Before we begin, a little primer on Anti-Seacreast:   Brian Dunkleman, born 1971 in upstate New York.  Young Dunkleman aspires to be an actor when he grows up, but gets the attention of comedy clubs early and chooses to leave college for a career in stand-up.  Eventually makes his way to Hollywood, where he kills on the Tonight Show, gets a guest appearance on NYPD Blue as a comic suspected of murder, plus a cameo as the guy who buys the engagement ring Chandler was going to get for Monica (bastard!).  It’s 2002, and Dunkleman is a working actor.  He hasn’t hit the stratosphere just yet, but he’s making all the right moves. And then…the show.

To be honest,  I’m a little apprehensive about talking to him.  Think of it: every day for the past 8 years,  friends,  reporters, agents, managers, casting directors, strangers on the street, small infants, people waking up from a coma…EVERYBODY remembers you as the guy jumped off the fastest moving gravy train in TV, and has no compunction about reminding you of this fact. E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y.   That is, when they’re not treating you like cancer.  Yet when I get him on the phone, Dunkleman is gracious and cordial.  He and his wife just moved into a new place and he’s a little run down from a cold.

What did success look like for Brian Dunkleman before Idol?

Oh, I wanted to be an actor, and in particular, an actor on one of those one-camera shows, like “Curb Your Enthusiasm” or “The Larry Sanders Show” That stuff is brilliant, shows like “Weeds” or “Modern Family”.

But instead, you ended up on American Idol. Remind me again why you left?

Well, Seacrest only ever wanted to be a host, so that was the right gig for him. But I was afraid of getting stuck in reality TV. You gotta remember, at the time reality TV was considered a gamble, or a fad – everyone, me included, thought it would last a year or two, at best. Also, those (Idol) kids are put through a lot. That’s a tough show to be on, being told so bluntly not to pursue your dreams. I thought it was humiliating for them, and it made me uneasy.

Of course, the show blew up, didn’t it? Do you think you would’ve stayed had you know it was going to be so big?

Oh absolutely, but not because the show was successful. Had I known the damage it would do to my career as an actor, I wouldn’t have left. You see, once it got big, people stopped returning my calls. I had booking agents canceling gigs on me. I would get called for the auditions and the casting director would only want me to gossip about Simon Cowell. I went four years without doing any stand-up. Imagine not working for four years in real life. I felt like I had a big black mark against my name. Many times I thought I would’ve gotten more work if I’d been nobody. So yeah – had I known THAT was going to happen, I would not have left. I would not have stayed long, though…maybe 2 or 3 seasons, then out.

So you wished you’d never been on?

Many times, yes.

How did you cope?

For a time…really, really badly. I fell into a huge depression, I saw a shrink. I went on Paxil, but I had an terrible reaction – sent me into hypomania for a year (hypomania, btw, is a mood disorder characterized by sleeplessness,  rapid talking, unsubstantiated self-confidence, poor judgment, impulsive behaviour and excessive sexual activity – I think I may be a hypomaniac) . To this day, I don’t know if I cope with it well.

So you’re not out of the funk? You’re still bitter?

Oh I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being bitter…a tiny bit of that will always be with me. But really, I can only be upset with myself. My wife has stood by me the whole time and whenever she’s around, it’s hard for me to stay that way for long.

So how do you maintain the ability to function?

I don’t know. Head down, one foot in front of the other. I try to stay focussed on whatever I’m doing at the time.

But do you think you might have surprised youself and gained something from having to walk the wilderness like that?

Well, I don’t believe in things happening for a reason. If things did happen for a reason, then what’s the reason for Haiti? No, you make your own luck in life. Now, has it made me stronger? Absolutely. If you told me that after Idol, I wouldn’t get another gig for years, pre-Idol me would have said he couldn’t handle it. Post-Idol me knows that he can. The other thing is that I feel more gratitude, which is wonderful. I meet a lot of comics who will bitch about their performance on the Tonight Show, or bitch about their hotel room, or the club they’re performing at. I’m doing more stand-up now, and I just feel so glad that I get to do it. It’s thrilling, and if leaving Idol has done me a favour, it’s that I always feel happy to be working. I’m working at something I enjoy, which lot of people can’t say.

So, resilience and grace – check. Anything else?

Well, I’m working with a guy to develop a comedy series like the ones I always wanted to work on. We’re calling it “American Dunkleman” and essentially it’s about my post-Idol life and how I cope with it. It combines what I’ve always wanted with what I NEVER wanted, and it would be completely ironic if this were to be thing that blows up for me.

So where is the wisdom to be found in all of this? Any advice for someone like me, who feels he missed the boat?

That boat’s gone, man – find another boat. Sure, maybe things didn’t turn out so well, but you still gotta lead your life. Just keep working towards your dreams. Take whatever opportunities you can get, and be happy for them. Also, controlling emotions is for Vulcans – sometimes I’ll think about it and can’t help but feel bad..I just try to ride ‘em out.  Again, just try to do stuff you like, and have someone stand by you, like my wife does. Other than that, I don’t know.

As I get off the phone with Dunkleman,  I’m struck by how plain-spoken he is about all of this – no fronting, but not a tremendous amount of self-pity or anger, either.   I guess he’s lived with this fact of his existence long enough that it bores him more than anything.   I think I’d hoped for some grand epiphany, some stunning and unique piece of wisdom on how to cope with this mess.   The most he offered was “just keep going” which is good advice as any, I suppose…perhaps the  best advice.

I have high hopes for the Dunkleman (probably because we’re leading parallel lives). In many ways, Seacrest is a polished, blow-dryed example of an old paradigm – a seemingly flawless celebrity  with no real personality short of that which we (or Simon Cowell) project on him.  TV viewers today want to see the imperfections. They mistrust the façade that TV erects and they want to peak around it and see what’s holding it up – that’s probably why reality TV has stuck around so long and why a fall from grace such as Dunkleman’s, can get so much play on TMZ.  Dunkleman may not have realized this at the time, but he certainly does now and he’s trying to shape that to his advantage.  Now that even “reality TV” feels as superficial as that which preceded it,  a honest look from a genuinely funny person at the tragedy of his life, has promise.  I hope so…otherwise I’m screwed.

Do you remember Brian Dunkleman?  Does the name sound familiar?  Think hard. Maybe he was your high school valedictorian…your optometrist, perhaps.

Okay, this could take a while so I’ll give you a mulligan: Dunkleman was Ryan Seacrest’s co-host on American Idol for the first season. The reason you may not recall his name is because he left the show after season one was over. Now the words, “Seacrest Out” annoy  millions of people all over North America.  Seacrest has a multi-million dollar production company and a sweetheart deal with E! Network.  Yes, RS is poised to be the 21^st century’s Casey Kasem, or Dick Clark… another man of indeterminate age, gender preference and talent, who is also inexplicably famous.

Dunkleman, on the other hand, is so far off the grid he may as well be Amish. And not in the cool way.

BD  has given many reasons for leaving Idol, from wanting to pursue a career in stand-up to objecting to the way the contestants were treated.  No matter the reason, the result has been the same; poor Brian is living out his life in relative obscurity. Oh sure, there’s been Celebrity Fit Club and the occasional appearance on Howard Stern, but that’s about it.

It’s too bad, because Dunkleman was WAY better than Seacrest.  He knew it too.  If you watch episodes of the first season, you can almost sense the entirely justified contempt that Dunkleman has for his vapid co-host.   The side long glances whenever RS spoke, the cutting one-liners whenever Seacrest finished a line and  Seacrest seemingly so dim as to be oblivious.  It’s apparent (to me, at least) that Dunkleman is smarter than Seacrest, and more talented.  Had he stayed on the show, it’s not unreasonable to think that he might have enjoyed all the perks that Seacrest does today…and we might all be better for it.

Instead, Dunkleman made a fateful decision.  He would later suffer from serious depression and put on weight (which did get him the gig on Celebrity Fit Club).  One can only imagine what it must be like to know that you’re more talented in every way than some other guy you worked with and then watch as Douchey McDoucherson goes onto fame and glory, while you wear the scarlet letter… all because you made a different choice.

Sigh… I don’t have to imagine it.   You see, I’m a Dunkleman too. 

I have watched as charming but less gifted former co-workers have sailed to dizzying heights, while I’m left to tell people the story of how I once knew them.  One of them was fired from MuchMusic because she was mind-boggingly lazy and disinterested in the “work” part of TV which didn’t involve the chance to meet and possibly screw celebrities. Today, she co-hosts her own program on National TV, where presumably she gets to meet and screw celebrities every single day. I have tried to watch the programs on which my former colleagues appear, but as Gore Vidal once said, “When a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”   I know I’m not being gracious, but I can’t help it.

Now, one could argue my lack of career success is because I’m just not as talented as they are. Let’s accept that as a possibility, but table it for the moment.   Sure, I may not be everyone’s flavour of ice cream, but I have had enough success to prove that I know what I’m doing, even if I don’t get to do it that often.  No, as far as I can calculate, this is about a single decision.  I assume Dunkleman didn’t realize the gravity of his single decision at the time.  He does now, and has said publicly that it was a mistake for him to leave Idol.

The same can be said for me. A year into my stint at MuchMusic, I was offered the opportunity to leave my show in Vancouver to work in Toronto at the mothership.  I turned it down. I loved Vancouver, loved my freedom, loved my girlfriend (at that time), whose career was firmly based in the Lower Mainland.  I loved giving the indie bands who appeared on my show (and were unlikely to appear anywhere else on National TV) a leg up. Those seemed like solid reasons, at the time.

I had no idea that I’d slammed the door on a future.  Had I been in Toronto, I would have interviewed major celebrities, and those interviews would receive greater profile on the MuchMusic.  I would appear on shows that were a matter of priority to my employers.  Both my profile and caché as a host would’ve risen and for the network executives in that world, what you do is less important than the buzz around what you do.   That never occurred to me.   I know many bands were grateful for the exposure they received on my show, but career-wise this move, or lack of move as the case may be, was fatal.  I was like one of those people who sustains an aneurysm but walks around thinking he’s fine… until of course he drops dead.

Now I’m jobless. Sure, my confidence has taken a hit but I’m sure what few gigs I do get come as a result of my constant badgering and the resulting capitulation on the part of my employers.  I set no terms, I ask for nothing, I don’t change games…I don’t push for anything and I do exactly what is asked of me. Not exactly the way to get ahead, just the path to not falling farther behind.

So how does one recover from such a misstep?  I guess at some point, you have to make peace and move on.  A better man than myself would do that.  He acknowledges the mistake, accepts it, and vows to learn from it, without resentment or regrets.  The question is… how the FUCK do you do come back from something like that without being the Dalai Lama, or Nelson Mandela?

I suppose I could call those guys and ask, but who am I kidding, they’re not going to take my calls. You know who might… a man who’s  made just such a misstep; he’s been to the valley, he’s watched while mediocrity is embraced and his gifts go largely unnoticed.  The anti-Seacrest.

I called my manager in California to ask if she knew how to get a hold of Brian Dunkleman.   As it turns out, she MANAGES HIM AS WELL!  I had no idea! I asked her if he’d be interested in fielding my questions, and she tells me he’ll be more than happy to answer them.  So, the Pathos Twins shall gather for a pow-wow, and tomorrow you shall read about it.  Nelson out.

“No way,” he says, “There is no way you can do this.” He isn’t saying it to be mean, or to discourage me. Robin Black is concerned for my life.

You see, I just finished telling him about PROJECT: IRON FIST, my plan to fight in a MMA bout before the calendar year is out.   I wanted to get Robin’s opinion on the project, since he is uniquely qualified to render one; he’s already done exactly what it is that I’m setting out to do.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Robin, a primer: three years ago he is a

glam rocker from Winnipeg, front man for a band called the Intergalactic RockStars.   He is a high priest of hedonism, prone to all kinds of excess and saying all kinds of outrageous things that are designed specifically to provoke others.   Robin’s life is like a scene from Caligula.  But it is at complete right angles to who he truly is – a decent, well-meaning fellow who only wants to succeed at the thing he loves.

At some point Robin Black the person and ROBIN BLACK! the persona reach a kind of cognitive dissonance. See, Robin is not being himself so much as playing himself – a wild, angry, fun-loving, mysoginistic wolf-child with a yen for “golden showers.”  He compares it to being the “heel” in professional wrestling.   Then it starts to take it’s toll and after a month-long-booze-coke-ketamine-Red Bull bender that ended with a seizure induced from hypoglycaemic shock, Robin realizes it’s time to change his life.  His answer – Mixed Martial Arts.

Three years later, he is now a hardened semi-professional MMA fighter with a 2-3 record, a modest statistic that doesn’t fully encapsulate all the hard work and strife required to achieve it.

“I trained 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, for three years. I quit music. I never, ever left my house except to train — no movies, no bars, no girls, no life. No other projects…only this, and sleeping. This is not something that can be accomplished if you are hoping to do ANYTHING else in life.”

Despite this, Robin says he was still woefully unprepared for his first fight, which he lost, “rather shamefully.” Still, it was the most thrilling thing he’s ever done. “There’s no bigger high than getting up in front of 5000 people in your underwear, knowing you’re about to feel pain.” He adds, “sounds weird to say, but you’re risking a lot; your health, your dignity.  I’d stopped risking anything with music and life is all in the risk.”

Of course, you could find risk in any number of things that don’t involve the spectacle of thousands of people watching you beaten to un-consciousness, so why this?  This is where Robin says something that resonates with me, “As humans, our instinct is to flee from a confrontation and that’s good.  Our urgent desire to run from danger is what has kept our species alive.  But sometimes, we have no choice but to face a crisis head-on.”

I’m nodding wildly at this point, mostly because I’m a dedicated confrontation avoider.  I’ve rarely seen an argument or negotiation I didn’t want to duck out of, even if my position was righteous.  If I see confrontations on TV, I actually cover my face with my hands.   There’s a great line in that movie Wyatt Earp where Kevin Costner’s character says to another, “You’re not a deliberate man, Ed.  I don’t sense that about you.  You’re too affable.”  He may as well have been talking to me.

THAT is why I’m now itching to get in a fight.  I have no particular interest to feel my fist smashing into a mouthful of teeth, but I see where just knowing how to do that, can help;  you can assess a situation quickly, make strategic decisions in an instant and most importantly, feel comfortable with confrontation so you can make rational judgments. Most people avoid acute pain because they don’t know what it feels like and that leads to some warped choices… just look at Larry David. But I figure, at some point pain is necessary to achieve progress.

Yes, but as Robin says, there’s a difference between not shirking from pain and running like an idiot straight towards it.  If I get into an MMA fight by the end of year, even an amateur one, Robin’s prediction is unequivocal: “You will not have trained sufficiently and you will be hurt. Badly.”  I’m starting to feel a little like Donald Rumsfeld – there are things that I don’t know that I don’t know.  I realize that plans have to change when, as Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski would say, “new shit comes to light.”

Thankfully, Robin has a solution – forget mixing my martial arts and pick just one.  His choice: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  When I mention this to some friends, they laugh, saying it sounds like something  girls do while wearing bikini’s, or one of those dances that have become an exercise work-out, like Tai Bo. But BJJ is a cornerstone of MMA.   For a long time, UFC was dominated by Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specialists; a Brazilian named Royce Gracie (whose family revolutionized BJJ) would regularly take his opponent (who was often bigger than he was) and neuter the power of their punches by wrestling them to the ground and applying a pressure hold until they submitted.

However,  Robin thinks Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is good for me because of my reasons for wanting to get busted up in the first place:  Jiu-Jitsu has great value outside the ring. “It’s creative problem solving under duress.  It trains you to think many steps ahead while being, in the moment.  It’s just generally cool. It is a thought-process-changer and will have a great effect on your life.”

Robin thinks that by training 2 hours a day for three days a week,  I could be ready to compete  in 3 months — but I would lose.  If wanted to actually be competitive, I would need, say … 10 months.

As it so happens, one the biggest Jiu-Jitsu tournaments in North America is happening… in 10 months.  It’s called the Joslin’s Canadian Open and happens in nearby Hamilton.  So I have a plan and a goal: I will train 3 days a week for the next ten months and will enter the novice men’s category in my weight class.

Tomorrow,  I will begin training at a place called Mecca in downtown Toronto.   I’m scared shitless, yet at the same time, the idea of my face in someone’s crotch as they trap my head in a leg lock seems…thrilling.  Giddyup.

As much as I admire the commitment to principle that protesting shows, I always thought of it as impractical.  Marching against tuition hikes or tax increases may be noble, but to me, it seems as productive as marching against the Metric system, or the color blue.   Moreover, the protests I’ve seen personally are rarely of the WTO/Battle of Seattle variety – if more than thirty people and a newspaper photographer showed up, the organizers felt they dealt a blow to The Man.  Part of me appreciates their unwarranted optimism, their ability to delude themselves  on the success or impact of their efforts such that it must be an involuntary response, like blinking.   Personally, though,  I couldn’t help but feel bad for those kinds of protesters, in the same way you might from witnessing some minor social indignity  - perhaps an unzipped fly,  or toilet paper stuck to a shoe.

Still, as I consider the experiments I might try in my year-long self-improvement lab, it occurred to me that I’ve never marched at a rally.   I covered several protests as a journalist and there was this righteously indignant phase in university, but I never wanted to actively participate in a protest.   Yet, here I am.

I have joined my fellow Canadian citizens in downtown Toronto to march against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s shutting down of Parliament. I’m not sure what to expect; a smattering of aging hippies looking to be transported to an earlier time when they had more passion (and hair), or perhaps the nascent college crowd trying out this semester’s new identity as, “politically active objectors”  (because  beards and skinny jeans are done).  As I arrive on the scene though, I see that this rally is different.

The protest has been organized by a Facebook group called, “Citizen Against Proroguing Parliament.”  Over the Christmas break when he thought no one would be looking, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper invoked a little-used rule in the Canadian parliamentary system to shut down or “prorogue” Parliament.

Critics believe he did this to stifle questions around his Government’s responsibilities in the alleged torture of Afghan detainees. He claims it’s  SOP to “shut ‘er down” and says that given the economic work to be done, he needs time to “re-calibrate” and put a budget together.  That’s like calling your boss and telling him you’ll be staying home for the next few months (with pay) to think about how you can be a more effective employee.

I have to admit, part of me admires Harper’s F-U-audacity, but his rationale for doing something as drastic as proroguing Pariliament is flimsy… it’s not unlike pulling the fire alarm at school to avoid a visit to the principal’s office.   At least I understood the logic when he made this same move  just under a year ago. Then, it was likely his government would lose a confidence vote and fall.   That’s like pulling the fire alarm because you think you might be eaten by your classmates.  That, I think you’ll agree, is a slightly bigger deal. Maybe he thought it worked so great the first time that he’d do it again and Canadians would be too preoccupied or apathetic to notice.

If that’s the case, then I think he underestimates how much Canadians hate cocky people.  We harbour a deep animus towards the arrogant, a fervent desire that such people reap the whirlwind of their actions.  I know that’s why I’m here and I suspect that’s probably why there are THOUSANDS in attendance when I arrive at Dundas Square, ground zero for my protest deflowering.

Of course the usual reflexively anti-authoritarian crowd is in attendance, but I’m surprised that there seems to be a LOT of protest virgins like me.  Right beside me is an affluent yuppie couple with an infant, all dressed in matching Canada Goose parkas…presumably purchased just for this march.   I also see a bunch of diffident scenesters who would not seem out of place at an Arcade Fire gig. Oh sure, the CAW jackets are here (Canadian Auto Workers), because really what else have they got to do? Mind you, it occurs to me most of these people would rather be shopping and contributing to the economy than here.   Earlier in the day, Harper said these protests were organized and attended by the, “opposition parties” but looking at the crowd…so many people, so DIFFERENT…the sheer heterogeneity belies a vast difference of opinion on many issues, but not this one.

As befits the curious dynamic and purpose of this crowd, there’s some trouble coming up with the proper chant.  Everyone knows that when it comes to effective protest slogans, you need something short and rhythmic.  There’s very little rhythm to the word “democracy” so imagine how hard it is to find some clever chant with the word “proroguing.” A few chanters try, “NO to proroguing!” and it starts to move through the crowd, but it comes out sounding more like “NO to perogies!” and as a half-Ukrainian, this is a sentiment that  I cannot reasonably endorse. Soon enough, the crowd settles on a chant that I can live with – “No to prorogation, it’s time to face the Nation!”  A little unwieldy, but at least it rhymes.

We move together and chant, wave signs and banners. Coming round Yonge Street, I look back and see how many people are here and I realize,  Harper’s actions have offended people on some deep elemental level. We are not cranks and weirdos fighting conspiratorial corporate hegemony, nor are we out for our bi-monthly opportunity to express outrage over a cute creature’s demise. We are polite Canadian citizens who probably had something better to do today than to have to tell our Government to get their old, white, doughy asses back TO WORK! (sorry – taking my perogy fetish too far there).  It’s feels thrilling and active to be part of this, but it’s also kind of easy.   When everyone agrees, it hardly seems like protesting… maybe that’s the point.

I look around me at the comfortable crowd and I think about people in other parts of the world who risk injury and death for the chance to do what we’re doing completely unmolested.  It feels vaguely like an insult to them that I haven’t done this sooner and perfectly right that I stepped up today.  As I move with the crowd, shouting my opposition to potato dumplings, I can only hope the government sees Canadians may be blasé about protesting, but they’re not blase about democracy. This crowd senses a basic principle of fair play has been violated and dismissing them as partisan malcontents seems as cynical as it is wishful. Today Canadians said they’ll take a lot of nonsense from the Government, so long as that nonsense involves actually governing.

As a citizen, I’m realizing just how important it is to show up every once in a while.  Plus, I did a little window shopping on Yonge street and I’ll be back tomorrow -  to help the economy, of course.

UPDATE:  An old high school friend reminded me in my comments page that I have actually participated in one other protest prior to this weekend. I regret not remembering, as I struggled with how to start this post, and I could’ve used that experience as a source of inspiration.

In June of 1988, I was attending a Catholic high school run by a draconian principal named Shuett, who had imposed a no-shorts policy (something particular only to our school, not the entire school system). As it so happened, June of that year was incredibly hot, and guys wearing shorts to cope with the weather were being sent home suspended. So, in protest, ALL the guys in our school came in skirts. It was on all three newscasts and in the paper, and the best part is the Catholic School Board ordered Shuett to change the policy immediately (I guess they thought he was as much an asshole as we did).

THAT was the first protest I ever participated in, NOT this most recent one, and it achieved the desired effect. So perhaps I shouldn’t have such a jaundiced view of protests…they seem to work when I’m in them.  I can tell you that it will not be 22 years before I attend my next protest.

Next Thursday at 4pm, I will sit down with MP Olivia Chow to discuss what it means for a citizen to participate in representative democracy. That sounds like a broad subject, so let me narrow it down…the kind, teacherly Ms. Chow will talk about how THIS citizen can participate in his respective democracy.

Like many,  I’ve tuned out of politics…besides being quickly bored by minutiae,  I find my choice of politicians sadly lacking.  At least in the US you can vote for political figures that are caricatures not unlike what you’d find in professional wrestling.   Take Massachusetts,  after 57 years of having one of the most influential US families represent them in the Senate, the legacy ends with a new guy who posed nude for Cosmo and whose biggest political credential seems to be he drives a pick-up to work.   Only in America?  Perhaps.  Never in Canada? Absolutely. Not since Trudeau has Canada fielded a politician who was larger than his circumstances.    Today, most Canadian politicians behave more like professors, or accountants…or if you’re Conservative, accountants working for the Mob.

So there are no cults of personality to be found and the issues can be a tad dry; we haven’t invaded another country in contravention of international law,  our health care is not perfect but at least no one goes bankrupt trying to get it and our legislative process isn’t choked by muscular special interests. In the vacuum created by the lack of absurd and/or baroque political figures like you’ll find in the US,   Parliament can hold about as much real drama as a condo owner’s meeting.

Not that our  current  minority government team hasn’t tried to turn it into a soap opera; they make reality TV contestants look pleasant, with the kind of constant back-biting and dirty opportunism that’s forced most of the country to turn to the Rick Mercer Report for real political issues. But compared to the

US, we can’t even get political malfeasance right – it’s Hamlet as read by Ben Stein (“Bueller? Bueller?”) and it’s failed to engage many  Canadians.  That’s why a  bunch of us now think we’re “peace-keeping” over in Afghanistan, we’re completely confused about the alleged abuse of detainees and are clueless as to why a lot of us (like me) are still out of work and out of options as the economy “bounces back.”  Meanwhile the Government (by a hair) is “recalibrating.”  There’s nothing tasty to feed the public here,  just a big old batch of apathy soup and I’m full up on it.

In this kind of environment, I have to marvel at Olivia’s work and call to public service.  I’m going to ask her what she sees as the big issues facing our community and country. But I also want to tap her passion — how does she keep believing in this in democracy as a noble enterprise when so many of her cohorts are petty and her constituents don’t seem to care? Where does she find the passion do the boring and thankless work that politics can often entail? And how might I summon this passion for the issues so I can truly be a better citizen?  These are some of my questions.  What are yours?

As part of my year-long human reno, my soul-body reclamation project, I’ve resolved to eat better.  Already, I’ve cut out many things  – hamburgers, pizza, pasta, potatoes – and opted for healthier options.  Surprisingly,  it hasn’t been that hard.  I used to balk at the discipline it would require to eat more vegetables, fewer carbs, drink more water (and less JD) but I find that as I get older, it just becomes rational choices to which my self-restraint seems up to the task.

That’s why I decided to add a meal supplement to my diet.  It’s called “Vega” and it claims to have 100 percent of nutrients I need to take in a single day, plus a few things I don’t need.  I showed it to a dietician friend who said there are some vitamins in it that only pregnant women require.  Once she assured me that I would not develop gynaecomastia ( aka man-boobs), I started taking it.

That’s when the trouble began.  By trouble, I mean I started to shit six times a day.  The label had indicated that in the early stages there would be some, “gastrointestinal distress.”   I dismissed this as another one of those remote and exaggerated side-affects you see on American drug commercials. You know, the ones where the side-affects sound worse than the condition they treat? (btw, wouldn’t it be great to have those warnings on people? “Dave may cause head trauma if taunted.”  ”Be sure to take Paul with a grain of salt.”)

I can assure you though, my guts were highly distressed.  I knew when it was time to go because I could feel my colon shift, my stomach would make the sound of an old bilge pump and then I’d have to make a mad dash to the bathroom before catastrophe struck.

What came out was like a kind of green toxic sludge. Soylent Green I called it.  It’s as if this supplement is a kind of organic Liquid Plumr, purging the dark corners of my twisted intestines like some kind of gastro-Stalinist hit squad.

This continued for a month then morphed into something that I’m told is better for me; now my stools are on the offensive and fire out my ass like an artillery shell. I don’t have to even wipe in most cases, my sphincter just slams shut. What comes out now could sink a destroyer; it’s large calibre, hard as a rock and takes mere seconds to release.  Sometimes, it’ll take

upwards of four flushes to get it down the toilet.  Lucky for the environment, I only go once a day. You can you set your watch by it, since the spirit moves me  EXACTLY four hours after I take the magic powder.   In order to still have something of a life, I’ve been trying to take it at 8am everyday and then I schedule no meetings before noon.    I used to give myself 15 minutes on either side of noon, but in the extreme use of the word “regular” now I find that five minutes is fine.

Yes, my time on the commode has been stunted.  I’m all business when doing my business and THAT’s what has caused me the greatest distress.  You see, like most men, I enjoyed my leisurely toilet time because that’s when I like to read.    My lazy bowel was my passkey to a world of imagination and wonder, the commode a place where many of life’s great mysteries were revealed to me.  I think many men can claim the same. Were it not  for toilet reading a lot of us would be illiterate, or at the very least, ignorant. Myself included.

I don’t know a woman who isn’t disgusted by this phenomenon, but until they have TVs in bathrooms, it will be the gentleman’s reading room. I could spend hours there. Sometimes I’ll even bring in music and glass of wine. Try doing that at the library.

Until now.

Now I’m forced to read in the same places women do: couches, park benches,

in bed  –  places properly meant for watching TV, watching girls, sleeping and fucking.  These places are tools designed to facilitate a particular task so as far as I’m concerned, this is like using a shoe to hammer a nail; its inefficiency is matched only by its pathos.

So thanks to my new and improved intestinal tract, I now have a reading disorder.  I shift uncomfortably in bed, book in my lap, unable to focus.  The reading light in my bedroom is bad.  “It’s fine in the can,” I often grumble.  In fact, I’ve tried reading in the bathroom even when I don’t have to evacuate my bowels.  I just sit on the toilet with the lid down.  It feels like I’ve been neutered.

The only viable solutions are reading in a restaurant when waiting for my breakfast, or when taking a bath.  Since I can’t afford to eat out daily and I’m worried about the effects of lingering in a bath for hours at a time, these methods seem unlikely to stem the rising tsunami of ignorance that threatens to wash over me like an illiterate Katrina crashing into the Ninth Ward of my brain.

But there is a third possibility, reading with another person.  Not reading the same thing, but simply two people together in the same room, reading.  My ex and I used to read often…some might call this a failure to communicate, but to me if felt as though we were united in the common purpose of elevating our consciousness.   It felt good and it’s got me thinking, certainly GODDESS likes to read.

[For those of you who are just joining us now;  Goddess is my muse,  the kind of woman who makes you think "yeah, I could live without her, but it hardly seems worth it".  I realized that the remote possibility she might consider dating me was made even more unlikely by the fact that I'm in a terrible place in life. Thus, she unknowingly set this whole self-improvement juggernaut in motion. Unfortunately, due to circumstances  (and douchebags)  beyond my control, she has sworn off dating and has confined our interactions to text messages and communal hang outs.]

But I think Goddess might consider reading with me (if she didn’t currently require us to have chaperones in public places)  so perhaps I should suggest a reading date? It seems benign — no lurid come-ons, no threat of sex, not even talking.  Only reading.  I think this could be an outstanding idea that answers the prayers of so many like me;  people with unrequited affections who just want to spend time with their special someone without risking a restraining order.

And maybe I’ll get through a book again.  I mean, have you seen my Better Man reading list?  In the meantime… read any good cereal boxes lately?

Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer can strangle you with a cordless telephone.  Jack Bauer once got a taped confession from a mute. If everyone listened to Jack Bauer, it would be “24. It’d be “12”

Despite his obvious skills, both Jack Bauer and the dude who plays him are conflicted souls.  The difference, I suspect, is that Jack Bauer wants to atone for the shit in his life.  It’s too bad that duty calls and he never gets the chance. His actions in the name of “doing WHATEVER is necessary to do the right thing” are repugnant to most people, but you have to admit, he gets shit done.   The one/two combo of wanting to do good and doing bad when it counts makes him the most noble douchebag of all time.

“The Dude”. There’s something I find so comforting about Jeff Bridges.  He just seems so affable, and he’s  a joy to watch on screen.  He just won a Golden Globe for his role as a washed-up country singer in “Crazy Heart” but in my mind, the role he should be remembered for the most is Jeffrey Lebwoski, aka “The Dude” (or Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) in “The Big Lebowski.”

The Big Lebowski is by far my favourite film of all time.  The story is ludicrous, but it’s masterfully funny; imagine a Raymond Chandler film noir, except the private dick is a stoner who wears jelly shoes.  To me, it’s like a kaleidoscope, in that I find something new to love about it every time I watch.   And the heart of it all is man in the running for laziest person worldwide…the Dude.

Now, a whole school of thought has sprouted recently that suggests the Dude may be the ultimate Zen Master. There’s even a book, “The Tao of Dude” that explores whether or not the Dude is a modern Buddha (or Duddha). As Jeff Bridges himself put it:

I like to call (The Dude’s approach to life) the Wisdom of Fingernails: the wisdom that gives you the ability to make your hair and fingernails grow, your heart beat, your bowels move.  These are things that we know to do, but we don’t necessarily know how we know how to do them, yet we still do them very well.  And that to me is very Dude. It’s not like he’s a know-it-all, the Dude.  He’s not a guy who figured out the way to be or anything like that, but he’s comfortable with what he’s got, and things turn out pretty well for him.  I guess we can all take comfort in that because….who knows?….things may turn out pretty well for us too.  Recently someone asked me “How would you feel at the end of your career if the role you were most famous for was the Dude” “I’d be fucking delighted,” I told him.

This dude can abide.

It’s 10:30 Sunday morning and I’m already late for church.  I’m not too worried, though…the church I’m heading to  will tolerate my tardiness.  In fact, it will tolerate pretty much anything.

Now, I should explain that amongst my many projects this year was the GOD PROJECT,  where I said I’d  make it to a church service as many Sundays as I could (not EVERY Sunday, as some of you mistakenly believed…Curt).  Last Sunday, I thought I’d go long and try out the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a faith I have no connection to whatsoever and whose beliefs I find highly dubious.  That was a bad play; I fled the scene – I guess after years of NOT attending church I found it paralyzingly daunting to sit down with people whose views are so antithetical to my own.

So in order to build up my tolerance, I decided to go for short yardage with a church that’s not unlike myself; liberal, open-minded, not overly concerned with trivial religious matters, like sin. That may sound more like Sunday brunch with your hung-over friends than Mass…but then, you haven’t been to Westhill United Church.

I chose it because the folks at Westhill have a reputation for tolerance. They describe themselves as a progressive spiritual community growing out of the Christian tradition. If you creep their website, it has a statement of faith…oops, it’s actually called “Visionworks.” They thought a statement of faith would produce “rules” that not everyone in the congregation could agree with, so they scrapped that idea.  Instead, their Visionworks contains a lot of noble, high-minded ideas, such as “diversity,” “inclusion,” “social justice”,  and “environmental stewardship”. After about the 17^th paragraph of this I feel like I’m back in university skimming my Utne Reader and pretending I care.  Long story short, everyone and everything is welcome at Westhill and not just the usual suspects who used to be shunned by churches, like homosexuals -  no, I suspect if you were an alien with a taste for human flesh, you would not be turned away.    It seems like everyone is invited to the Westhill party…except, perhaps, God.  Visionworks goes on and on and ON, but there is not a single mention of the Big Guy or his Son. The Holy Trinity is pretty much exorcised from the entire site.

Now this strikes me a little like playing hockey without a puck…I guess it’s not impossible, but you have to wonder if there’s any point.  I suppose after decades of legalistic Christianity, where most people on earth have done something for which they could be stoned, they figure it’s time to get progressive — so now everything is okay in the eyes of  …. you know Who.  Westhills is the, “I’m okay, you’re okay” church and at first, I’m okay with that.  Such a tolerant, diverse-sounding church should have a righteously interesting service. As I drive over, I’m hoping for something wildly flamboyant – perhaps a cross between a Southern Baptist Revival meeting and a Gay Pride parade.

I arrive (late) and scurry into the sanctuary.  It looks like…like ….well, like a regular United Church.  Three quarters of the place is empty. Of  all the people there, I am easily one of the youngest. This place has been described by some as a “hippy” church and judging by the late-fiftysomethings in the crowd wearing floppy hats and Crocs, stewing in the knowledge of their own mortality, they may not be wrong.

I’ve come in half-way through a hymn.  I’m very familiar with the tune, since it was a popular one in the Pentecostal church in which I grew up.  However, the words here are “different” and by that I mean there is no “abundant” mention of God  and by “no abundant mention” I mean no mention of Him whatsoever.  He seems to have been evicted from His own House.  Instead there’s a lot of talk of compassion, joy, and love, abstract concepts that might apply to God, but no mention of his name. Call me old school, but I start to miss Him.

The Pastor calls for prayer requests.  People stand and announce various needs – an operation for the 90-year-old father of a congregant, well wishes for the family of a recently deceased drug addict who used to attend the church.  After each individual plea, congregants at most churches would announce in unison, “Lord hear our prayer.”  That’s what I expected, because that’s what I automatically said a couple of times (years of indoctrination) before I caught on that this WASN’T the proper response. This posse’s retort was, “may love be found” or ,“may joy be shared” both of which sound like a lyric from an R. Kelly song.

After this, there is a reading from an author I’ve never heard of on a subject that has nothing to do with faith and finally, the Pastor gives her sermon.  She talks about the recent and sudden passing of a relative and how her relative’s neighbours rallied around her family in this crisis.  She goes onto talk about the need to build the same kind of community right there in the church, as though it might slip the congregations’ mind to support a family when they lose a loved one.  Given their advanced collective age, maybe that’s wise. That’s it – the spiritual equivalent of, “eat your broccoli.” She mentions God once and Jesus once, but only tangentially, kind of the way you’d thank your agent when accepting an Oscar…you have to get it in there somewhere.

There’s nothing wrong with what she said, but I’m starting to realize I may have a double standard here; yes, I may want to be someplace that tolerates my foibles, or at the very least doesn’t frown on premarital sex.  I want a church that cares for the poor, that understands things like sexual identity and invites questions and doubts about faith, because that’s part of being human.  I love the idea of a church like that, so Westhills is tapping a vein.

At the same time I want hear more of GOD. I’m surprised to be feeling this way – I haven’t given God much thought in the past few years, so to find myself perturbed at a church that treats Him like an uncle who gets too drunk at family weddings is almost stunning. I feel like I need to stand up and FIGHT! for HIS RIGHT! to PARTY! At some point in my Westhills visit, I starting craving word of rules about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour beyond the platitudes found in the Vision statement. I want this church to have a code, even if I don’t agree with it.

Something is crystallizing here: faith, to me at least, should be trusting that there are rules to live by, a guide to protect one’s piety and collectively that’s supposed to make the world a better place, in accordance with God’s plan. If  Westhills doesn’t captivate me it’s because I can’t see how you can stand for anything when you stand for everything. This church is like vanilla ice cream, nothing offensive about it and for that very reason, nothing to be super-passionate about, either.  Rocky Road – now THAT takes commitment.

That’s another thing – all the churches in which I grew up (regardless of how wrong-headed I thought their belief system was) seem filled with people passionate about their faith.  There seems to be about as much passion here as a DMV line-up (correction, people can get pretty worked-up in a DMV lineup).  This could be THE church to minister to people who’ve never lead a church-y life, or for people whose exposure to faith has been largely negative (that’s me).  But by refusing to step out on a ledge and risk offending anyone,  by writing a statement that has an opinion on just about everything except God…well, they’ve committed to nothing and defused the passion. Basically, they’ve kept all the stuff that’s boring about church and discarded the things that actually matter.

I stand around for a few minutes afterwards, an invitation for anyone to come chat with me.  Given my age I’m rather conspicuous  (plus a lone, marriageable-looking male normally gets lots of attention in a church, I find) but no one approaches.  People are talking to each other, but as far I’m concerned, there’s about as much fellowship going on here as there is on the subway. Even though I’m not sure they wouldn’t forcibly baptize me, I can’t imagine the JW’s being so ‘”whatevs” about a new kid in the Kingdom Hall.

As I stand there, it occurs to me that I did learn something about my, “I’m okay, you’re okay” church experience….I’m not okay with it. If I’m going to have faith and religion in my life, I want God (yes I said it) to help me become a better man… othewise, what’s the point?

Because I hadn’t eaten, I head out to break bread… by myself. So much for inclusion.

Earlier this week, I told you about the Art of Manliness and their handy guide “30 Days to a Better Man”. One of the challenges they laid out was to write a letter to your father. For better or worse, AoM argues, fathers are our first models of manhood, and the impact of their lives on ours is inescapable. So much goes left unsaid between fathers and sons and if we are to understand ourselves as men, it’s important to articulate what we’ve learned from the first man we ever knew.   What better way to do this than with a letter.  This is mine…

Dear Dad:

Some people, one imagines, may be naturally dauntless and buoyant of heart, but with him, good spirits always seemed, far more admirably, to be the product of a strict program of self-improvement in his youth – he believed, like most truly modest men, in the absolute virtue of self-improvement – which had wrought deep, essential changes in a nature inclined by birth to the darker view and gloominess that cropped elsewhere in the family tree.

Michael Chabon wrote that, and it reminds me of you, although not because that’s how you were.   This is about a good man who battled the angels of his darker nature and beat them.  The best I can say of you is that you fought them to a draw.

To say this feels a tad blasphemous, in light of the noble legend that has filled the hole created by your death; intensely capable in that prairie farmboy way, blessed with a sharp wit, selfless, devoted, and wise.  There’s not a single aspect of that description that’s wrong, but strangely, it doesn’t feel right to me either.

There is a line in this movie,“The Limey” where one character tells another, “You’re not specific enough to be a person. You’re more like a vibe.” To the older five siblings you are a corporeal presence, one with definitive boundaries, delineated by actual experience: there was the time you drove across the country to get my sister and bring her home after her fiancé left her, or the time when you hired my older brother to work for you and then had to fire him when he screwed up.  These memories sit with them like old friends and occasionally colour my own.   Yet to me, you’re less an actual person than a series of charming anecdotes knitted together in the shape of one.   Consecrated by time and repetition, they form a picture that I know in my bones is at odds with the father I actually had, no matter how much I wish it was otherwise.

I suspect you were cursed with a congenital darkness and for a long time you successfully kept it at bay, but at some point unknown to me and for reasons I can only grasp at, you gave up and retreated from the life of your family.  It may have happened before I was born, it certainly happened before I was old enough to understand the concept of “dad.”

Our interactions hinted at some essential goodness, an intuitive understanding of your commitment; you took care of things, and never once (even when you started having the heart attacks) did I feel you couldn’t. You met the textbook paternal obligations; pay for swimming lessons, get me to hockey on Saturdays, drive the family across the country in that RV – but underneath it all there was a suggestion of something deeper and possibly more sinister – an abiding turmoil that was never fully resolved.

Whatever it was, it seemed to summon all of your psychic energy and there was little left over for the rest of us. As I grew, little discussion passed between us, like we shared no common language, no way to express even basic emotions. It made you an imposing figure with which I shared pregnant silences in the basement as you divided your attention between hockey and crossword puzzles.

You would tell people that your seven children think of you as wise, a perception borne out of 10 percent absolute truth, and 90 percent great PR on the part of our mother (your flaws were always a set up for a good joke).  You’ll be pleased to know your wife continues her campaign to this day.  I think every widow must, maybe to give all that time together some meaning.

To me, though, you were a lighthouse, separated from the mainland, vigilant only in times of darkness. I remember when I was fourteen, following your first heart attack. You turned to me after coming out of a coma and said, “I love you.” And then, perhaps to soften the shock of such a startling, unsolicited admission, you added, “I’d love you more if you got me a Coke.”

Moments like that make me feel like something of an ingrate.  I can’t say we were fully happy, but we were far from miserable. You never beat me, or mistreated me; what few words that passed between us were never harsh and I can’t think of a single occasion where we ever argued.  The only time you ever laid a hand on me was when I was three and I ran away – you spanked me once and never had to spank me again.

Most would say that’s more than fair. Not all that talkative, you were still as reliable and necessary to me as air, and every bit as invisible.

The thing is, it wasn’t enough that you do for me, you were supposed to show me how to do for myself. My car was always fixed, but not by me.  You built entire additions on our homes and yet, I can’t countersink a nail.  When I played hockey, you always tied my skates perfectly – now, I can never get them tight enough. Someone tries to run me over with their will, and I lack the strength of character to resist. Dad, there were lessons that needed to be learned which were never taught. I think the result is that I’m poorly equipped to fight the same dark angels that you faced and I don’t know the necessary codes to signal distress -  a sad consequence for me and a poor reflection on you. I can’t believe this is what you wished for me.

There is one thing I learned from you

and this IS to stay remote, to hide myself in plain sight.  It’s not been an altogether bad thing – I suspect I’ve felt pain far less acutely than I might had I not been living with one foot out the door, bracing for departure in the same way you seemed to be.   I don’t know why you were like that; life with a demanding mother, or a demanding wife, perhaps… maybe the gnawing feeling of unfulfilled promise of which you were too embarrassed to speak.   I can only speculate and by the time it occurred to me to ask, you were already dead and there was little family tolerance for such conversation.   Regardless, this remoteness was a state to which we all grew accustomed and which I ultimately inherited.

When I left for university you said, “You’re leaving home just when you were getting interesting.” You said that to all of us when we moved out – I think of it as your understated way of saying you loved us. Maybe it was true, because I was developing a sense of humour and perhaps you could empathize with my more adult struggles. There seemed to be something for us to discuss; how else would have I known about the Tarzan principle (jobs are like vines – never let go of one until you have another in hand)?

So I suppose you were getting interesting too.  It was short-lived, though – you died before my thirtieth birthday. Perhaps I should’ve taken an interest sooner, but I was a kid, what did I know?  You had the benefit of wisdom and held back anyway.   Perhaps, there is something to gain from trying to understand why, maybe someday I will.

I’m not angry, or resentful.  You at least taught me to be practical enough to realize how unproductive such emotions are.   Moreover, I wonder if there isn’t some kind of lesson in the limited quality of your love, some kind of impulse; what you gave was a brief but lingering taste of something wonderful and that’s led me to try and recover it by collecting father figures in the same way people collect baseball cards.   There’s my Ex’s dad, Peter, a loving and curious man, engaged in the world and happy to fill uncomfortable silences. There’s also my friend Jon, who takes an odd kind of joy in his own basic frailty and its lessons.   Human frailty is just one of many subjects you were reluctant to discuss, so my life is richer for knowing someone like Jon.

Still, I’m here now, trying to be a better man.  Maybe it’s the view from hindsight, but I suspect this exercise would be largely unnecessary if you were more than just a benevolent spectre. You’re on the honour roll, because your constancy is something to be admired and I believe my siblings’ accounts, even if I didn’t witness them. I suppose every son picks and chooses the parts of his dad to emulate…my path is made harder by a basic mistrust of my own memory of who you really were.

For the time being, I laugh at the funny stories the family tells about you and I even tell a few of my own, in hopes that one day I will actually believe them. None of this keeps me from loving you.  In your way, I know you felt the same.

Chris

I’m watching the pictures coming out of Haiti, and I’m reminded of words from a Bob Dylan song: “When you think you’ve lost everything, you find out you can always lose a little more.”

Haiti was as bad as it gets….or so we thought.   For most of us, terrible news from Haiti has been as constant and unrelenting as gravity.   And like gravity, most times we ignore it. What made it real for me, the thing that punched through my wall of safe-distance-sadness was a story on CNN.  A family fought to free their fifteen year-old daughter from a collapsed building.  The way that girl screamed – so feral, beyond fear or desperation – it was the kind of scream you might only hear from someone facing the end of her life..

Teenagers are supposed to believe they’ll live forever, I thought.  And right then, I just started sobbing.  It underscored a feeling that was growing with me all day: a sense of  uselessness.

Some of you might recall the fine print in my Better Man-ifesto about wanting to help with relief efforts in a disaster zone. I wrote that with all the good intentions a privileged life’s “to do”  list can hold. Now, I’m looking at pictures of people walking around like they’re punch drunk, bodies pushed to the side of the road,  human detritus robbed of the benefit of ceremony that we normally bring to the end of a person’s life.    Can a Save-the-World virgin like myself make a difference in a place like that? It’s a question I spent much of the day trying to answer… reading, calling around and emailing.

The shortest answer is, no….at least, not now. Most relief organizations have teams trained specifically to help in disasters of this magnitude. They’re on constant standby, mobilize on a moment’s notice and still, help never seems to come fast enough. Most aid agencies actively discourage anyone from going to a disaster zone who doesn’t have training or relevant experience. That might be difficult to understand for ex-pat family members, medical professionals or do-gooders, but on the ground, good intentions just aren’t enough.

My friend Beverley, who has worked extensively with aid groups, told me there’s a good reason why disaster relief agencies discourage untrained volunteers:

Oftentimes, even after the first responders are in a distaster-affected area (especially in a developing country) and have “finished” their work, the situation is still so devastating that an inexperienced person from the first world, no matter how well-intentioned or kind-hearted, suffers from psychological and emotional trauma due to what they’re experiencing. This in turn ends up directing resources back to that individual to take care of them, get them counseling, or, in some cases, send them home. None of those situations are useful in disaster relief … Many times people are really well-meaning, but don’t expect that they’ll be stumbling through such extreme devastation. Visiting a developing country is hard for a first-worlder even when there’s no disaster – and when there’s been something like an earthquake, hurricane, landslides, etc. it can be almost unimaginable for a first-worlder to process.

Really, relief workers have to harden both their nerve and hearts, to be effective. Is that something I can do?   Bev made a very practical suggestion that I sign up with a development organization that sends volunteers out to countries in need, for a month at a time. I’m considering that seriously.  There, your contribution can have real value and it steels your nerve for catastrophes like Haiti.

There is also the matter that this is HAITI; the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. A friend of mine who has visited Port au Prince describes it as the most chaotic city in the world – there are no fire departments, no ambulances, the roads are terrible and crowded. It can take up to an hour just to drive 3 miles, even when there isn’t an emergency. There is almost no urban planning – homes teeter on top of other homes like cardboard boxes.  New York’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly (who’d just returned from training cops in Haiti) said one thing on TV that is almost mind-boggling: there’s hardly any bulldozers in the entire country.  If this is indeed true, (and I have no reason to doubt it) then I need not worry about getting there after the emergency is over – Haiti will be an emergency for months and months to come.

Once the search and rescue stage subsides there is usually a second wave of relief, one that helps with infrastructure, getting people the basic necessities they need to survive during the rebuilding process. A lot of smaller relief agencies and grassroots organizations such as churches will send both people and supplies. There is some opportunity for me to help at this stage.  I’ve already reached out to several agencies, such as the Mennonite Central Committee or Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, to let them know I am able-bodied and able to pay my way, if it came to it.

So what is there to do now? Frankly, I’m  not sure…the more I work on fulfilling this part of my project,  the harder it is to fight off a creeping sense of futility. That’s not useful,  so I consider a plan.

If I do come up with an effective way to help IN HAITI, it will be a while before I’ll have my chance to implement it. I’m still formulating, but for now, I will operate locally and find a Toronto group I can work with.  What else can we do?  There’s the less direct routes; if you’ve got some money, donate, and if you’ve got some religion, pray… although personally I’m having trouble praying to a God that would be so arbitrary as to take a such desperate people and make them suffer even further.

Of course, there is one other thing I can do…and that is not to forget, not go back to ignoring the bad news. In an age where $2 million dollars can be raised via text messages and Facebook can rescue people from the rubble,  our attention is our power.

Oh, that teenaged girl…they managed to pull her out of the rubble alive and well, apparent from the fact that she feels as invulnerable now as she did before a building fell on top of her.  A strange kind of happy ending, from the saddest place on earth.