waiting for the revolution

Aug 19. 2007
Concerned about a trilateral meeting in Quebec that might see our Cdn water sold, Linda and I attended a rally in Calgary. I took the opportunity to grab some falafel from a Lebanese shop playing Arabic music next to the Hudson Bay building. How Cdn! Enroute to the rally we passed side signs advertising fringe theatre productions. Took me back to my 3 fringe efforts including Tender Meat News, my play about North Americans obtaining heart replacements from Guatemalan street kids in exchange for our artificial ones. The media in Saskatoon and Edmonton were incensed at mackillops conceit in blaming them slammed me into closing both places early. My inadequate talent and funds led to a technically bad show. I had more success plays about a Marxist children's writer stuck with a tone of moldy Nicaraguan coffee he had bought on speculation as well as a play about a Canadian nationalist who goes to Florida to bury his Aunti America only to find his nationalism is rooted in that rather than love of his own country. That was then while today I was a senior joining a protest about world fascism.

I arrived at the city hall plaza to find 4 friends sitting at a table. Byron Price works for a society helping the poor. We donate a lamb each year to his fund raiser. Jim Beck is a retired med professor who I met 37 yrs ago when I hosted a meeting of people wanting to start a left wing newspaper in Calgary. We support a consortium for blind people he helps in El Salvador. Jack Century, whom I met through The Council of Canadians and NDP, has orchestrated a possible production of my play, Dr Dave Lander, at the Jewish Centre. Then came Ed Wolfe, an 84 year old geologist who supported my formation of an institute to get sex education into Calgary schools despite strong opposed from the John Birch Society. The rally was small with passionate young people speaking about the shame of leaders and corporations meeting in secret to give way our water and heritage. I had a chance to connect my old friends with each other. Jim and Jack are both descendents of Polish Jewish immigrants to USA.. Jim and Ed both renounced their US citizenship over their country's actions. It was Byron who connected me with Tom Jeyachandran, who took Linda and I to see his native India. When the rally ended I got the email address of a fiery young speaker, who told me she was a student in Social Welfare (another chapter of my life, I taught there). She said she had been wanting to join the NDP and God knows we could use some fire there! Linda and I took Byron and Jim for a bowl of Po at a Viet Namese restaurant. I asked the manager, a woman I recognized, how long she had been here and she replied 21 years. We gave Byron and Jim a ride back to the NW where Byron gave me a large piece of Spring salmon sent for us from Tom. As I drove Byron back to the C Train stn where he'd left his car, we stopped to greet one of his condo neighbors, Helen, a survivor of Auswitch. Then Linda and I left Calgary, a place with so many connections and a revolution not yet begun.