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Sunday, February 03, 2013

Pissing On A Pseudotsuga menziesii






Yesterday I had a respite from the melancholy of isolation I feel these days. I can assert that the rainy and gloomy weather is not the culprit.

Argentines (and I was born there) have been known to be professional pessimists. Anybody from any other country who knows Argentines will know by experience to never ask, “How are you feeling?” This is a question that if enough Argentines answer on facebook (note that it has to be in lower case), It might provoke a mass suicide.

If you happen to ask an Argentine how they are feeling you will get a litany of complaints beginning with problems with the liver, the stomach, winter chilblains, and arthritis pain. From there the complaints will gravitate to the extreme weather, be it hot and humid to cold and humid. Thence the person will shift to politics and how all politicians are thieves.

Other Latin Americans call the fake hurt ankle performances of Argentine football players “un tango” or a tango. Argentine tangos, with their over-the-top lyrics preceded telenovelas and soap operas before radio or TV was invented.

We Argentines are prone to melancholy. Never ask an Argentine that facebook question unless you want to be bored to death.

I hope that few of you might have gotten this far because here is where I am going to reveal with lots of Argentine seriousness that I simply no longer give a damn about Vancouver. My friend, Budgen who left for a self-exile in Oliver, BC told me today that he understands and that he lost interest in our city when the deplorable and ugly  development (I agree), Larry Beasely’s babies, began in Northern False Creek.

In the 70s and 80s as part of the hanger oners of Mac Parry’s Vancouver Magazine first on Hornby Street and then on Davie and Richard I could feel, see and hear the pulse of our city. Prostitutes, politicians, sports people, writers, strippers, hoods, poets, artists, photographers, journalists, hobos, etc all passed through the magazine and sat facing Parry’s desk.

Parry made fun of the magazine under his floor (Western Living was on the ground floor, Vancouver Magazine on the second) as one featuring empty bathrooms. As soon as he became editor of the magazine he ran poetry by the likes of Peter Trower whose idea of a bathroom might have meant pissing against a Pseudotsuga menziesii.


Peter Trower
In the 80s and 90s I would go to the Marble Arch and sit by Jorge the man behind the bar. He would ask in Spanish, “The usual?” and I would nod. He would then plunk a glass of soda water. I felt like Humphrey Bogart on the wagon. I could listen to a couple of Satan’s Angels (then Hell’s Angels) and Jorge would whisper in my ear, “Those are the guys who did in…”

There were some days where I would call up my friend in homicide (previously a detective in sex/drugs) and we would chat at a Blenz over Earl Gray tea.

One unforgettable Christmas Eve I was threatened by a punk who wanted me to return negatives that I had taken of his girlfriend who had been a well known stripper. I called the cops. They came to me weeks later to inform me that the punk would not be bothering me anymore. The policeman told me, “It seems you have an influential friend as he has taken care of it.”

Heads of the Provincial and Federal NDP came to my studio for portraits and campaign posters. A Bill Tieleman circled behind me with his cellular as I did my best not to show Glen Clark’s bald spot as he posed in my studio.

I felt the pulse of the city and sometimes as when I listened to Arthur Erickson’s voice as I adjusted my lights I felt that the city’s pulse sometimes went through my studio after lingering for a while.

A few years ago the current mayor of Vancouver posed for me and I arranged for him to take a self-portrait. The idea was that a good magazine at the time (now gone) was going to run the picture and the photo credit would have been the mayor’s. The cover never happened and I no longer know anybody at City Hall.

And I must assert that I don’t care.

At one time I appreciated and respected my Vancouver Courier. That is no more. We keep our issues not because we might have a pet budgie or a parrot but because my granddaughters have a pet Guinea pig. This publication like most of my city newspaper has stuff I have not interest in reading.

I used to discuss heatedly with my friend Abraham Rogatnick the awful plans (we thought) to move the Vancouver Art Gallery. I no longer feel anger on the present plans. I feel next to no dismay in learning that our main branch Post Office has been sold.

I find that the banality of facebook has spread to articles in our media about dog poop in our parks or arguments over bike lanes.

In a recent trip to Mexico City I noticed that the city (a city that until recently was next to Delhi as a place you did not want to visit) has bike program (about $15 a year means you can get a bike at the many bike stations) and there are even bike lanes and prone bicycle taxis. I admired the new architecture of the city where any of our Vancouver condos would stick out as eye sores, almost as much as Mexico City’s shanty towns would do so here.

Perhaps this disinterest and melancholy will be somewhat dissipated when I smell my roses in my spring garden. Until then I don’t want to read about dog poop or about a new Peter Wall Centre hither and dither. And the black or not so black glass of one of his buildings means even less than those dog poop droppings.