Politics. Ugh. Obama got his sorry ass kicked yesterday and Gordon Campbell just resigned this morning after trying to buy people off with a tax cut. It appears the Americans are going crazy–talk about polarization–and Gordon Campbell is an arrogant prick to think the citizenry can’t see through such transparent ploys. Good riddance but it’s not as if this means change. Some other party line asshole will replace him so already fat cat Gordo can go work at a corporation as a consultant and receive a hefty salary. Do I sound bitter? The old saw, If voting could change anything it would be against the law always jumps to mind at a time like this.
I can clean up my own back yard however though feeling trapped in the Visible Verse vault, battling dust and giant spiders to save videopoetry from obscurity while ensuring a stellar retrospective. As I’ve told several friends, the anniversary celebration and festival has pretty much taken over my life. Oh well, once every 10 years I suppose I can handle it, suck it up. The buzz is building; I’m doing an interview for Books on the Radio and Sean Cranbury soon. It’s going to be fabulous affair with artists flying in from Montreal, Edmonton, Chicago and Los Angeles. Paul Portugues, coming up from Santa Barbara, wants an interview for his book on poetry film.
Sadly, and shockingly, an esteemed member of Vancouver’s arts community, Lenore Herb died recently. We were punk rock cohorts and didn’t always get along but I admired her fierceness and as Jamie Reid said, “Lenore was a real Vancouver pioneer in visible verse. She and her former husband, Dermot Foley worked with Warren Tallman to produce many videos of great American poets reading in Vancouver, including the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Robert Creeley. Apart from that she has been the major archivist in Vancouver and probably nationally of the visual work of the seminal, legendary poet bill bissett, and has made several videos of his work with sound.” Friends and family have asked me to organize a memorial screening of her collaboration with bill, th quiet releef uv bones as part of the festival. In the 11th hour we’re talking about including it before the Seeing The Voice panel at 4 pm.
On a cheerier note, my 16-year old son has been contracted to do video game reviews on the gxptube channel on Youtube. It’s a little ironic because he likes to make fun of me for being a writer, worse yet, a poet. Ewww. So, I was teasing him and he said but I’m a reviewer not a writer. Yeah, well, you have to write the reviews silly. Check it out. He knows his stuff and I’ve been able to negotiate credit for his efforts at his distance education school. Here, posted 2 days ago, is a review of Vanquish and posted 2 weeks ago, a review of the Medal of Honor.
I’m more than a little biased but proud of my boy who is so much more sophisticated than I was at that age. So now, one of my greatest challenges is getting him off the couch and on the recently installed boxing gear he requested and now ignores for the most part. He is also working on a game design and a documentary. He taught himself to edit, produces machinimas and edits video for me, when I can get him off the controller and, or computer. I’ m surrounded by geeks Josef made a good point about his level of sophistication for a 16 year old.
Met with Patrick Jandak recently, a photographer, referred by Warren (Dean Fulton) of pooka press. Originally from Slovakia, Patrik resides in Toronto and was out to Vancouver for the first time. He’s working on a book on writers I was one of 15 he corralled as subjects. So tall, fair, amiable Patrik came over on the water taxi. He didn’t like the rain. “Welcome to the wet coast,” I said after meeting him in Snug Cove. We took pictures down on the pier where all the boat dwellers reside. One emerged during the shoot to ask if we were going to make his boat famous. As we were leaving a woman with a backpack asked Patrik to help her move a kayak. That was funny. Put him to work. Very resourceful I thought. Smart. Of course he was chivalrous, gladly helped her out. “That was a first,” he said. “You’ll have to come back, my friend Martin owns the kayaking rental place. You could take a lesson.” We talked about the struggle involved in being an artist, how his father nearly disowned him when he quit engineering school. Papa is now proud of Patrik. Familiar story.
Full of links today! I’m not quite a misogamist but definitely leaning in that direction. Here’s an amusing take on marriage, I Guess You’ll Do.
Campbell may have resigned, however he isn’t leaving. In his address to the province, I didn’t believe he was actually resigning. What he did say was, I will be around for some months. He also said, he would keep on with his work. And, as usual his work is dirty work. Campbell is too full of, hate, spite, malice and too vindictive to just quit. I didn’t even bother to cheer with everyone else, I knew he had no intension of leaving. The election lie, the BCR wasn’t for sale. The HST wasn’t on Campbell and Hansen’s radar, election lie. The willing of them, to lie, deceive and cheat to win, says it all. Thanks to the BC Liberals, BC is the most corrupt province in Canada. They are also the, worst corrupt governing officials, in Canadian history. They have not one lick of, decency, honesty or compassion for BC children living in poverty, what-so-ever. There is a place beneath contempt. That place is, the ninth ring of Dante’s Inferno. That’s where the BC Liberals can be found.