THE G20 PUNKATHON

This is it, my last G20 post. Yes, I feel the same way you do. Thank god. I just can't let this go to bed till I comment on the events that transpired here in Toronto this weekend. It was, all said and done, a weekend of punkish behavior. And I don't mean a cool sneering Joe Strummer kind of punk. I mean a cowardly, petulant, uncaring kind of punk

Here are the punks in question:

THE BLACK BLOCK:

These are the guys who they told us would come: The hardcore professional protesters bent on violence and anarchy. Of course, they really aren't protesters. What they were protesting god only knows. Clearly they are just a bunch of over educated, underemployed, living on their student loan spoiled brats with a bad case of boredom and a sense of entitlement.
These people, and it seemed a fairly small group, are punks not only for the fact they are into violence and anarchy for the sake of violence and anarchy but as violent anarchists go ... they suck! Oh sure, they trashed a couple of cop cars, set them on fire, and they threw billiard balls through bank windows .. this is shocking by the standards of my lovely staid Toronto but really, look at the rest of the world and all the protests that happen on a weekly basis. These guys are rank amateurs. Makes me think they are homegrown rather than the rumoured imports. They just come across as third rate

THE TORONTO POLICE DEPT:

Yup, these guys had punkish behaviour too. OK so we spend a billion dollars on security. We knew this kind of thing was going to happen. There were thousands of cops out in the street, from regular uniforms to riot squads, to undercover cops. All of them were there Saturday when the violence went down. It was not a surprise. The black block came downtown with a larger protest group, then did their presto chango to their superbady guy black pants and bandannas then announced where they were going and what they were going to do.

On the live TV feed you could see that there were cops there when windows were being busted and when the cop cars were set on fire.

By all accounts, the entire black block was comprised of about 70 individuals and it didn't look like that there were that many of them working together at any one time. And to repeat, there were thousands of cops down there. Yet all these cops did was stand and watch. Sure, the official version was that they were "containing" the situation. Yet they were not. The hooligans were able to move and strike at will. One of the cop cars was allowed to burn for more than an hour before the cops even let the fire dept in and the black block was long gone by then.

What's up with that? The cops say they did not want to inspire even more violence. Yet I clearly saw scenes where less than five people were actively observed by dozens of cops in the middle of committing crimes of property damage. In the Entertainment District on a Saturday night, if three drunken dudes toss a beer can they are jumped by half a dozen cops ...

But here is where the real punkish attitude comes in. The next day. Today. Today the cops made hundreds of arrests around town. Early this morning they raided the U of T campus and arrested 70 people. Today, at the detention centre, during a peaceful protest, dozens of people were bum rushed by heavily armed cops and carried away.

Some of these were clear cases of people who were barely protesting, they were down at the centre, milling about, questioning the goings on. For that they were jumped by multiple cops and hauled off to the detention centre. Anywhere today where a group gathered, no matter what they were doing, people were being shot with gas and in some cases bum rushed. Several members of the media were treated thusly.

It seems to me that a lot of people were being targeted and I just don't mean members of the Black Block. I mean legitimate activists were being raided and hauled off to the detention centre .. yesterday criminals ran at will in the street. Today, those who dissent the government has their rights trampled.

That's being a punk. Yeh, we looked really bad yesterday, so today we are going to prove how macho we are by jumping on whomever we can. Really, this seems like it was done out of spite. By the police. Nice work guys.

PRIME MINISTER HARPER & THE LEADERS:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the biggest punk of all. He's a punk for:

Holding an event that endangered my city without a clear individual mandate to do so

Spending more on hosting this event than what he's pledged to en better the lives of women all over the world

Hiding safely behind his fence and his armoured cars and his military helicopters while businesses are damaged and cops are put into the line of fire

Granting police and security forces "special powers" that seemingly enabled them to target legitimate social activists (like during the U of T raid) as well as the hooligans .. and where do these powers end and when? He isn't saying. Can we remember the FLQ crises? Yes we can

So in conclusion: The G20 summit. Businesses suffered for about a week before from having no customers, some businesses and institutions had to shut down. Property damage. Real injuries to people. Something on the order of 500 people arrested in two days and god knows where that data is being stored and for what ....

Let's call the whole fucking thing a punk

THE FENCE

There is a fence around the heart of the city. In front of the fence are thousands of uniformed men, all of them armed. They are not looking inside the fence, they are staring outwards .. at you. If you approach the fence, out of curiosity, the men will approach you, demand your ID. They will search you. You cannot refuse them. If you do, you'll be arrested

While you are being arrested your image will be recorded by one of dozens of hidden security cams. Your image will be sent to rooms filled with more men, some of them uniformed, some of them in plain clothes. It will be stored in data banks, all over the world. You won't know where that image is sent. You don't have the right to ask

If you are arrested at the fence, you won't go to one of the police precincts in the city. You will be sent to a special "detention centre". There you will be held and you will be questioned. You may not even know who exactly is questioning you

If you approach the fence in numbers you may be greeted by water cannons, or sound cannons, designed to immobilize you.

While you are being assaulted, you will be watched by dozens of helicopters flying above the city, many of them unmarked. Surely, they will have cams too

If you are injured for your curiosity, you won't be taken to one of the city's hospitals. You will be taken to one of several emergency health centres, trauma centres, created for this purpose, to deal with people injured for being in the middle of the city

This is not fiction. It is not a dystopia, it is not a post apocolyptic vision. This is this week. This is my city. This is happening now. A beautiful, sunny warm day and downtown Toronto is virtually deserted. Except for the men with the guns

Who stand by the fence .

THE G20 PISSING CONTEST

The G20 Summit madness here in the Toronto area continues.

Like millions of dollars spent to "secure and prepare" a nearby airport .. that will never be used by any of the participants in the G8 or the G20

Like Toronto District School Board cancelling its buses for this Friday. Which means that the special needs kids Collette teaches will not be able to go to school

This weekend we were downtown and saw the fence. An easily 10 foot tall chain link fence that will enclose several blocks in the downtown core. A fence. Why did I have visions of Soylent Green, or Wild in the Streets?

They removed all the public trash cans and replaced them with plastic garbage bags taped to poles. I'm not really sure why. To prevent protesters from picking up trash cans and hurling them over the fence?

Speaking of protests we had our first taste today. A protest march that went up Yonge Street, choking off traffic. Cops were there in force, and could not stop it. They even tried making a "fence" with their bicycles .. there's some irony for you. In the areas outside of the fence they still tried to use fences. But it didn't work. Police sources said "We couldn't stop them"

Really? A week away from the summit and you couldn't stop a bunch of people trying to march up Yonge Street ...

Now they are talking about bringing in water cannon. There will be medical helicopters constantly circling the city looking for wounded. Triage and emergency aid stations are being set up all over the city.

What the fuck.

The USA is advising their citizens not to travel to Toronto right now as it may be too dangerous. Oh yeh, the US is attending the summit

What the fuck. Again

All for what? A pissing contest among the suits who rule the world. For a summit that will be addressing issues like climate control and the world health of women, including their access to safe abortions ... both are topics by the way that Prime Minister Harper really doesn't want to discuss ...

Collette and I had to spend some time at an ER today. There was a big issue of not having enough wheelchairs for all the patients. Yet this summit is costing our country in excess of a billion dollars

Sorry Stephen. In this pissing contest that you've arranged, you haven't even been able to get open your fly

THE DISTILLERY DISTRICT: WINE AMONG THE RUINS

Well, no, not ruins exactly
The Distillery District is a shopping/arts destination in Toronto that occupies the grounds of a Victorian Era distillery that had remained active and in business till the 1990's. Finally ceasing to function as distillery, this huge collection of buildings and structures was used as a location for dozens of Hollywood movies including the remake of The Fly
We love this area, much of the brooding yet stylish Victorian architecture has been maintained from giant smoke stacks to cobble stones bits and pieces of its brewing past. Atmospheric is the word that comes to mind: Red brick, limestone, massive facades with tiny windows, covered walkways, oblique angles; it's the like the imposition of will. It is all function, a place of work and old school smokestack industry but there is craftmaship here, hand hewn and hand cut and in that yes, I find beauty
Nowadays the Distillery is home to shops, restaurants, the Mill Street Brewery and arts spaces. It also hosts many concerts, art shows etc. This weekend we were at the Distillery for an event extremely appropriate to the location: The Toronto Food and Wine Expo.

Yippee. Bottoms up.


It was a perfect night for it, warm with a nice breeze, clear skies. This is one of those deals where you buy food/drink tickets and are a given a sampling glass. This was no little thimble glass too, most of the samples we got were pretty significant


Beer, wines, coolers, cider, spirits, there was a lot of variety, most of it from Ontario. One product that stands out was Victoria Gin, a small family owned business from B.C. As it turns out Collette and I were both gin drinkers in our past and over the years fell out of favour with this spirit. Victoria Gin was good enough to rekindle the romance as it were.


There was live music here and there, stuff to eat, and lots and lots of good stuff to drink. On a pleasant summer night amidst this impressive Victorian architecture what could be better?


Here's a little video, just giving a few highlights of the Distillery. Now I'm going to go wring out my liver. The music is Frank Sinatra. It doesn't exactly go with a massive Industrial Revolution factory, but it was a booze festival, like an extended cocktail hour. Bottoms up.

Distillery District Toronto from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

THE WORLD CUP: KICKING YOUR COUNTRY'S BUTT

The World Cup. World cup fever. Fandimonium. We are right in the middle of it here in Toronto as they are in cities all over the world. I have one question: Why?

OK, the obvious answer is that soccer is a popular sport, it is of course the most popular sport in the world. Fair enough. I don't know enough about the game to have an opinion on it but I know for the rest of the world "football" is like hockey in Canada: You don't have to appreciate it to acknowledge it's importance

Fans follow their pro soccer teams, they are heavily invested them, both financially and emotionally, it becomes a big part of the fabric of their lives. But The World Cup is not a pro soccer event. There are no "pro" teams playing. These are national teams, the players from one country forming a team to play in the tournament

There are parallels to the Olympics. I know there are pro players on these world cup teams, I have no idea if there are amateur players. I know in the recent Olympic winter games, there were probably no amateur skaters on the Canadian team and if there were, I doubt if they got much ice time. When you get to the level of the Olympics or the World Cup, these are not amateur sports. Now only are the players and coaches professionals, millions and millions of dollars are poured into these teams, both from governments and private sponsors, whether covertly or not

So we have soccer fever here in Toronto. Understandable. But there is something else going on as well

All the bars in the ethnic communities are packed when that particular country's team is playing. Flags of all kinds are fluttering as cars zoom past. Blogs and radio phone in shows are glutted with people either crying or cheering as their country fails or succeeds ...

Let's put the brakes on right here

Their country? Hmm. A bunch of guys born in their country (many of whom may work for sports teams in other countries) are playing in a soccer tournament. A sports tournament. Yes, they are "playing for country" but what they are doing is playing a sport .. they're not fighting a war, they're not uniting to rebuild after a natural disaster, they're not even injecting money into the country's infrastructure. In fact, they are probably taking the money out

So what the hell is the big deal? Enjoy the sports tournament as a tournament but people for god's sake, put it into perspective. It is very much like the Olympics. All this crap about how my country was "defined" by the games ... seriously? Canada, the second largest country on earth, home to tens of millions of people, is defined by people playing hockey? Or bobsledding? If that's so, we would be a very sad country and I know that not to be so

What I hear a lot is the term "national pride" Now I find that in general to be a rather distasteful term, for all its connotations of superiority. I find it particularly puzzling and distasteful when that pride is incurred by a bunch of guys running around a soccer pitch. Is this the best you can do? Is this all your country is? People playing a game?

It's just a freaking game

Am I over reacting. I know that most people are just enjoying the games and that enjoyment may be enhanced by the fact that your country's name is on the jerseys. Hey, everyone likes to root for the home team. Fair enough.

But I'm seeing and hearing a lot of stuff that makes me do the Vulcan eyebrow raise. Some people are really getting caught up in the nationalism of this thing, they really are equating what happens on the pitch with their national pride. Let me tell you, if the only thing about your country that gives you pride, or a sense of identity, is how they play a certain sport .. you may need a more dynamic country. Or, more importantly, you need a stronger sense of self.

In 1969 Honduras and El Salvador took this national pride over football thing to the extreme. They actually fought a war over it. A war. Lasting about four days. OK, there were other issues at foot, like immigration and disputed territories but the violence was actually sparked by a soccer game. Seriously. Give your fucking head a shake. People dying over soccer ...

So viva Italia, go USA, roust roust Germany .. whatever it may be. Enjoy the game. I've been in crowded bars, with hundreds of strangers, all suddenly unified by watching a single event. It can be exhilarating. But is that event really important enough to unify a country? Is the country so weak and fractured it can be unified by a ball going into a net?

As I stated, I'm not a soccer fan so I won't be watching. But I did watch some of the Olympic hockey and I enjoyed it very much. But I didn't wave a flag and I didn't scream racial epithets at the Americans. I just enjoyed a sporting event

Why can't it just be as simple as that

THE MOMENT

Quiet now.

Make it quiet.

Turn off the computers. Turn off the TV and the stereo. Close the windows to shut out the drone of the traffic, the groan of construction, the metallic sound of the birds

Let it be quiet now. Just the sound of the wind pressing against the windows and of the house settling

Go quietly down the hall, walking slowly, moving soft. So as not to disturb them

They're in there. In the big quiet room with the sun sliding through the blinds and writing solar calligraphy on the walls.

Twenty minutes ago they were out with you in the park, all motion and sound and furry energy, legs pounding the grass and teeth flashing as mouths opened to catch balls and tails whipping in the air.

Now they're here. The old girl on the big chair with the blue blanket, curled up in a soft knot, nose tucked under the white brush of her tail. Snoring softly

The young one is in the corner of the sectional couch, also curled up, head half under a pillow, eyes shut tight, body slightly twisted, a tangle of white paws.

Quiet now. Resting. Totally satiated. The energy bled out of them, so that the warm furry bodies radiate a kind of peace. Stand there and watch them, bodies twitching occasionally as a dream passes under their skin, an ear twitching

But quiet. Still. As if they could lay there forever. But watch them carefully, listen to their breathing. Their energy is still there. Like a bow laying on a table, an inanimate object but by the grace of its curve and the tension of its string, still indicative of action. Of power and speed.

That is there in the two of them. But for now it's lambent. For now, they are peace and stillness.

For now. In this moment.

THE G8/G20 SUMMIT: WHO'S CITY IS IT PART 2

This was actually a topic I did not want to write about. I try to avoid politics but of course, that's impossible, we live in a political system and it seems hell bent to take us on a journey that we never booked

Later this month Toronto is going to host summits for the G8 and the G20, but "host" is a rather specious term in this case. Hosting is when you welcome someone to your house, this is more like a home invasion where masked armed thugs tie you up and tosses you in a closet while they eat your good ham and drink your beer; the micro brewery beer

So the G8, being hosted north of us at a resort in Huntsville and the G20 who are being hosted here are the white guys in expensive suits who rule the universe. I guess Prime Minister Harper direly wants to be a Master of the Universe so he's invited all the big boys, like the U.S. and Britain to come play in his sandbox .. or perhaps I should say litterbox. As far as I can tell, the only purpose to these summits is some kind of pissing contest

I really wouldn't give a shit about any of this except Harper's sandbox happens to be my city, so yeh, following the litterbox analogy, he's shitting where I live.

Hosting this whole summit is going to cost a billion dollars. A billion dollars. For a meeting that seems little more than a photo op, pushing an agenda our own prime minister seems opposed to

The monetary waste is infuriating. They decided they needed to fence in the resort in Huntsville ... all 35 K of it. They're building a giant artificial indoor lake here in the city to give foreign media "a taste of Canada" at a price of one million bucks. One million bucks. To build a lake. In downtown Toronto. Probably less than a mile from something called .. Lake Ontario

It's waste. Nothing but waste. We all know the issues in these countries. Natives in Northern Ontario don't have access to clean drinking water, working families in Toronto have to go to food banks because rent and utilities eat all their income .. but we can spend a billion dollars just so Stephen Harper can be seen shaking hands with Barak Obama.

But that really isn't the worse thing. What's worse, is what my city is becoming, thanks to this summit. There are new security cameras installed everywhere downtown. For the weekend of the conference certain subway stations will be closed, as will U of T and other institutions. And they will be building another fence. This one will be downtown. Like, a good chunk of downtown. Some 3 kilometers all together

A fence. A 3 kilometer fence. Around my downtown. With armed guards in uniforms, and security in plain clothes with cameras. Keep out. Stay away. Private

Verboten

My city. Our city.

I hate it. I hate the fact that my city is being taken away from me, and nobody even asked if I wanted this thing. No one was asked. It's like they're building this fortress, like they're constructing Troy. And there's a reason they need Troy. Because it's going to be put under siege

Wherever the G8 or G20 is staged, there are problems. People hate these guys .. yes, the white guys in the expensive suits who rule the world, go figure. There will be protesters. Lots of protesters, from all over North America and probably Europe. And there will almost certainly be violence, that's the track record, hence the fences and the security.

An arial photo of the Huntsville compound which will host the G8 showed about 60 mobile home style trailers and that is just for the security. So they are expecting trouble. More accurately,they are bringing trouble with them, because it sure as hell doesn't exist in the city without these summits.

Local businesses are being told that there is a very high chance that their businesses may be vandalized. There already has been some light vandalism (ie graffiti) of a couple of banks. And, oh yeh, the government .. our government, who got this whole thing rolling .. will not be offering compensation

It really makes me sick. We are not only spending a billion dollars but businesses will be out money, not just from any damage they may incur but because many of them, including the Mirvish Theatres are shutting down for the weekend, so more millions are going down the pipe

Even worse, this event may be bringing violence to the city. Why? For a photo op? For elected officials can sit around smoking cigars and discussing agendas that none of us were ever privy to? From what I've read, no one really expects much to get done at these summits. No real world altering legislation has come out of one of these meetings.

I feel like getting out of the city for the weekend. The way this is going down, I'm feeling like I don't belong here, like I'm a trespasser. No, not a trespasser. An interloper. Uninvited. Unwanted.

Fuck. Just who's city is this?

DENNIS HOPPER R.I.P.

He was not an actor I would put in my top ten list of favorites. But he was definitely an actor who could affect an entire movie by his mere presence in it, sometimes positively sometimes otherwise.

He is also one of those actors who has become part of my personal lexicon. In other words he's been around a long time. And he started out as such a part of his time, as an almost instant icon, that I took note of him right away

I don't know how great an actor Hopper was. I don't even know how we really access that. But the one thing that stands out about Hopper is that he was a character actor with the rare ability to constantly re-invent himself and that puts him on a different level.

It begins with Easy Rider of course. Well his career starts before that, as a supporting character in movies, usually as a squirmy little bad guy type. But then we get the Rider. A cultural icon. Hippies on the road selling drugs; back then that could be seen as revolutionary, today it would only have to be seen as criminal. It was Hopper's movie, in the writing and directing but people went to see it for Peter Fonda, or at least, Fonda, for that name. It's an anarchic movie, free form, lots of improv with the acting and I think in a lot of the direction as well. It suited the time perfectly and although, in the long run, I don't consider it a great movie, it's impact is undeniable

Hopper's "counterculture" run in Hollywood lasted as long as .. well .. the counterculture in Hollywood. He was busy, acting in and directing that most people didn't see but maintaining his public presence by being a bad boy.

Hopper's next major impact is not so much a reinvention of himself, but almost a parody of his burnt out hippie image, as the burnt out hippie photographer in Apocalypse Now. To call the performance a parody does not do it justice. In a move where a great deal of the acting was improv, Hopper not only holds his own with Sheen and Brando, I feel he surpasses Brando; Hopper stays on point, remaining within the structure of his character and absolutely commanding the screen when he's on it.

Hopper's first major reinvention is as uber creep Frank in Blue Velvet. This is an older Hopper, a tailored Hopper, with his lounge lizard suits and his carefully coiffed hairstyle. Frank is obstensibly the bad guy in the movie and he is certainly a creep but Hopper brings something to the role, he dives in with both feet and all his teeth and verges on scenery chewing but once again, commands the entire movie whenever he's on the screen.

Hoosiers saw Hopper playing another burn out, but instead of Apocalypse's manic, jittery photographer, Hopper gives us the sad, sympathetic drunk. He is brave, is Hopper, as character actors often all. He isn't afraid to look dirty, to look sick, be unlikeable. And once again, he pretty much steals the movie

As an actor Hopper could be his own worse enemy. He was smart, I don't think he ever left that improv sensibility he used to such great advantage in Rider and Apocalypse. That was bad if a director wasn't focused and disciplined, Hopper could run away with the character, never afraid to go big and if there wasn't someone to rein him, much like Brando, it wasn't always a pretty thing to see. But it was always entertaining.

No, Dennis Hopper never made any of my lists for favorite actors but writing this, I realized how good he was, and how much I liked him. And how much I'll miss him.