For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Onion, it’s an American publication that spoofs and lampoons the news. If there were such a concept in Toronto- I’d pitch this…

Toronto Anti-smoking Group Seeks to Brake Wind

By Dave Besseling

A Toronto anti-smoking lobby announced today it would continue its efforts to make the provincial capital a smoke-free city by conquering the last adversary in their quest for tobacco-free air—the wind.

Toronto is one of a long list of world cities with a smoking ban in place for offices, restaurants and bars. But for the Toronto Incentive for Tobacco Stoppage (T.I.T.S), the current ban doesn’t quite go far enough.

“Let’s finish what we started,” said Otis Blundell, the organization’s vice president, “The wind is the last factor of non-compliance in the march to a smoke-free Toronto.”

Some residents also feel wind is the last obstruction on the list to appease non-smokers who must endure, against their will, exposure to public space.

“Now that the weather is nice, I like to eat and drink on patios,” said Church St. resident Steve James, “but sometimes there are smokers on the sidewalk, and the wind blows the smoke into the patio area where I’m eating.”

While it is still legal to smoke on patios in Ontario, Caffe Voltron, a popular beer bar and eatery on Yonge St., confiscates its ashtrays every evening to comply with a by-law restricting outdoor smoking where the danger levels are at their highest: under an awning.

“We don’t allow smoking when the awning is shading the patio,” said Voltron serveuse Michelle. “When the dinner rush is over, say around 8 or 9 o’clock, we retract the awning, then it is safe to smoke again.”

The current Ontario by-law assures that the dangers of smoking in these high-risk shaded areas, as opposed to on the public sidewalk where the awning ends, are nipped in the butt. Provincial politicians responsible for the awning by-law would not comment whether or not city council had begun to draft the hotly debated anti-wind laws, laws that in their divisiveness have already toppled municipal governments in the UK and Ireland, where it is even windier than Canada.

Clinical research by Reese Laboratories proves that smoking in the shade is especially hazardous to health. In the absence of sunlight, carcinogenic molecules in cigarettes become what researcher Rory Tate calls “hyper-charged,” and in the absence of UV rays, are prone not to rise into the air, but to embed themselves in any food on the tables, causing pub meals unwanted flavour and smoothness.

But even the hard science behind the ban on smoking under awnings isn’t good enough for the T.I.T.S, who, through petitions this week, have successfully closed the loophole that allows patios not with awnings, but with umbrellas, to harbor smokers. If a police officer sees a patron smoking under an umbrella that is touching an umbrella shielding an adjacent table, the offender can be fined up to a maximum of $500 CAD.

With yet another amendment-in-waiting to the ban, the offense of “smoking near flowers,” only days from being addressed at City Hall, T.I.T.S is padding itself up for the next battle for public health—that malevolent wind.

Under the proposed act, wind would be banned from all public space in Toronto, subject to fines not yet decided upon.

Torontonians: look for supportive local politicians to have their T.I.T.S out, canvassing a neighbourhood near you soon. MP Bob Mars plans to address the national parliament in Ottawa as early as the fall with as many anti-wind signatures as possible.  Outside legal council has been sought from the firm that represented Monsanto Canada in its case against farmer Percy Schmeiser.

“It is our right as Canadians to demand sterility in our public spaces,” continued Blundell, of T.I.T.S. “And when gusts blow down the wind-tunnel of Yonge St., it is the city, who has built this perpendicular downtown core, who must deal with this wanton nuisance caused by the wind. Someone must stand up to this menace.”

On the long drive back to Peterborough from Port Elgin, I found my mind wandering while taking in the puffy clouds that looked like smoky plumes exhaled from a Godsize pipe over the vanishing point of the horizon…

In a parallel universe, where people and events of this world could be shifted and interwoven at the behest of a satyrish spirit, without the constraints of timelines, I made a mental list of how I would alter the history of our sphere to make the view through the looking-glass more interesting and possibly more stimulating.

First, as the drag n’ drop creative cultural force, I’d see to it that these musical forces were given life:

-Fela Kuti Live with John Bonham.

-BloodSugarSexMagik era John Frusciante joins James Brown and the JB’s.

-Dave Grohl stays on as drummer for Queens of the Stone Age.

-Massive Attack featuring Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain.

-Nina Simone produced by Rick Rubin.

-Serge Gainsbourg? meet Tom Waits.

Books to be written:

“On the Campaign Trail: Germany, 1939” by Hunter S. Thompson.

“Love in the time of Cholera” by Chuck Palahniuk.

“Crash” by Oscar Wilde.

“The Master and Margarita” by Salman Rushdie.

“The Castle” by Martin Amis.

“The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Tom Robbins.

and (thanks to The Kids in the Hall); “The Bible” by Dr. Seuss.

News headlines to be altered:

“Yoko Ono weds Barry Gibb. BeeGees’ fate shaky”

“John Lennon wounded in assassination attempt—full recovery expected”

“Richard Nixon wounded in assassination attempt—death imminent”

“Bill Hicks undergoes surgery, cancer removed”

“Jimi Hendrix’s stomach pumped, guitar restringed for next show”

“Jinnah dead, Muslim League loses power, Indian partition called off”

Amazing what dying will do for a career, eh?
Death has always been good for business in the arts, but who could have thought old creepypants Michael Jackson could have half his life–the sordid and the pathological– wiped off the public record by overdosing on a shot of painkillers?

What is truly amazing to me is how so many people are suddenly rock solid with MJ’s legacy, and have been ‘true fans’ all along. Even through his recent phase as a cultural fugitive.
To argue such subjective bandwagoneering would be hard, but what can be objectively argued about this whole kerfaffle, is that the guy hadn’t written anything good in ages.
Did I listen to Beat It and Billie Jean when I was growing up? Of course I did. But just because something was present in my rearing doesn’t automatically turn it into gold when the author expires and I’m old enough to remember it. Jeezz. And objectively, those lame synths, piss-poor lyrics and Eddie Van Halen solos are not eternal–or no more eternal that those garish red leather suits he used to wear–they’re just passé. And everything after (and mostly including) Thriller sucks. Yes: Sucks. Amazing, the amount of nodding zombie heads that will just agree with whatever the radio tells them is legendary. That album Dangerous? It’s horseshit. Listen to it again, and tell me it doesn’t have more in common with Tiffany and Debbie Gibson than the teenage Michael Jackson who, admittedly gloriously, blew his creative load with Off The Wall.

If MJ had written songs like ‘Trouble Man ‘on the other hand…I may have shed a tear, but Marvin Gaye died like a proper rock star, and his music has aged well. MJ died like a soft option ego junkie. His leering megalomania was only more disturbing than his Diva-like travel requirements. Have we forgotten about the fucker’s nose?!
Oh wait, there seems to be a post-mortem statute of limitations in slagging off his plasticity, at least until we stop pretending he was part of our family.

I just watched Germaine sing at the funeral, by the way, and if you didn’t think that last teary gasp was staged, you’ve missed everything.

As the first artist in residence for the Livinginpeace project, there were essentially no parameters aside from showing up and seeing what came out. Rongo was a fledgling business, and just how the residency would relate to the rest of the project was in an experimental stage. There was beautiful, big talk, but no one really knew what could be achieved concretely at that point.

Since my stint in Karamea, spanning the three months from November 2004 to January 2005, two other artists have come through and done bigger and better things with their time and talent, and I’m happy that Paul and I didn’t get too carried away straight out the gates, but cautiously explored and discussed what the project could mean for the future of Livinginpeace. We knew we were plotting a course for others to take further. The simple foundations had to be laid before anyone could use them to jump from.

So my story is one of inner-exploration and creative planning with Paul during my tenure, where we laid out the basics for the thing to grow and expand the way it has. This is not to say it was a partnership, Paul has always captained his own ship; but I think our musings on what was possible for the project helped him to react to opportunities more quickly, and with certainty. The fact that the two artists that have come after me have taken the “exhibition” concept further to include live painting and art lessons makes me proud; and relieved as well: I can’t have humans anywhere near me when I work, and I wouldn’t have a clue how to teach anyone anything.

We thought at the time that, though the turnout would be small, people would catch the fire we were sparking and support the project through the tenure-ending exhibition. It didn’t really go as well as planned, but the lesson was learned, and we had a lot of fun learning it. If you want them to come, you have to offer something relevant to them. The subsequent community-based events seem to have hit the mark.

On a personal level, my time there was very rewarding. My style has always been based in certain techniques that get mixed and matched with the patterns, symbols and philosophies that surround me wherever I am in the world, and my New Zealand exposure was an interesting one. It was different from my time in Japan and Europe, because it wasn’t in a country with established aesthetic grandeur as such (though the Maori visual fabric is one of my favourites), but where nature itself provided all the weird and transcendent lines and shapes anyone would need. The work I produced there was a step forward for my technique, and a surprising journey for me, while I watched what the land had inspired dribbling out of my pen. Karamea is markedly different from anywhere else I’ve put the antennas out, and the isolated nature of the place encouraged my own isolated process. The isolation was almost necessary for me though, because there was always something going on at Rongo, and between there and where I was working, in a spare room in Paul’s house, was the pub—which during the day was a hideous temptation, but after a good day’s work, a just dessert.

I think what still sticks with me about my experience with Livinginpeace, is that if I were to go back and do it again, it would be a different place on a different level of operation, and I’d put out a different body of work. Such dynamism is in tune with the will of the great magnet. I’d probably still do it hermit style though, and I think what the thing needs now is more extroverted artists to get people involved in their processes. I’m happy to watch.

www.livinginpeace.com