the Clinton hug

‘You can have your cake and eat it too’ is a line from a Dylan song that perfectly describes the attitude of the New Middle Class in the late 70’s when they were already becoming part of the privileged elite but weren’t quite ready to give up on their appetites.A few years later they were telling us sorry we’re out of cake but don’t worry its bad for you anyhow.

metro bethune

There’s a move reported in the Montreal Gazette to change the name of Metro Lionel Groulx in Little Burgundy to Metro Oscar Peterson after the famous jazz pianist.The argument being that it’s disgraceful to have a metro station honoring the racist Lionel Groulx.I have no objection to this but there’s other metro names we should change,like Metro McGill named after the racist slaveowner James McGill.
How about changing Metro McGill to Metro Bethune after Norman Bethune,the doctor who fought for public healthcare?

february thaws

The first rough raw edges of a February thaw
that always have me thinking of my life
being the first and out of season

The Times they are achanging

The New York Times exposé on Senator McCain details his questionable relationship with a female Washington lobbyist.Now the Republican Party might have to drop McCain as their potential Presidential candidate.
But there’s no way the Republicans can win the presidency no matter who they nominate because they’re identified too closely with a failing war and a failing economy.
The Democratic Party could nominate Daffy Duck for president and still win.
But why did the NY Times decide to do a critique on Senator McCain?
No doubt a lot of people out there will credit the NY Times reputed liberal stance for publishing the exposé on McCain’s unethical behavior.
But I doubt whether the NY Times would have published this exposé on their front page without the pressure put on them by the ground swell of popular dissent in the US.
After all the NY Times along with every other major newspaper in North America supported the neo-liberal economic and political policies that have turned the majority of ordinary Americans people against the establishment.
That’s what firing up the long defunct and bankrupt pretence of a free press in the US.
The shift to the left of the American people

what they really think of us

Odi Profanum Vulgus

“Millions of people”she said”swarming like rats,chattering like apes,smelling like all hell…monkeys..or lice I suppose.For one really exquisite palace.. on Long Island,say,or even in Greenwich..for one palace full of pictures from the Old World and exquisite things-with avenues of trees and green lawns and a view of the blue sea,and lovely people about in slick dresses..I’d sacrifice a hundred thousand of them,a million of them”..I care nothing for them-understand me?

-‘The Beautiful And The Damned’ by F.Scott Fitzgerald

catch me if you can

The Inquiry

Dear David
Hope your workshop went well and was inspiring.Would you be able to send along a bio and a short synopsis(1 or 2 sentences) of ‘Bolseviki’ for us to publicize you on our Montreal Theatre Workshop web site?
Jana

My Response

Canada's oldest fourteen year old runaway currently working illegally under false identity as David Fennario.He describes 'Bolsheviki' as an uplifting heart warming play about a Canadian soldier who decides that Peackeeping means shooting his officers.
Fennario would not give his address

its National Flag Day today

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or
his wellbelovéd colonel
(trigwestpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand; but-
-though an host of overjoyed noncoms
(first knocking on the head him)
do through icy waters roll that helplessness
which others strokewith brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke allegiance
per blunt instruments-Olaf-
(being to all intentsa corpse and wanting any rag upon what God unto him gave) responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"
straightway the silver bird looked grave(departing hurriedly to shave)
but--though all kinds of officers (a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curseuntil
for wear their clarion voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates onhis rectum wickedly to tease by means of skilfully appliedbayonets roasted hot with heat-Olaf
(upon what were once knees)does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"
our president,being of whichassertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitchinto a dungeon,
where he diedChrist(of His mercy infinite)i pray to see;
and Olaf,toopreponderatingly becauseunless statistics lie
he wasmore brave than me:
more blond than you.

- E. E. Cummings

valentine greetings

Cupid with a raised fist on a card that reads:

SMASH
THE STATE

DECLARE
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

(and be mine tonight)

veltpolitik

Obama wins big in last night’s primaries with the glow of power shining in his eyes
Slick Willie’s best move?
Get Hilary to sign on as vice-president on the good chance that Obama will get shot.

freudian slip historicalized

"..the so-called accidental is the form which necessity hides itself.."
-Frederick Engels

what is to be done

two thirty in the morning reading the final chapters of ‘Anna Karenina’ leading into Anna’s suicide by throwing herself in front of a train.
I thought of the contrast between the victimized Anna Karenina and the radicalized women of that period,like freedom fighter Vera Figner who spent two decades in Czarist prisons.
They did not throw themselves in front of trains.
They threw bombs at the czar.

we don't need no education

Hamas cuts a deal with the Egyptian government and they put up the barrier again dividing the Gaza Strip.That’s positive in the sense that a compromise had to be worked out with Hamas,in defiance of Israel and the US,but it cuts against the autonomous mass movement of the Palestinian people.I doubt whether the majority of the Palestinians want that wall back up again.I also doubt whether they’ll put up with the Hamas decision although that remains to be seen.
The way forward for the Palestinians is to link up with the mass movement in Egypt that came out in support of the Palestinians when the Gaza Strip wall was punched through.
It was the mass demonstrations of workers and students organized by a coalition of the Muslim Brotherhood and Socialist Alliance that that stopped the Egyptian dictator Mubarak from calling out the army.
This form of mass movement is the social force that has the potential to overthrow the present corrupt regimes in the middle East and create a humane alternative.
While saying this I understand that this sounds abstract or naïve or like antiquated rhetoric to most of my correspondents.
But I’ve experienced and remember well the last time the masses rose up world wide and shocked the shit out of all the experts and pundits who based their analysis on the assumption that change only comes from the top.
And the punching through of the Gaza Strip wall into Egypt by the Palestinian people,starved out of food and fuel,has the feeling of those first inarticulated riots of the early 60’s here in Quebec.
Soon we could be seeing the organized expression of that inarticulated rage and it’ll be far to the left of Hamas

fame

I’ve been feeling lately that I will be remembered like a brand name
They will say it’s like a Fennario
Not that I give a shit for all that although yeah I suppose I was hungry for fame when I was young and still impressed by the people who decide who gets famous
Now I would be honored to be forgotten by them

one for the road

The cold dark street corner lonesome sound of a late night jazz saxophone
Mountain street & Saint Antoine 1966
Rockhead’s Paradise
Rufus Rockhead himself serving me draft beer with his best social behavior smile
midnight hour last call
what are you doing here white boy?

caliban

My relationship to books unusual because of the lasting impression made on me that they were written by middle class people who did not like me
I am still that boy they tried to keep out of libraries
I am the enemy of those who taught me to read and write