I worked at MuchMusic for almost a decade, and unquestionably my biggest contribution to music that whole time was being producer/cameraman/bodyguard to Nardwuar the Human Serviette.  I love Nardwuar like an annoying brother – which is to say I appreciate his merits while admitting that few people on earth can frustrate me as much.  Anyone who has watched (or been a subject of) his interviews probably knows what I’m getting at.

In Nardwuar’s defense, the man has no guile. He’s not Sasha Baren-Cohen, playing a polarizing character for laughs.  He’s not malicious, or calculating, or daring.  Nardwuar is just…Nardwuar.  He can’t help the way he is.

When asked what Nardwuar was like, I would tell people he was a litmus test for the entire human race.  You could really discover a lot about a person based on their reaction to Nardwuar. The ones who were insecure or took themselves too seriously tended to react negatively.  The ones who were most comfortable with themselves were the ones who dug him the most. Essentially, they were like Nardwuar in that they too had no pretense – they were just simply themselves.

In this way I can tell you that Beck is a big fucking baby, Dave Rowntree of Blur is a self-absorbed dick who could use either a hug or anger management therapy, and Peter Murphy of the band Bauhaus knows his contribution to pop culture is marginal at best, and is rather dismayed about it.   On the other hand, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single fake bone in the bodies of Snoop Dogg, Josh Homme, or the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne.  Oh yeah – and Jack Layton too.

Jack was on the campaign trail in 2004 when Nardwuar and I bumped into him.   Nardwuar was in the habit of making politicians….well, maybe just watch the clip:

Personally, a lot of what you need to know about Jack is right there: he was gracious enough to talk with the autistic-savant of celebrity interviewers, he possessed life experience broad enough to impress even Nardwuar, and he had the good sense not to answer the doobie question.  I particularly like that he respected Nardwuar enough to actually prep for the interview – the harmonica and chanting “Doot doola doot doo” in unison are giveaways.  Most importantly, though, the man was genuine  – he did the Hip Flip, then made a mildly blue joke about one day playing it home with his wife. I certainly hope that moment wasn’t the start of his hip trouble.

So there you go – gracious, knowledgable, too smart to pander, blessed with a self-deprecating humour, treating everyone the way he’d want to be treated – even someone dressed head-to-toe in plaid who speaks in a mild screech that agitates forest creatures.   Combine that with his sense of principle, his willingness to tussle with the Harper cyborg (whilst being flexible enough to work with the guy if he thought things may improve as a result), plus the élan with which he handled his various illnesses, and I think it’s pretty apparent –  Jack Layton was a Better Man in Full.  I may have described him in a previous post as having the countenance of an insurance salesman, but I confess that was mostly envy over his marriage to one of the least self-serving politicians I’ve ever met.  That a woman with as much clarity as Olivia Chow would stay married to him is a testament to the man’s character.

Everybody knows there are lots of phonies, blowhards and sycophants in politics. Jack Layton was none of those things – the Nardwuar Hip Flip Poll proves it. You may not have agreed with him, but theres no reason you couldn’t aspire to be like him.

 

Dear Stephen,

 

Let me just say congratulations – you did it! Thanks to the twin miracles of parliamentary democracy and the first-past-the-post electoral system, you have done an amazing thing – get Canadians to elect a Harper majority despite the fact that you lead it. Everyone says America is where anything is possible, but that’s not true.  In America, to be elected leader you have to at least be likable. I doubt that even the people who voted for you would say that about you, and therein lies the genius of your victory.

Up until now all those pesky, insolent opposition MPs had the audacity to question your judgment. Well, no more – now, you are free to do whatever the fuck you want, and if Parliament doesn’t like it, it can suck it. Don’t like how you’ve decorated the government lobby in the House of Commons, replacing portraits of former PMs with pictures of yourself? Suck it. Don’t like that you’ve instructed bureaucrats to change all references to “The Government of Canada” in official correspondence to “The Harper Government”? Suck it.  Don’t like that you tried to cut opposition parties off at the knees by eliminating their public campaign financing (which is what actually forced you to prorogue Parliament the first time)? Suck it. Don’t like that you’ve introduced cybercrime legislation that allows for more government authority to invade personal privacy than the problem requires, and could be open to abuse by politicians who are controlling and mildly paranoid? Suck it.  Don’t like your supplicants impugning the character of whistleblowers on the Afghan detainee scandal? Suck it.  Don’t like that you may’ve bent campaign financing rules to free up more money for attack ads?  Suck it. Don’t like that you regularly punish civil servants and people in your own party for disagreeing with you? Su…well, you get the picture.

I will say it again, Steve – you have succeeded where I have failed, in that you have made being an asshole work for you.  Before, the ‘blessings’ of your autocratic nature were limited to people unfortunate enough to work for you. Then, the excesses of your deeply flawed personality found their way into the operation of government.  Now, everyone in Canada gets to experience your…uh…Harperness.

Of course, at least 60% of Canadians may not find it as charming as you do, and in that regard I can’t help but wonder if you’re going to miss all those pesky, insolent MPs who kept calling you on your bullshit.   Sure, they may’ve kept you from doing everything you wanted, but here’s the thing – were you to do everything you wanted, I believe you’d piss a lot of people off and end up getting voted out of office next time around.   The blind spot in a controlling nature is that you often lack the self-awareness to realize when you’ve gone too far, and by severely punishing even the mildest of dissent there’s no one working for you with the nerve to say when you’re not wearing any clothes.

By keeping you in check, those opposition MPs managed to successfully bring out your better leadership qualities while curbing your much uglier ones.  Maybe you hated those guys (and a few of them were worth hating), but in a funny way they were saving you from yourself.   I suggested in my previous post that if you won a majority, we were much pretty much fucked.  You may not realize this, but by “we” I meant you as well.

Of course, who am I to say? I’ve been wrong before – just ask your Heritage Minister, James Moore.  I once told him (on national TV, no less) that he was high for thinking Gladiator would win the Oscar for Best Picture. Look how that turned out.    It could be you’ll become a Better Man and develop the circumspection to govern a country where the majority of folks don’t agree with you, but will keep you in office if you don’t indulge your Nixon-esque side.  Or maybe people will learn to enjoy being led by a twerp.  This is Canada, where anything is really possible.

In the meantime I will show you the respect you’ve undoubtedly earned.  I will no longer refer to you as a regular old asshole.  From now, I will call you Mr. Asshole.

Good luck!

 

Chris

 

A friend of mine was complaining the other day about how ambivalent he felt concerning Monday’s Canadian federal election.  When I asked why,  he said it’s because the leaders in Canadian politics are so sad and uninspiring.  Now, in the past, I may’ve agreed with him – I like a charismatic leader who makes me feel good about voting for him as much as anyone.

It’s only recently, however, that I’ve realized how wrong I was – not about about our leaders being sad and uninspiring, mind you.  I was wrong in thinking their lack of any kind of charm or charisma was somehow bad.  Now, I’m almost convinced that Canada is prosperous today precisely because we don’t have a single captivating leader to choose from, and will continue to be so long as our current choices NEVER try to be Better Men.

Consider Stephen Harper for a moment.  Now, in previous posts I may have implied that Stephen Harper is an asshole, but that’s only partly true.   I will admit Mr. Harper is smart, and has what the Globe and Mail calls “managerial competence” (the political equivalent of describing a date as having a “nice personality”).    Maybe the blow of the recession was softened thanks to policies implemented by Liberal governments prior to Harper taking office – at least he hasn’t fucked things up since.  That’s managerial competence.

The fact is Harper is not so much an asshole as he is a typical geek – he has a feel for systems, but not for people.  That’s why he runs the government like an autocrat, with an open contempt for Parliament, regular voters, and even most of the MPs in his own party. He reminds me of that hall monitor/Dungeons n’ Dragons club president in school, ratting on the cool kids for cutting class and smoking in the parking lot – or maybe the head of an IT department who got promoted because he knew which managers were watching porn on their work computers.  Harper is a  a less-cool Mark Zuckerberg who knows he’s smarter than everyone else, even if everyone else doesn’t realize it.  His efforts to be just a regular guy by untucking his shirt and playing AC/DC covers on the organ only serves to reinforce his geekiness.

That such a charmless man should lead a developed, democratic nation would be virtually impossible if we didn’t live in a parliamentary democracy, and therein lies the best/worst part of voting in Canada.   In a republic like America, everybody votes for president, making it essentially a nationwide popularity contest. Sure, lots of people vote for ideological reasons, but ultimately it’s the cool kid who gets elected. Most voters figure he’ll hire the former Dungeon n’ Dragons president anyway (Bush and Karl Rove, anyone?).

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Happy Canada Day, Steve!

Maybe you remember me – I sent you a letter back in January, asking if you’d show me what it takes to be a proper asshole.  You see, it had occurred to me that trying to treat others as decently as I can wasn’t necessarily getting me anywhere, so perhaps being a Better Man involved chasing naked self-interest no matter how much it hurt and/or infuriated other people…in other words, the kind of things you do.   I suspect you didn’t read that letter – although your bearing occasionally reminds me of Dwight Schrute (with less guile)  you can still be a polarizing public figure when you want to be.  I’m sure you’re inundated with more letters/death threats than 10 prime ministers could read in all their lifetimes combined, so it might be easy to overlook mine.   Mind you, a part of me likes to think you did read it and haven’t replied because….well, that’s what an asshole would do.

Regardless of whether you got back to me or not, I figured I could at least learn from your example, but you’ve maintained a barometric control on your inherent douche-ness…you laid low during the Olympics,  kept both your cool and a tight lid on the whole Afghanistan detainee thing.  I was starting to feel a little cheated, that I wasn’t going to see the kind of assholery I’ve come to enjoy from you…that is, until the G20 last weekend.

Now, we both know that many hands have been wrung over the money you spent on security…a billion dollars, almost 51 times the cost of G20 security in Pittsburgh last year, and more than all security costs for previous G8/G20s combined.  With that much cheese one could be excused for thinking you created a clone army of riot police, or perhaps hired the A-Team.  One has to wonder how much of it actually went to security as opposed to, say,  pork barrel projects in federal ridings that could prove crucial in the next election, but I’m just talking out my ass there – although if that did happen, then good for you!  Supreme dick move/quasi abuse of power! (Oh wait, wasn’t that exactly the sort of thing you hammered the Liberals for during when the sponsorship scandal? Never mind.)

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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.