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Friday, May 31, 2013

Dependence and Coercion.

Photo by Virginia Reza (Wiki Commons.)






I was standing out in front of the food bank, waiting for the doors to open, when the cops drove by. It’s the same thing every time, and it got me thinking.

"...there is a strong correlation between intolerance and insecurity..." - Patterns of Dominance, Phillip Mason.

In terms of context, Mason is speaking of the image of the Indian, subject to both social dependence and coercion in the past.

At first, the fur traders lived among them, and saw them as indispensible for the trade. When settlers displaced the fur trade, attitudes changed. Native Canadians were in the way of agricultural development. Settlers had gone through a social upheaval, having immigrated from another country, in search of fortune—a kind of social mobility promised by cheap land and a chance to be independent. They were scared, they had heard all kinds of lurid accounts of native Canadians, and they saw what they expected to see.

Extrapolating from that, the same attitudes apply to other minorities, and it holds true today in terms of attitudes towards Muslims, recipients of social assistance, the disabled, gays, you name it. It applies in a kind of universal social law. It is almost as if the insecure need to reassure themselves that they are in fact superior to someone else. They are in the process of improving their social status, with its concomitant rewards of better food, better housing, better educational prospects for their children.

Like the natives in the fur trade, a disabled person is someone who is not useful in society. They have become a burden, an impediment to progress and 'prosperity for all.'

ODSP Reform.

Is the government serious about ODSP reform? I think it's a scare tactic--a form of coercion. The object was to scare the disabled into shutting up about our very reasonable demands for social equity.

In situations of dependence, there is very often a kind of coercion to be found.

Battered women are unable to leave the abusive relationship for any number of reasons. The spouse is a good provider. There is a kind of security in the relationship, it doesn’t happen all the time, and perhaps the victim is afraid of repercussions. They find a way to justify it, for the price of leaving may be very high. There is extortion, often something held over their heads, anything from custody of the children, to threats of murder, other forms of blackmail, or in some cases it’s just the constant battering of the victim’s self-esteem that renders them unable to act effectively on their own. The abusive partner has defined them, and after a while, the victim knows who they are and is no longer able to resist. The abusive spouse gets a domestic and sexual slave—their motivation is much clearer.

Don't let others define you.

That’s why it’s so important to set our own agendas, not to accept someone else’s terms of reference or definitions. Obviously this can be very difficult for a victim whose personal resources, especially of the inner, moral kind, are at low ebb. They have been broken down.

When you think of Canada’s native peoples, the same principles apply. In spite of reputed efforts of government after government, native peoples have never been assimilated into mainstream Canadian society. Over time, all immigrant groups have successfully done so.

Are native Canadians somehow ‘different?’ They didn’t even have to immigrate. They start off right here at home.

Or were they just trained differently, over the course of several generations?

Outstanding issues of historical redress, land claims issues and the like are never resolved, and yet decades and centuries have gone by. And native stereotypes persist—the drunken Indian image, the criminal cigarette-smuggler image. The masked warrior at Oka image, the image of a people who are four times more likely to end up in jail compared to ‘regular’ Canadians sort of image…for surely it works both ways and can be twisted back and forth to suit the prejudice of the beholder.

Natives still live on reservations. For our society to give up that reservation mentality, would be very difficult after all this time. It is seen as the natural thing to do. It has become accepted. And in some ways, native Canadians themselves don’t want to give up those reservations, because they are a symbol, and the land they hold is all that is left of their heritage in the material sense. This is an oversimplification, but it has been accepted by both sides of the equation for too long.

People are sometimes marginalized for sound economic policy.

One of the reasons Ontario’s disabled people are afraid to speak out strongly about social equity is because they fear repercussions, reprisals against them, and of course they are dependent on the largesse of the taxpayers. This may seem irrational, but a captive audience can be made to believe anything, even things they knew to be untrue before being exposed to long-term propaganda. Luckily, a lot of disabled people used to have jobs, used to have homes, and had independence of their own. They remember the higher social status, and how they were treated before becoming dependent on the government and the taxpayers.

Negotiating social order.

Negotiating social order and the equitable redistribution of wealth, important in any state, also takes experience at communication, and many disabled aren’t particularly well-educated. It takes self-confidence to present an effective argument. Where would they acquire such self-confidence?

In my personal experience, self-confidence stems not from success so much, but in surviving defeat. Your experience may vary, but it stems from perseverance, and a strong faith in oneself. It stems from a strong sense of self-worth.

No supernatural causes.

When I became an atheist, there were no longer any external reference points for making moral judgments. It all had to come from within. It turns out I’m a pretty good guy, and this when there are no supernatural causes in this universe.

Our attitudes and prejudices are ingrained into us from a very early age. I had a Catholic education, for what it’s worth, and I watched all the same TV shows and read all the same books as the reader probably did. I went to the same schools and played in the same little-league sports.

It would cost money to provide jobs, it costs money to make public and private buildings wheelchair accessible, it costs money to train unskilled people in the sort of skilled occupations that would be appropriate to someone with a given disability. It’s cheaper to keep them at home, although the government never admits that. Society in general, and intolerant people in particular prefer to think of the disabled as criminals, mentally ill, dependent children with no thoughts or minds of their own. Lazy and useless people who don’t want to work. We get paid to sit around and do nothing. I’ve heard that one a million times.

We are all retarded in the view of some people. And retarded people don't have an opinion.

'Surely there must be something you can do.'

Mental illness can make a person unemployable. This is an unpalatable thought for some. Yet the very same folks, if they knew a job applicant suffered from depression or schizophrenia, wouldn’t hire them. They wouldn’t be willing to take a chance on them, even as they were telling the victim of this discrimination, ‘Surely there must be something you can do.”

I throw the words right back into your face.

“Surely there must be something you can do.” And there is—you just don’t want to do it.

Surely most if not all disabled people would prefer to be self-sufficient. Have you ever wondered what would happen if someone actually succeeded, and got off of ODSP? Under the terms and provisions of the ODSP guidelines, recipients can be asked to pay back benefits. When you think in terms of a single person who might have been on benefits for ten years, that would be well over $120,000. That’s a pretty daunting prospect for someone who might be barely keeping their head above water on some minimum-wage job, and it’s still daunting even if they had the great good fortune to bag employment as a pension administrator at $70,000 per annum.

Let’s be clear: it would be hard for the average Canadian bourgeois family, with a household income of $150,000 a year, because after all, they still want a roof over their heads, they’ll need transportation to and from work, then there’s food, fuel, insurance…the list is long. The point is, that repayment of benefits is not only punitive—a kind of coercion—and an obvious disincentive to succeed at anything. It is essentially restitution—a criminal paying back the proceeds of a crime to the courts, and of course a very small percentage of that would end up in the victim’s pocket. That’s because administration costs are everything in such situations.

Self-sufficiency is a key element in personal well-being.
While this theory speaks about Imperialism or colonialism, there are certain parallels.

Coercion theory.

Coercion diplomacy.

***

Kenneth Coates, from Best Left as Indians, on the police administration of welfare in the Yukon.

“Relief, or welfare, has long been the government program most readily associated with Indians.
A myth developed in the 1900-1950 period, and persists today, concerning the natives' reaction to the availability of relief. The standard account is that the Indians readily surrendered to the convenience of government assistance, abandoning more rigourous pursuits in favour of supplication at the Indian Agent's table. Those administering the relief program in the territory almost universally shared this belief, and their attitudes played a major role in shaping the program. As the Yukon experience demonstrates, that image was a misleading portrayal of native interest in government handouts.

Federal authorities initially refused to accept any obligation for native suffering, doggedly maintaining that the arrival of the white man had been of considerable benefit to the Indians.

Faced with the potential starvation of a small band of Indians at Moosehide in 1900, the government finally acted.

N.W.M.P. Inspector Z. Wood of Dawson authorized immediate distribution of food to alleviate the crisis, only applying for official permission after the fact.

The government insisted that ‘whenever possible the Indians should be required to perform labour or supply game, skins or other commodities in return for the provisions issued to them.’

In the short term, however, police officers were enjoined to ‘provide against anything like destitution.’

From 1900 onward, the government provided parsimonious relief assistance to those truly in need. Few took up the offer however, limiting the welfare rolls to a small number of widowed, aged or infirm natives.

The relief system was occasionally required to respond to more widespread destitution, as occurred in 1905 near McQuesten and 1912 in the southern Yukon, when game stocks unexpectedly proved insufficient. While few came forward to claim these fruits of the government's munificence, the police officials in charge of the program before 1914 believed that the availability of relief rendered the Indians graceless supplicants.

As the Commanding Officer of the Whitehorse Detachment commented in 1908, ‘It is evident that the government assistance given to sick and destitute Indians at Whitehorse is most injurious to the well being and morale of the Indians.’

He then proceeded to ascribe alcohol abuse, prostitution and general laziness to the ‘pernicious effect’ of relief. As a counter-measure, the police imposed controlling mechanisms to protect against abuse. Inspector Horrigan noted in 1912 that ‘young husky Indians asking for provisions were asked to split some stove wood. Needless to say in every case they found that after all they did not require provisions. This plan has worked admirably in weeding out the undeserving cases.’

Those in need found assistance from the government but, self-righteously convinced that the Indians were inveterate malingerers, police officers closely regulated their disbursements.”

***

Hopefully the reader will bear in mind that the police administration of welfare was the cheapest option. Acting quickly in an emergency was the right thing to do. Over the long term, the police probably hated the duty.

The infrastructure, such as it was, was already in place. Also, welfare, while it is social assistance, is not a disability pension. By definition, the recipient is able to work. What is interesting in Coates’ story is that the natives were reluctant to accept subsistence except when it was strictly necessary for survival, and an ‘entitlement mentality,’ if I may call it that, simply did not develop.

Anybody that doesn’t think subsistence—food, shelter or clothing, can be used in a coercive manner has never told their kid that if they don’t behave, they won’t get any desert. In other words, it’s bullshit.

Best Left as Indians, Kenneth Coates

Ontario’s disabled, the mentally ill and working poor families are lining up at food banks three or four times a month. Why is that?

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Ashes.

(NARA)










Troopers Lorne and Willy supervised the disembarkation from opposite sides of the ramp.

The refugees streamed past in a forlorn river of unwashed humanity.

It was better than the Front. Willy nodded with a grim look, raising his weapon a little higher and jerking the tip in an effort speed them up, but they kept their heads down, families, children, old couples, young men and women. Most clutched bundles, what few possessions they had been allowed to remove from their homes.

There was a crunch of gravel behind him. His guts were already tense when Kossovitch paused beside him.

“How’s it going?”

“Fine, sir.”

The grey faces held no joy but Kossovitch’s tone was amicable, unusual for her.

“Look at them.”

Lorne wondered what she meant, involuntarily turning and meeting her eyes. Red-rimmed, bags of exhaustion under them, they were still expressionless, taut with unspoken emotions.

“Sir?”

She looked away without responding as a small boy tugged at the hem of his battledress.

“Mister Soldier Sir?”

“Yes, boy?”

Kossovitch stiffened beside him.

The kid proffered something, a book. A kid’s book. Lorne shook his head. Kossovitch had a funny look on her face as he looked at her again.

“Keep moving, kid.” The boy looked to be about nine years old.

“Where’s your mother?” Lieutenant Kossovitch must have gotten fucked last night.

He’d never seen her like this.

The kid shrugged.

“It’s okay, boy. You can keep it.”

They were allowed to bring what they could carry. That was the rule and for the most part it was respected. Every single thing, any little thing of value had already been stripped away from them, and now they were to be resettled.

“I’ll take that.” Kossovitch’s tone was soft and motherly.

His guts went all queasy as the boy handed it over.

Lorne jerked his head to keep the kid moving along as an endless file of unwanted strangers passed down the ramp.

Kossovitch looked at it. She put it in her pocket. In one smooth action, she drew her pistol and shot the boy through the head. His fine mop of tousled blonde hair flew out in all directions as he spun away, arms and legs flailing.

“Aw, shit, Lieutenant.” Lorne backed up a couple of steps, cocking his weapon, sweeping the tip back and forth in case any refugeess should come this way.

People ran in mad panic, mostly away from the ship but some tried to go back up the ramp.

Willy was bowled over in a thin wave of panicked humanity, but he came up cursing and cocked his weapon. Whistles and shouts sounded behind them as reinforcements came running.

Kossivitch’s weapon spoke once, twice, three times and ragged figures went tumbling as she giggled and clutched her stomach with her left hand.

“Aw, shit, Lieutenant. Now we’ll never get them off.”

The kid stared up at the sky, mouth moving, limbs thrashing. It took him a long time to die as Captain Pyke came running up with gun drawn.

“What happened here, Lieutenant?”

She looked at Lorne.

“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t see what started it.”

“Shut up. I’m asking her, trooper.” Flecks of foam came from the captain’s mouth.

He knew the difficulty of removing refugees from a ship when they didn’t want to go, and the news would flash through those still inside the transport.

“He came towards us and put his hand in his pocket, sir.” Kossovitch wasn’t laughing now.

Lorne looked straight ahead as small gangs of men pursued the civilians, and rounded up the stragglers cowering under the ship from the bright light of day and the fear of the unknown.

“Get these people moving.” The batch they had were herded towards the entry gate.

Peering up into the darkness of the ship, Lorne made out the pale faces of those staring out in fear, a seething mass of folks in the dark disembarkation chamber, pushed relentlessly by the pressure of the masses behind them.

“It’s okay.” Lorne yelled up at them.

He jerked the muzzle of the gun, willing them to come down. Hoarse voices came from inside the ship as the troopers in there tried to get them moving again, and a swelling of sound came from the refugees even as truncheons rose and fell.

“Get that body out of here!” Willy ran forward and dragged the boy away by the feet towards the darkness by the right rear landing gear of the vessel.

“You two are on report.”

“Yes, sir.” The captain strode up the ramp.

He grabbed an old lady by the arm, and dragged her, kicking and screaming out into the light. A man, probably her husband, clung to the two of them, crying and begging, but the captain ignored him.

He gave them a shove in the direction of the gate.

“Go!” He pointed as the man tried to lift the woman from the dust and pull her towards the back of the huddled queue there as the troopers outside the dome tried to keep order on what was essentially a herd.

Kossovitch turned to him with a smirk.

“Thanks. You want this?”

He shook his head.

“No. Give it to your own kid.”

She stuck it into her side pocket again before the captain had time to look around. Lorne stared at the blood on the sand as the people were herded down the ramp at bayonet point.

While they had all been looking forward to landing and getting some fresh air and sunshine at last, what started off as a regular day had just turned to pure shit as Lorne poked people with the muzzle of his gun and tried to hustle them along.

There were fifty thousand of the fuckers in there and he hoped this wouldn’t take all damned day.

#

“Come on man, let’s go.”

The evening light grew dimmer. Willy was a hard man to shake, and so Lorne didn’t even try any more. They attended the evening presentation. It wasn’t obligatory, but why take chances? That was what everyone said.

The first half hour was cartoons of the most secular nature. The feature film was called Why We Fight and while everyone there had seen it a hundred times before, it was something, which was better than nothing and at least killed a couple of hours.

Outside the open-air amphitheatre, set into a hillside, they paused for a moment when Willy grabbed his elbow.

“Look, I’m sorry, but some guys asked me to play cards. They got a bottle.”

Lorne’s eyes widened slightly. He’d sort of assumed Willy’s company, not that it wouldn’t be bothersome and boring at best, but he was now at a bit of a loss.

“Hey, no problem.” Willy nodded, his prominent eyes bulging even more than usual.

“Thanks for understanding, man. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

Willy turned and headed off towards the far end of camp, sticking to the perimeter patrol track. Lorne, eyebrows cocked in disbelief, could think of nothing other than a quiet night in his berth. Nerves still jangled by the stress of the morning, it wasn’t his favourite idea but he had nothing else.

Outside of the complex the planet was barren of life or entertainment for five hundred kilometres in any direction.

When he arrived back on the ship, he opened up the door to his nine-by twelve with micro-head as befitted full trooper status, one of the perks of this particular duty, and was confounded by light under the bathroom door—which he never closed, and some odd smell in the room.

A light snapped on and the hatch locks clunked closed behind him.

“Whoa. Lieutenant Rossovitch?”

“Call me Pattie.” She reached down beside the table and then held up a Mickey-bottle.

She’d already had a couple by the looks of the level. The amber fluid inside wobbled slightly from momentum.

“Is that my liquor?”

She got up, came over and stood directly in front of him.

“Drink. That’s an order.”

Taking the bottle, his eyes never leaving hers for a second, he tipped it back on an awkward angle. Lorne gasped, wiping a drop off his chin with the back of his hand.

“All you had to do was ask. I was just thinking of a drink anyway.”

Taking the bottle back from Lorne, Rossovitch secured the screw-cap and tossed it onto the couch.

Her eyes bored into his.

“Rape me.”

His mouth opened but nothing came out.

“…and that’s an order too.”

“Holy…” Lorne was in trouble now.

The question was whether to die happy or disappointed.

“Yes…sir.” He could at least try.

“Please call me Pattie.” Water welled up in her eyes as he stepped forward and took her in his arms, sure as shooting that it was all some mad sort of test, one that he had already failed somehow, and that he would be shot in the morning.

Pushing her back a couple of feet, he kissed her, tongue exploring her mouth and eventually fighting and struggling with hers. They hugged fiercely, neither one saying a word.

He let go and pushed her away.

“Wait.”

She stood with shining eyes and water coming down her face as he pulled the low coffee table out of the middle of the floor and then took pillows and covers off his bed. Throwing them down on the floor, he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to him. Without being too rough, he let her know who was boss, as her breath rattled in her throat from need and excitement.

Then they were naked, clothes, shoes and socks thrown or dropped everywhere.

“Down. Hand and knees.”

She went down on all fours in front of him. Her eyes went from his crotch to his face and back again. She thought she knew what he wanted, and she knew what she wanted. He made her wait as he found the bottle again. He took a long swig, standing with his cock flying at full mast inches in front of her eyes and her wet red lips as she licked them, her breasts wobbling from emotion and her breathing.

“Turn around.”

“Uh...”

Carefully, lightly, he slapped her, sending her scurrying around to present him with her buttocks.

One dark eye peered back at him over her shoulder, long red marks from his fingers visible on her left cheek.

Lorne dropped to his knees behind her. He held her left thigh and pushed his other index finger into her vagina as Pattie gasped and pushed back at him, moaning and with her one eye never leaving him.

”Mike.” She moaned and gasped.

He lowered his face and tried to shove his tongue right up her ass as she gave a little half-scream, choked off almost instantly from being overheard as several voices were right outside on the other side of those curtains. The sound died away again and they relaxed a little.

“I—I never knew you felt that way about me, Trooper Lorne—“

“Call me Mike.”

She sighed and snorted as he went in again.

“Just keeping a little promise I made to myself a long time ago.”

She cranked her head around, with an incredulous look on her face.

“I’ve wanted to do that from the minute I laid eyes on you…Lieutenant Rossovitch.” Mike crawled around beside her, conscious of the hot friction of the rough Army blanket under his knees.

At right angles to her, he nuzzled up beside her ear, sticking his tongue inside and slopping it around.

“Pattie.”

“Oh…fuck me, Mike. Please don’t let me wait. Please don’t torment me.”

“When I’m ready. But first, a little torment.” She twisted her head and their mouths met.

He gave her a short, sharp spank on the ass even with her mouth locked on his and fresh tears started from her eyes. She flinched but their mouths remained locked and their gaze unwavering. He stared deep into her eyes from two inches away. Mike let her have a little air as the breath was rough and loud in her nostrils.

“Thank you, Mike”

“You’re welcome, Pattie.”

Mike Lorne proceeded to fulfill one or two other promises he’d made to himself, carrying Pattie Rossovitch along with him, glorious in her lithe form, with her firm, conical breasts and thick, flaxen hair, right there on the floor of his plain old nine by twelve.

The second time, and it was her own idea, she sucked on his cock and he came right in her face, watching in sublime erotic bliss as she licked and gobbled the semen from his penis and thanking her master profusely for the privilege.

With the hands of the clock on the side wall reminding them of duty tomorrow, finally the frenzy of mutual lust and need ended and they cuddled together on the blanket, clinging tightly against the coming day. Neither one said a word. They were unable to pull their eyes apart.

After a long while, she slumped in pure emotional and spiritual exhaustion, leaving Mike Lorne to hold the girl in his arms, marvel at his good fortune, wonder how the hell it would all turn out, and praying like hell that nothing would go wrong and that no one would ever find out.

#

When he woke up she was gone. A bare glimmer of grey light at the edge of the front curtain made him look at the clock, but he still had ten or twenty minutes yet. He stayed under the blanket, heart palpitating.

He knew why she did it, of course. The thought of the kid, packed inside the dome by the door party, for the last five or ten thousand passengers were always a struggle to get in, and by that time the folks inside knew something was up.

The trooper on duty pushing the button and walking away…the sounds, even the heaving of the sides of the structure sometimes, as the place began to heat up and the moaning, screaming, seething mass of humanity inside began to suffocate from the heat and burn from the floors and walls whenever they touched anything…

It was more merciful really. In that sense, the kid was lucky. He never knew what hit him.

Why in the hell she decided to do Mike Lorne was another question, one with more slightly more subtle motivations.

As he flung the blankets aside and began to put the room together again on wobbly legs and trembling knees, longing for a quick shower, the electric kettle steamed and it was all he could do just to marvel.

#

Ann surveyed the mountain of gear and supplies with a jaundiced eye. She turned and followed Jackson into the tent, with his burly shoulders forcing a passage through the mob.

They had over eleven hundred people to feed, house and clothe during the first winter on the planet, which was three months away.

The work was daunting, with limited numbers of tools and inexperienced people. But the decision had been made and the senior officer on the ground had better get them moving. Behind the communal dining tent, gaily striped and more normally meant for shore functions during flag-showing operations in peacetime, loomed the sharp prows of their small flotilla.

She stood at the front of the tent, looking out over a mass of faces, with the light mostly coming from above through the thin fabric as there wasn’t room enough for everybody and the crowd circled all around outside.

“All right, people.” The buzz and hum of talk began to lessen.

“Thank you for your help in unloading.” She wondered when they would begin to revert to civilians. “We have hot food coming thanks to the volunteers and we all need to get a good night’s sleep tonight.”

Tomorrow they would begin to build a new life on the ground.

#

The three ships remaining hovered at zero velocity in relation to a line drawn between the Mother Worlds, a relatively small volume of the galaxy, and a particularly active radio source. They were undetectable at this range.

Senior officers regarded each other on their view screens. A decision had been made. The ships were operating with skeleton staff.

“So we are agreed then.” The Vice Commodore of the Fleet, now commanding what was believed to be the last striking force of the Polity looked out at all crew members, laugh lines by his mouth and humourous crinkles at the corners of his eyes betrayed by the ashen skin and grim resolution on his face.

“Aye.” They answered as one, without a quaver in their voices or a hint of hesitation.

#

Thirteen days later, coming in on a vector designed to elude analysis and pursuit, the three ships and the men and women dying of radiation sickness inside them plunged out of the sky at near-infinite mass and velocity into the glittering capital of the Mother Worlds.

They had no way of knowing, but their timing was fortunate and their supreme sacrifice was not in vain.

Fearless Leader and the bulk of her cabinet were instantly vapourized and their ashes subsumed in the boiling cauldron of molten rock and burning gases, fifty kilometres in radius, that had once been a city of a hundred and fifty million people.

News feeds carried the story in pictures, sound and commentary, to all worlds and outposts. While the grief and shock were considerable, there were other enclaves of Government and the leadership selection process was already underway.

The news feeds left no doubts in the minds of their stunned citizenry that the War and the Sacred Cleansing of mongrel peoples would go on, and that one day very, very soon, the Galaxy would be safe for decent people everywhere.

###

Sunday, May 26, 2013

The Art of the Gag.








I call it The Art of the Gag.

So much of my work begins with a process similar to Jimmy Carr writing a joke. I take something and invert it, I twist it and rearrange it. I turn it upside down and see what falls out.

In ‘Heaven Is Too Far Away,’ I took the classic Peanuts (by Charles Schultz) bit where Snoopy is always after the Red Baron, and tried to do the same thing but as realistically as possible. Yet the actual conflict between Will Tucker and the Baron is completely manufactured, almost with a view to the headlines. They’re just soldiers in the end, and it’s ‘nothing personal,’ as is said in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. (No, it’s just good business.)

Historically, there has always been a debate, and a meaningless one on the face of it, as to who actually shot down the Red Baron. Australian historians claim it was Aussie machine gunners, and Canadian historians claim it was Roy Brown, although both sides always admit to the other conflicting claims, and other historians in other countries, those having no stake in the outcome, have differing points of view. What I did with that book was to find that crack in history, and wedge my character in by careful pounding with a sledge hammer, and now there are three possibilities. Although Lt. Colonel Will Tucker carefully denies shooting down the Red Baron in the same engagement, the reader is left with the distinct impression that he might have.

Another gag I managed to work in was the aerial combat with Herman Goering. In the end, Will decides to let him live when Goering’s guns jam. While it’s never openly stated in the book, Will has just won the Second World War without firing a shot, because Herman goes on to build the Luftwaffe, with its emphasis on blitzkrieg, lightning war, and therefore he did not create a strategic air force capable of defeating Britain before the western allies became involved, which a more competent man might have done.

The point is, it’s all about apportioning the glory, and official histories are chock-full of that sort of thing, even though they would never admit to it. They’re arguing about who gets the glory, ladies and gentlemen. Well, whoever shot at Goering and missed in good old WW I, should get some of the glory for winning WW II. Tucker also strafed good old Adolf Hitler, incidentally. Unfortunately, he missed. Otherwise, he would have won WW II, which might not have happened at all, and he would have done it single-handedly, although he had a rear gunner along for the ride.

That’s the art of the gag.

In ‘The Second Coming,’ I extrapolated about what could happen when I saw the world’s first pregnant man interviewed on CNN. Only I had to have a gag, so I made sure he was date-raped, had no memory of the event, and was a divorced heterosexual man just to rub the point in a bit. The art of the gag, right? I even hazarded a guess as to who might want to do something like that and why. Yet a pseudo-memoir such as ‘Heaven’ might have worked here too. The art of the gag requires some daring, because it’s a different approach and people wonder why in the hell a writer would ever want to take such a risk.

Honestly, if I wanted to write about Canadians and aerial combat and WW I, there are proper ways to go about it, using straighforward historical sources, a conventional approach, and a suitably reverent point of view...

In the story ‘Wendigo’ I experimented with native mythology, only instead of a real Wendigo, a kind of native zombie, we’re dealing with something different, and yet still relevant to native history and experience. The story actually deals with alcoholism, which must have seemed magical, mysterious and totally evil when it first manifested itself in the native village. No one had ever seen it before, and they had only cultural equivalents to describe what they were seeing. They hadn’t invented the proper words yet.

The art of the gag doesn’t necessarily have to be comedic. It’s a way of getting at the truth, using the unexpected along with a little suspense and mystification to keep the reader following along, hopefully finishing the story.

As John Candy told Steve Martin in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, “…a story should have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener.”

The gag is surprisingly important to me. On some theoretical level, I can (or at least should be able to) write anything I want. Right now, I haven’t written anything in over a week. That’s troubling because a writer who isn’t writing is basically just a useless person. Not to put too fine a point on it, that’s why I took up writing in the first place—it’s the only thing I’m good for these days. The art of the gag is that the camera sees everything, and I just write it down. The camera sees the man step over the banana peel—and then fall down an open manhole cover. The trouble is that I’m not seeing anything lately.

Part of the problem is that without television, bad as it can be, I’m not seeing the contradictions. I don’t get out much, there’s that total lack of stimulus.

There’s no stimulation of my ‘aw, fuck off’ bone, where I see the ridiculousness of human perceptions, attitudes, and unconscious prejudices, (especially prejudices) and other things that are the common cannon fodder for the art of the gag. Without TV I’m not seeing that bad history, or bad science, mucky thinking, misleading reporting, half-truths, mob opinions, or just plain bad shows and bad movies, which people love in spite of it all. Without a TV there’s not much for me to parody, and I don’t get the paper these days either.

The internet is so much more proactive—I have to think of something first and then Google it. It’s not like it comes to me on a random basis, which in some surreal fashion, inspires me to have a bash at it. That randomness, that spontaneity of influence, is important to the art of the gag. And as I come to the end of this post, it suddenly struck me that if the British Empire had not collapsed after the west won WW II, the world might have turned out a lot differently.

They might have gone on to establish some kind of world hegemony.

Fuck, I wonder what that would have been like--I suspect a bit too much like StarFleet for my comfort. Yes, a world where all good thing stem from some sort of benevolent hierarchical entity, where racial science is discredited, yet notions of nobility, aristocracy and kinship are carefully preserved.

So we're back to writing about Canada again.

END