NEW YEAR'S MESSAGE

I'm probably not "posting" as often as I might, but you have to understand that birds may gotta fly, and fish may musta swim, but this fucking Dolphin doesn't need to write, doesn't have to write, and quite often doesn't want to write. After a day, a week on the scaffold, sitting down in my dark little basement office full of dogs and trying to compose something that will entertain and elevate the souls of you masses - well all seven and a half of you masses - is a chore. There's no money in it; I did it for love. But love fades in proportion to one's aching back, one's aching neck, one's aching shoulder.

Forcing oneself to write can sometimes be like forcing a hard, wide-bodied turd of the type engendered by Tylenol 3s. Yes, those painkillers that I take from time to time to leaven the aches of scaffolding and facilitate sleep, have the unfortunate side-effect of toughening up one's stool - sometimes to the point of constipation. And constipation can do mean things to a man. Martin Luther, I hear, was chronically constipated. Perhaps then it really was 95 "feces" that he nailed to the door in Wiittenburg - as per that old Kliban cartoon. Martin, having finally had a painful and prodigous bowel movement, felt moved to punish the recalcitrant little devils - to nail 'em.

But enough of turds; you may be eating your breakfast sausages.

As I was saying, it's hard to force oneself to write when one is physically tired. But then I do it for you, sweet reader, because that's the kind of guy I am. I give a damn.

Which is nonsense. I do it because writing is what I have always done and I would like to continue to do even though I'm humping and hammering cold steel by day and don't really like doing it.

During the past two weeks I haven't been humping or hammering; Benchmark has been on its Christmas hiatus. Good thing, in a way. A couple of days before the break we had left a lovely inside job at a theatre renovation and were back outside, building a scaffold at ATT Plastics in minus-22 weather with ice fog. ATT is a big Satanic sort of factory, circa 1949, with looming, half-blind buildings full of pipes, valves and the clang and hiss of pressurized petroleum derivatives. ATT turns oil into ethylene and ethylene into polyethylene pellets that are shipped out in hopper cars. It reminded my boss Jon Hokansen of something out of Ayn Rand novel. Although there were no Howard Rourkes or John Galts striding the grounds of ATT - just a bunch of middle-aged functionaries in blue overalls, blue hardhats, blue flameproof winter jackets, and blue-tinted safety glasses. Their job seemed to be walking from building to building making sure there were no leaks or safety infractions. It's a union plant, so there are more of these silent sniffers than is probably strictly necessary. I guess it was a leak that got by one of these sniffer dogs that caused the big explosion and fireball here in November. No one was killed, but a couple of people were injured by shrapnel, a bunch of windows were blown out, a bunch of pipes were bent, and a brick outbuilding was razed.

Benchmark is putting up scaffolding so ATT can do repairs - and on those days before the Christmas break it was cold work. Had we continued it would have got colder. The deep freeze has deepened over the last two weeks. This winter, like last winter, seems as cold as ever, if not colder. I'm sure the Global Warming ecclesiastics must have an explanation. Hey, Al, What the fuck?

Two weeks of unemployment could well have brought disaster to the Dolphinarium, but luckily I managed to get some contract work writing for the Alberta Government. It's kind of dull stuff, but it's warm, dry work that pays three times the hourly rate I get for scaffolding and has tided me over nicely and made Christmas, if not lavish, then at least possible.

I enjoyed Christmas and New Year's as best as I was able. The season doesn't depress me as much as it once did, but still has its moments. There's the overspending, the over-eating and the over abundance of events in the homes of my (mostly) left-wing in-laws. There are the inevitable clashes with The Wife over what presents to get whom. There are those damned form letters from families whose children are paragons and whose substantial family incomes have allowed them to take lavish family holidays in expensive part of Europe. (I was considering writing a spoof letter this Xmas, involving a jaunty recounting of my year in detox and the girls' adventures in the flesh trade, but that will have to wait for another year.) The Yule season also brings a nagging, melancholic nostalgia for Christmases past, when the kids were younger, or when I was a kid myself and Christmas sparkled. But generally it wasn't bad this year. The three girls - aged 15, 17 and 20 - realize we've become poor and are so therefore are not too disappointed by their modest gifts. Besides, their stepbrother John, 28, single, living in a small downtown apartment, and bringing in around $60K p.a. from a software company, is there to buy them the flashier gifts that make Christmas complete: Wii and Rockstar and Ipods and cameras and the like. Johnny's the new Santa.

Christmas Day was its usual self: early preparation of the turkey (my job), toasted crumpets for breakfast, presents in front of the fireplace, Johnny showing the girls how to use the latest gadget, Pam fixing the vegetables, me picking up my mom at her seniors' apartment and having her her describe the Queen's speech as we drove along the snowy streets in the sharp December sunshine. She did look well this year. Then dinner at around 3 pm, with Xmas crackers and paper hats, Mom saying grace, and a brisk vihno verde to wash it all down. Then another present exchanging session with mom; phone calls from my sisters in Cobourg, ON (snow) and Phoenix, AZ (rain); some lazing on the couch with cake and chocolates and tea, followed by a short walk with the dogs in the frigid outdoors. Mother was driven home at 8 pm and those of us remaining - i.e. the nuclear fam - played this year's board game. This year it was Quelf, a crazy, acting-out game that, depending on the roll of the dice, involves singing, writing limericks, miming and obeying silly rules such as repreating everything twice or holding the hand of the person whose piece shares your square. The game would definitely be more fun if everyone was drunk, but it was fun enough anyway and Christmas ended on a happy note a few strokes before midnight.

On Boxing Day the family went to one of those in-law dos, this one at Pam's Auntie Grace's. She's a 70-year-old hippy whose ex-husband gave her an acreage and a 1960s modern house which crumbles and whistles in the wind in the picturesque foothills southwest of Calgary (a 4,5 hour drive from here). I forewent that pleasure so that I might attend Ted Byfield's annual Boxing Day party. This is an event that has been going on for 22 years, although there was a one year gap last year because Ted's house had burned down (see previous postings). With the house rebuilt and occupied last October, a lot of people were curious to see new place. A record of 160 attended.

A Ukrainian choir led us in carols, the Orthodox priest delivered some long-winded homily, and there was the traditional procession of food led by a boar's head. The black-eyed, pink-cheeked head, arranged with lettuce on a silver salver with an apple in its mouth, was carried this year by my scaffolding boss and Ted's co-parishioner Jon Hokansen (the biggest guy in the house carries the pig, is the rule.). Hokansen was followed by five other men in aprons (me included) carrying a selection of dishes from the potluck supper. I'm not quite sure what the boar's head ritual is all about - either a symbol of God's plenteous gifts or a way of pissing off Jews - but there was a hymn to the boar's head sung as we proceeded through the throng, with much flashing of digital cameras in the direction of the passing decapitation Then came lots of eating and drinking, though perhaps not quite so much drinking as I remember from previous Boxing Days. It is an older crowd and getting older every year. Most everyone had left by midnight when I grabbed a cab home, except for a cadre of Ted's grandchildren, most of them in their twenties, who were huddled in study near to the bar. Ted, who's usually in bed by 9 and up by 4, said, "I am really tired." And he looked it. Virginia, hooked up to her oxygen and helping clean up in the kitchen, looked it too. Will this be the last Boxing Day party at Ted's, I wonder? I'll bet it won't be.

New Year's came without quite the occasion of previous years. It had been traditional for the Dolphins to host a New Year's Eve party for Pam's brothers and sisters and their children (my siblings do not live close). Much gaming and feasting was the practice, with champagne and barbecued ribs at midnight, and, sometimes. fireworks in the backyard. But - tempus fugit - all our children have reached an age where they have their own parties to attend. So this year's Dolphin event was toned down. Just two of Pam's brothers and their wives joined us for a movie followed by drinks, snacks and a midnight bottle of cheap Aussie bubbly by the fire afterwards.

The movie - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - stank. I'm beginning to hate Magic Realism, both in novels and movies. There's something precious and condescending in the flaunting of unlikely events and unreal characters. This one, of course, centres on an unlikely event and an unreal character wrapped into one precious package - i.e. the character of Benjamin Button (played by Brad Pitt), who is born an 85-year-old "man" and ages backwards through his life until he grows to be a baby and dies of, I suppose, birth. It might have been bearable if the story was told in an hour and a half. But it was almost three fucking hours long, filled with platitudinous Kahlil Gibran-style pontifications, a tedious (and of course demographically doomed) love story, and gushing music reminiscent of The Titanic (admittedly a worse movie than this one). The women seemed to like it better than the men, although even Pam thought it was a tad too long. I can't believe it was directed by the same guy who directed Fight Club. That was a good movie.

Back home with our scotches, waiting for the last year of the decade to dawn, my brothers-in-law Brett and Grant and I considered what the Zeroes or the Oughts or whatever this decade is going to be called will be remembered for. Probably terrorism and its offshoots: the war on terror, the aftermath of 9/11, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the Great Satan squaring off against the Lions of Islam.

It is doubtlessly a more definable decade than the 1990s. None of us could figure out the defining characteristic of that final decade of the 20th century. Most other decades in the century seemed to have vivid identities - the roaring Twenties, the Dirty Thirties, the wartime Forties, the prosperous, grey-flannel Fifties, the hippy-dippy Sixties, the Me-generation 1970s, the Greedy, 1980s. But what were the 1990s? Grant suggested it was the Internet decade, but then dismissed that idea because the Internet really didn't become commonplace until the current decade. Ditto cellphones. So although it is true that the digital communications revolution got started in the 1990s, I don't think you can say it defined them. The final decade of the millennium should have something to define it. I welcome your thoughts.

As for 2009, your guess is as good as mine. Economically, the predictions are dire and there is a perverse part of me that says, Bring it on. Let's see what a Depression is like. Give us the kind of privations with which to bore our grandkids that our grandparents inflicted on us. We can't afford meat this month, Ma. Let's cook up the dogs. I hear reports from the rurual fringes that the moisture levels are at record lows. So maybe we'll have ourselves a dustbowl. Not sure if there are still enough horses to pull our Bennett Buggies (or whatever we'd call them these days. Harpermobiles?). Maybe we can hitch our gas-less SUVs to teams of unemployed Newfies ... Sorry, this is starting to sound like Magic Realism.

I have no idea how long it will be before the US meltdown will seriously affect Alberta. The expansions planned for the oilsands are mostly on hold, housing starts are way down, and the Christmas retail season was slower than in 2007. The assessed value of my house dropped about 15% over last year. But the scaffolding business seems to be going strong and there are still "help wanted" and "now hiring" signs everywhere. Thursday I got back to scaffolding. For how long, I'm not sure. I have an idea for a business and 2009 seems as good a year as any to get it started. But more about that later. Meanwhile, Happy New Year.


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Again, thanks to those who have sent me cheques for The Book of Ted. If you haven't got them yet, they are in the mail. I still have a box or two left of these seminal volumes. (A must for any right wing library). If there's anyone else out there would like a copy, mail me a cheque for $50, along with your address. My mailing address is: 15916 Patricia Dr, Edmonton, AB, T5R 5N4