of disgusting selfishness. Read the story here.

It is true that we need larger, more comprehensive solutions to homelessness. They are called HOMES. We need the Federal and Provincial governments to stop putzing about and built adequate housing for the homeless. I am a taxpayer and I welcome this expense.

But until the rosy day that happens, any gesture that alleviates the suffering should also be welcomed.

I'm so sorry that the presence of homeless people in their neighbourhood churches has cut into the delusional plans of the good folks in the tricities who are dashing about buying their new plasma TVs.

I am proud of those 5 churches.

Happy Sunday.

GLOBAL WARMING BITES CASTILGLIONE

Still don't believe in global warming?

Try visiting Castiglione, a village near Ravenna on the Adriatic Coast, not far from Venice.

A tropical disease spread by tiger mosquitoes hit this town like a bomb this past summer.

The disease, normally present only in Africa and India, has now been spotted in Switzerland and France.

For those of us who love Italy, this is scary news indeed. Venice has its fair share of Mosquitoes even as early as April and May.

Read the whole story from this morning's NY Times here, if you're not too feverish.

Eastern Promises Unfulfilled

Is there anyone left in the world today who knows the difference between form and content or style and substance?

Ordinary viewers and critics alike rant and rave in ecstasy about one movie after another because...why? They got a shot of adrenalin during the Kill Shot? They fell in love with the owl in the tree? They were inspired by the little girl on the raft?

Last night I rented David Cronenberg's film, "Eastern Promises."

After 35 minutes or so, I took the DVD out of the machine and watched 2 Seinfeld reruns.

In the opening scene, a man is executed in a barber shop. From the opening beat, we know what is coming. Everything is telegraphed. The only surprise is the utter viciousness with which the murder is filmed.

The boy doesn't simply cut the man's throat. He basically saws the man's head half off with a small straight razor. Blood spurts in great orgasmic rushes. The man fights crazily, hopelessly in his death throws.

Later, out hero, our star, Viggo Mortensen, collects the corpse from a freezer and calmly snips off the ends of five fingers.

Soon, hero and friend are in a private brothel with drugged teenage girls.

Friend insists that Hero defile one of the girls now and before his and our eyes to prove that he "isn't queer."

I stopped the disc as Viggo was doggy pumping a naked girl in full view.

If I want to watch porno, I'll do that on my own time, thanks.

When I rent a movie or go to a cinema, I'm expecting something a tad better.

Now, Mr. Cronenberg is a much celebrated artist.

"Scanners," "The Dead Zone," "The Fly," "Dead Ringers," "Crash," "A History of Violence."

Now it's one thing to be a Master of the Bizarre or the King of Mayhem or some other adorable sobriquet.

But this man is sick.

And all of the people involved in financing and distribution and promotion and adoration are suffering from an advanced case of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Like Tarentino, and often Scorcese, Cronenberg is about blood and bad sex. If he weren't making movies, he'd be a petty criminal or the local bar sleaze.

Basta. Enough.