I'LL BET YOU...

"Deal or No Deal," NBC's hit game show is a diabolically clever piece of work.

It pretends to be about hopes and dreams and courage and guts and all kinds of other all-American delusions.

In fact, it is entirely about greed and vanity.

And, of course, Beautiful Babes.

Which means it plays on at least three of the oldest traits of man. The show is positively biblical.

Last night, a charming and amusing young man was the contestant. His name is Pyong Kong. He is a Korean American. He clogs and sings karaoke (quite well, actually) and his wife, his brother, his best friend and both his immigrant parents were in the studio cheering him on.

The host is Howie Mandel, who in other incarnations was a child-like manic stand-up, then a serious actor on a weekly TV hospital melodrama, then a TV talk show host. Mr. Mandel, a Canadian, is an enormously talented guy, who I am sure could do almost anything in the various worlds of performance. He is quick-witted and self-assured and charming. He also knows what cannot be taught. He knows how to use his voice and his body and the audience and the camera to his own and the show's best advantage. Where lesser players would shout, Howie will say something of great import quietly, almost - but not quite - off-handedly.

So, last night, Mr. Kong was beating the board. He had placed himself after 45 of the 60 minutes allotted to the show in the position of having the company (represented by a shadowy figure on high, who cellphones Howie with offers) offer him $289,000 if he would stop playing the game.

The young man had nothing when he came into the studio. He told us all that he needed money for their honeymoon and for the down payment on a house. He told us that his parents had come to America with $750. He clearly wanted to say, "No deal!" take the cash and get out of there.

But then...

And this exact same scenario happened again tonight with an arrogant, little tennis player who told us that she wanted to pay off her student loans and go to University to study pharmacy. She worked the game until the house offered her $299,000 to quit.

Anybody watching, anybody with a brain, anybody not caught up in the heat of the bright lights and the screaming Coliseum-like crowd, anybody not switched on by greed and ego would say at this point, "Hey! I just beat the house. They're offering me a small fortune. I'm outta here!"

But, this, of course, is exactly what did not happen two nights in a row.

In the end, both gambled, both lost and both went home with pretty good sums, but considerably less than they could have.

And until those barfacious moments, this is a gripping, silly entertainment.

In the end, it becomes a confirmation of our worst suspicions of human nature.

This is not Masterpiece Theatre.

That's both a good and a bad thing.

Everything is My Movie - Back Off!

"'scuse me, 'scuse me, 'scuse me."

Or, if you're trying to get off the vaparetto in Venice and pushing past the human walls in your way, "Permesso, permesso..."

But we have a starkly different sensibility here at home.

Today, nobody can tell me nuttin' cause the world is here entirely for my amusement.

Yesterday, I left my friend sitting on the patio of a cafe near English Bay while I went inside to visit the bathroom. Actually, it was more than a visit. I intended to pee. In fact, I did pee.

But to get to the bathroom, I had to say, ever so quietly and politely, "Excuse me, please," to a young couple who were standing on the narrow carpet, waiting to place their orders.

The man looked at me with pure, desalinated hate.

Yes, hate.

How dare I ask important Him and lovely Her to do anything unplanned that might not profit them or might even for a moment, yes, inconvenience them?

On my return, they saw my approach and moved a few inches back, but with such monumental put-out fussiness, you could have read it from the back row at Covent Garden.

Theft is Theft. When Will These Criminals Be Charged?

Not only has the war in Iraq been an unmitigated disaster from any point of view, it has also been a huge act of theft. Theft of public funds, that is.

Do yourself a favor and read this piece from yesterday's NY Times, which chronicles the billions of taxpayers' dollars spent on projects unfinished and abandoned.

To see Cheney and Bush continue to lie so blatantly to the world public is stomach turning.

Can Gordo Be far Behind?

Business Week writes about how private companies such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Carlysle Group are buying up private infrastructure such as key roads, airports and bridges (Golden Gate for $3.4 billion and Brooklyn Bridge for $3.5 billion, for example. Cities supposedly think this is a great idea because they get money they can spend on other things.

I don't understand why this is even considered.

You don't put basic infrastructure like this in private hands, because it allows monopoly pricing. They will squeeze the most money out of it they can, and that will be the majority of the surplus value produced by the roads. Since they will set the cost to maximize profits, it will be above what a proportion of the population and a proportion of businesses can afford (check a supply/demand curve to see what I mean - you get a lot more use at price = 0, and you get a lot more money if you price a lot of people out of the market).

What this will mean is that a lot of businesses will go under (or never be created), a lot of people won't travel even short distances (which will strangle businesses that need those travellers, price certain people out of certain jobs) and will in general reduce economic activity.

However much money any government gets in the short term, it will lose more from reduced taxes due to reduced economic activity and reduced economic growth in the long term. (ie. it isn't just people who use the roads/airports/bridges who lose)

And odds are, you'll eventually have to either regulate these things to keep prices reasonable (at which point the companies will start shorting on maintainance) or you'll have to buy them back at a huge markup.

All of the foregoing comes from Crooks and Liars, which I have emailed to me each morning. I've added it to my Links list(on the right), and I use it here frequently.

I've posted this item today because it makes me wonder how long it will take for Mr. Campbell to try again to sell off various roads and other British Columbia infrastructures.

Modern Life is So Daunting

I'm confused.

Why would David Suzuki, Canada's most renowned environmentalist, allow his name to be attached to a SUV?

Art Imitating ...???

Talk about a "post-ing!"

From the "National POST," comes one of their photos of the week.

"A staff cleans a sculpture during preparations for a sex culture exhibition in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan province April 24, 2007. The exhibition begins April 25. (CHINA)"

Kunming???

Oooo-La-La

At last.

An ad we can understand. An ad we can relate to. An ad we can look at.

I am a heart patient. Two years ago, I had an angioplasty. By the time the cold weather returns, I will be 65. And my sex life is dyno-mite!

You know what sex is good for?

Almost everything.

And love is even better.

You want a cure? Love somebody. Get loved. Fall in love.

The British Heart Foundation is right on the money.

Whooopa-T-ay-oh!

Transclunk is Dead! Long Live...uh...er...

Nothing could be worse than Transclunk, right? Dozens of unelected, unaccountable mandarins spending billions of your tax dollars on buses that don't work. What could possibly be worse?

Let's not hold our breath just yet, kids. The SCBCTAA -we're not making this up, sounds like an old Bob & ray routine, I know, but this is really it - The South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Act will rid us for once and for all of the Goofy Mayors Parade.

Unfortunately, it may be replaced by an equally unaccountable, anonymous secretive group of hyper-managers.

This is a mighty fine mess you've gotten us into, Kevin...uh. Ollie...

Ooops, Pooops...Jolly Green Giant Slays Harper

Al Gore has denounced Canada's Green Plan, calling it a "fraud."

Now, watch David Suzuki stopping Environment Minister, John Baird, in his green tracks.

Rostropovich plays Bach´s Bourree - Suite No 3

Bach and Slava...what more needs be said...

All the King's Men

There have been 3 films of the Robert Penn Warren novel, "All the King's Men."

The story is about the rise and fall of the fictional and fascinating Willie Stark, a character based on the real life Huey Long, Governor of Louisiana.

There was a 1958 version of the story made for television. Most of us missed that.

There was last year's version, starring one of the greatest actors of our time, Sean Penn and a huge all-star cast. Now, I think I will rent that one and take a look.

And, most famously, there was the Robert Rossen version, filmed in 1949. I saw that movie, but, as I was 6 or 7 at the time and most likely half asleep in my chair, I have never remembered much about it.

Mr. Rossen made "The Hustler," a few years later, easily one of the greatest movies of all time with startling performances by Paul Newman, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott and Jackie Gleason. This is an iconic movie, with lines so famous they are quoted by any film buff who has had 2 beers in a row.

In the Rossen version of "All the King's Men," we also have an all-star cast: Broderick Crawford, who won the Oscar that year for Best Actor, John Ireland (nominated for Best Supporting Actor) and his actual wife, Joanne Dru, Mercedes McCambridge, whose major fame was the voice behind the spinning, puking head of Linda Blair in "The Exorcist," but who was magnificent as Luz Benedict in "Giant," and a very young and outrageously handsome, John Derek.

Mr. Ireland, who was born right here in Vancouver, had a career that included 197 credits!

The movie won the Oscar for best Picture, and I am writing about it, because I watched it Friday afternoon and found it fascinating for many reasons.

In some ways, the picture is superficial and obvious. And yet...and yet, the subtleties and shadings of character are quite wonderful to watch. There are no good guys, no bad guys. Everyone is in some way, large or small, compromised and corrupted, and at the same time admirable.

And because it was made in 1949, there are very different approaches to common problems in story telling.

For example, there is a dreadful set piece that lasts less than a minute showing small children leaving a school on a routine fire drill. Some of the children must leave by an outside metal staircase.

The camera shows us the children dashing down the stairs in an orderly and playful fashion. They've done this drill before, they are confident in what they are doing, and it's a clear relief from the monotony of the classroom.

Suddenly, we see a close-up of the structural support that is holding the staircase to the old, brick wall of the school.

The camera cuts back and forth between the children and support. The support breaks a little more loose each time we see it. After 3 of these builds, the support rips away from the wall. We hear some screams and that is the end of the scene.

Today, we would have to see broken limbs, blood spurting, the whole Scorsese/Tarantino craziness.

Yet, told in this old-fashioned, "indirect" way the scene is completely horrifying, completely effective. I hollered our loud, alone in my living room, "Oh No!"

Broderick Crawford had only one other role of equal stature and that was the comedy gangster in "Born Yesterday," with Judy Holliday and William Holden.

He became best known for a schlocky TV series called "Highway Patrol."

But as Willie Stark, he gave us a fully rounded, completely human portrait of a deeply flawed and wildly charismatic personality.

A Beautiful Contribution From Victor

I watched the Japanese-Einstein-Robot thingy and had an epiphany. No, really.

The Japanese are obsessed with robots because they are not making little Japanese. Their birthrate is far below replacement math. So we have this wonderful culture dying because they don't want to have kids. How ironic that they made an Einstein robot, a man who escaped, ....well you know.

This weary world has lost touch with fundamentals. Asians are aborting girl fetuses. Westerners are not reproducing. Africans are being devastated by AIDS.

As an aging man, who has been diagnosed with "an unpleasantness" ( forgive me, but as a boulevardier I do not discuss loathsome details) here is my advice to a world wrestling with the population question.

1. Find somebody to love.

2. No matter your sexual orientation, (S.O),there is somebody there for you.

3. If it works for your relationship, add a child to your love. Through birth or adoption. S.O. is irrelevant.

4. Most important. Be true. Subordinate the self to the family.

5. If you and yours fail in all this, you are still a family.

Even if there are just two of you who tried to have kids and failed.

Two old lovers in the same bed, warming each others' toes, please God as much as those who have been blessed with great grandchildren sitting on their knees.

HE doesn't judge us by our fertility. HE judges us by our morality.

Creepy Einstein Robot

One Japanese scientist has made a robot who looks exactly like him. He discovered much too late that now nobody knows who to put in the box at night.

That's What We Need - Another Department

Former attorney genera; Geoff Plant has released a massive new document called "Campus 2020 - Thinking Ahead." It is a detailed study, with recommendations, of colleges, university colleges and universities in B.C.

I received the document several days ago and I haven't had the time to read through it all as yet. So, this is not to denigrate or condemn the effort.

Nevertheless, two recommendations are ill-advised.

The first suggests that colleges should stop granting full degrees.

That would be fine if it weren't for the fact that several colleges, including LANGARA, all already granting degrees and spending small fortunes building programs of study and teaching staff to do exactly that. And they are doing first rate jobs in those programs. And they are successfully placing qualified and job-ready employees in the workplace.

To dismantle all of that would be retrogressive to say the least.

The second recommendation from Mr. Plant is that the Province create 5 "regional learning councils.

Good grief, doesn't anybody ever learn?

This is exactly the same mistake we have already made with Health Care and Public Schools.

In both instances, we have created terribly expensive, new, and unnecessary levels of bureaucracy that clearly hinder the smooth and timely delivery of service.

Hospitals and schools are not longer responsible for their own performance levels. CEO's of regional boards are paid in excess of $300,000 and leave on a regular basis with glamorous pensions and severance packages.

To add another costly, obstructionist set of regional authorities for post-secondary education is to yield to ineptitude and monies spent that should go to students and teachers.

If these are examples of what Mr. Plant has come up with, I'm afraid to finish reading his report.

Couldn't Have Said it Better Meeself

Guest blogger boulavardier, Victor, comments:

Today, the media reported two stories that are riotously funny in their juxtaposition. The bingo caller at our biggest radio station ( The Top Dog, actually the First Flea) read the stories in sequence without grasping the irony.

Story #1. Vancouver opened its first hi-tek public washroom where the poor folks on the Downtown East Side could pee in comfort.

Story#2. The poor folks from the DTES peed in bottles last night which they intended to throw at the police working the NPA nomination meeting.

So why are we peeing away money?

Michael Bublé - Call Me Irresponsible

Here's a pretty slick and flashy promo for our Burnaby Boy's new album, which will be released next Tuesday. He's an amazing talent and his story is somewhat astonishing.

In the caffe

"I'll always figure out a way to make it happen."

This might be his epitaph.

For at least fifteen minutes he had been sitting alone. He had an old yellow Sony portable music machine with him, but he hadn't been listening. He was staring out the window. He seemed to be looking at or seeing nothing, except perhaps what was in his head.

Big, square-faced, handsome in a dull, blank kind of way. He was "reasonably" dressed until you looked a little closer and noticed that his pants were dirty and that he was wearing grey work socks with his black brogues. Later, when his "guest" had finally arrived and they were deep in negotiations, he scratched nervously at his ankle under the rolled down sock.

The guest was Ichabod Crane. A reed, a wisp with a beard. And he came equipped - pen, notebook, questions.

Turned out this was an interview of sorts. The man was a framer and he needed work. Maybe they found each other on Craig's List.

The man listed all his skills. And he did this with a vigor and aggression that you couldn't have seen coming when you observed him in his silence.

Availability?

"If you look out the door and it's raining, chances are I'll be sitting at home watching a movie."

This wasn't reassuring news. Outside, a man had spent much time in perfectionist, obsessive deliberation parking his red and black Bugatti motorcycle. He was wearing matching red and black bike clothes, sleek and shiny and rubbery. When he took off his helmet, he was half-bald. What hair remained was pure white. He was easily in his sixties. Slim, pug-nosed, intense.

Do you remember Michael Mann's 1986 movie, "Manhunter?" It was the first attempt to film Hannibal Lecter. Never as good as Jonathan Demme's great success with "Silence of the Lambs," but still a chilling, scary movie. (It was later reworked as "Red Dragon," with Hopkins and Ed Norton.) Well, an actor named Tom Noonan played the psycho-killer, Frances Dollarhyde, in "Manhunter," and this is exactly what our motorcyclist looked like.

"But I'd love to work for you - inside or outside, it doesn't matter."

Ichabod smiled and wrote in his book.

"I may not be the best framer in the world, but I'll be there at 7 in the morning, and I'll be the last guy to leave."

He was smiling and loud and gregarious and happy. You could almost smell the disaster of his personal life, his eating habits, his furniture.

I Can Work! I can Work!

A rare congratulations to the Campbell Government.

As of next January, mandatory retirement at the age of 65 will go the way of the dodo bird.

Which is a darn good thing for people like me with no money. I will be 65 in December and I would keep right on working whether the government approved or not. I have to.

But it's nice to know that someone has finally said that this age discrimination had to go.

Many thanks, and pass the geritol.

The Best

Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," seen here in Canada on The Comedy Network
(Mon-Thu, 11pm Westcoast time or whatever we're calling that this week) is the
only broadcast of which I am aware that dares to poke such huge, gaping and
hysterically funny satirical holes in the official fabrics. Whether it is Bush or
McCain or religionists or Democrats or show biz folk or himself, Stewart and his
writers just let it all hang out there. Stewart is a handsome, quirky performer
with unique style that either works for you or it doesn't.

This is a dangerous and subversive and courageous and democratic piece of
work. Mr Stewart is now rich and famous, and he deserves it all.

Nothing lasts forever and I have no idea how Mr. Stewart may re-invent
himself after this run, but it will be fun to watch and find out.

The Trail Gets Hot

Here is the first paragraph of an editorial in this morning's N.Y. Yimes:

"Congressman Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, was locked in a close re-election battle last fall when the local United States attorney, Paul Charlton, was investigating him for corruption. The investigation appears to have been slowed before Election Day, Mr. Renzi retained his seat, and Mr. Charlton ended up out of a job — one of eight prosecutors purged by the White House and the Justice Department."

Read the rest here.

It is about corruption at the highest level of the American government.