More than anything I can put my finger on, there were two forces in my formative years that grabbed what might have been a normal, productive life destined to maybe write ad copy or sue people over outrageous grievances, and nudged it off course. Given more than 10 minutes of deep introspection or professional help, I could surely flesh out that list by several orders of magnitude, but deadlines beckon.
One, the latter of the two but what would you expect from someone who reads magazines backwards, was the music of Frank Zappa. At a time when the Beatles dont get me wrong, I liked the Beatles were singing about wantin to hold my hand, Frank was writing "Trouble Comin Every Day" with lyrics like this:
Well, you can cool it, you can heat it
Take your TV tube and eat it
All that phoney stuff on sports
And all those unconfirmed reports
You know I watch that rotten box
Until my head begins to hurt
From checkin out the way
The newsmen say they get the dirt
Fore all the guys on channel so and so
And further they assert
That any show theyll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say "If the place blows up
Well be the first to tell"
Cause the boys they got downtown
Are working hard and doing swell
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street
They say "No one blabs it faster
Our coverage cant be beat"
And if another woman driver
Gets machine gunned from her seat
Theyll send some joker with a Brownie
And youll see it all complete.
They dont write songs like that anymore. For that matter, no one else wrote songs like that in 1968. Stumbling over it in a remainder bin was probably a mixed blessing. Im certain it had something to do with not turning out quite the way my parents and guidance counsellors thought I would.
The other major cultural force shaping my psyche was Friday nights. There was a stretch of time when my folks socialized on Friday nights and I was left at home to boss my younger brother and sister around. This meant two things: I got to control the television, and I got to monopolize the most comfy chair with the best sightline. Now that was power.
It was a black and white world made more dramatic by turning off all the lights in the house. The Friday night lineup was killer. Rod Serlings twisted morality tales on The Twilite Zone ; aliens on The Outer Limits ; and a movie that seemed to alternate between B sci-fi and monsters.
By the end of the night, my cardio rate was close to that of a sprinter after a 100 yard dash and I was peeing clear, fear juice about every 10 minutes. Getting to my bedroom at the other end of the house was a logistical masterpiece. Id turn on every light along the way, backtrack to turn each off in progression, stretch my arm as far as I could, then switch off my bedroom light and dive into bed before the monsters got me. Then Id hide under the covers and pray to God I didnt have to get up 10 minutes later to pee again.
They dont make Friday nights like that anymore.
With luck, everyone has, at least once in their lives, a moment of insight. A blinding flash of seeing and understanding, a lens through which they can begin to make sense of otherwise inexplicable things plaguing them every day.
So it was one Friday night. After a really scary Twilite Zone and a fairly tepid Outer Limits , Invasion of the Body Snatchers came on. The penny dropped. My life suddenly made sense.
It was the pod people.
Now I could understand my fifth grade teacher, the Scout master, the neighbour lady who seemed to live only for keeping any ball that came into her yard, and the weird guy whod bug us at the school bus stop. Pod people, one and all. Aliens.
Part of me still clings to that explanation. Its much easier to understand how Gordo Campbell can keep a straight face while cutting personal taxes gift to the wealthy then sticking it to everyone else in the province with a regressive sales tax increase, a ploy pretty much abandoned by all but the most Reaganesque supply-siders.
It explains virtually all of Jean Chrétiens behaviour, including his violent outbursts at demonstrators and wayward cabinet members, his bouts of amnesia, his feigned idiocy on issues he doesnt want to talk about, and what sometimes sounds like hes speaking in tongues.
And Im beginning to wonder if it doesnt explain whats going on with the leaders of Tiny Town. Yes, I believe there is a very good chance the mayor and council have been replaced by pod people. I saw it with my own eyes Monday evening.
Dave Kirk, Kristi Wells and Ted Milner werent there perhaps being slowly absorbed by doppelganger pods in the basement of their homes as I write this but I think it may be too late for those in attendance.
What happened was this. Suzanne Denbak head of all things Tourism Whistler stood up and with a straight face explained how council ought to approve a reno budget for the conference centre that rings in at somewhere between $22 and $24 million smackers.
Back when renoing the conference centre was first being kicked around, the budget was a paltry $7 mil and Suzanne wanted half that from the munis take of the hotel tax. Now, its $9 million and she still wants half. And thats only Phase I. Phase II will be another $15 mil, funding to be revealed at a later date but expect some kind of fed/prov tie-in to the World Economic Forum.
After a pretty snazzy Powerpoint presentation where she outlined the benefits of dropping a wad on a world class conference centre, Suzanne said, "Ill be happy to answer any questions."
The mayor and councillors in attendance said, " ."
Thats right folks, they said nothing. Not a question. Not a peep.
They didnt, for example, say, "Gee Suzanne, that seems like a lot of money to spend on a facility that doesnt even bring in enough direct revenue to cover its operating costs." Or, "Explain again why exactly we, which is to say government, should be making this kind of investment in a facility that largely benefits privately owned hotels and restaurants."
Pod people. Definitely pod people. In the cheezy words of Dr. Miles Bennel, "Youre next! Youre all next!"