On Saturday
morning I posted “J’aime les roses fanées” (I Love Withered Roses” by Serge
Gainsbourg on Christian’s Translations. I like this song and wouldn’t mind
adding it to my repertoire but there’s no room for it right now. Maybe down the
road after posting videos of me performing some of the other songs I do. Once I
have a good recording of one of my regular songs I’ll include others. But I’ve
translated over a hundred songs and so I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to
record them all.
I worked on my journal.
At 9:45 I headed over to 1499 Queen
West to stand in the food bank line-up. I was three places behind Veronica and
came up to chat with her and Beth. Beth is a woman who’d claimed a few weeks
ago that she drinks coffee for her asthma.
Veronica asked me why I haven’t been
publishing my Food Bank Adventures on the news site. I told her that the
publisher hasn’t posted any articles since December 12, I think because she’s
had some issues with domestic abuse. Veronica asked if I know her and I said she
came to one of my concerts once.
Veronica wanted to know what kind of concerts I do. I told her that a
couple of years ago I did combination, song, poem, story and theatrical
performance. Veronica said, “So you’re poet!” Beth said that she’s a poet too.
Veronica said for me to write her a poem. I told her I couldn’t just write
somebody a poem unless I was inspired to do so. She said she wanted a poem so
she could sell it and make a lot of money.
I asked Beth if she knew about the writing workshop that meets at PARC
every week. She said she wants to be freelance and doesn’t want to be
influenced by other people’s rules. I told her that one has to learn the rules
before they can break them. She assured me that she knows the rules. I tried to
explain to her that it’s beneficial to have feedback on one’s writing from
someone one respects. I told her about the Creative Writing course I took last
year with Toronto’s Poet Laureate, Albert Moritz. I said I’ve found his
feedback very valuable and he’s been helping me get my book ready for
publishing.
Beth wanted to know how to publish a book. I told her that there’s an
annually published book called The Writers Market that lists all of the
publishers to which one can send one’s work. I said that if she were to send
her work out to hundreds of people she’d have a better chance of getting
published. I cautioned her however that it might not be a big publisher that
finally puts out a book of her poetry.
Veronica mentioned that the free Metro newspaper has stopped publishing
hard copies and that now they would only be available online for a fee. She
said that now she would become illiterate because she won’t have anything to
read. I told her that there is plenty of free news online but she said that
it’s harder to turn the page to avoid the bad news on the internet.
Veronica declared that all news is only 10% true or less. Beth seemed
to agree with her. I argued that that’s not really possible. Most journalists
don’t deliberately publish untruths and they are trained to investigate news.
Even a random person on the street couldn’t likely be 90% wrong about an event,
let alone someone that knows how to ask questions and do research. Beth gave
the example of a report of a shooting in Parkdale in which the news got the street
and the colour of the car wrong. First of all the report that there was a
shooting in Parkdale is already 100% true, so if they get the street or the car
wrong because witnesses gave them the wrong information it doesn’t take away
90% of the truth from the report.
I asked Veronica if she didn’t think it was 100% true that Trudeau one
the election as the news reported. She admitted that was true but that they
might publish false reports about the polling numbers. But again, even if they
got the numbers wrong it doesn’t chop 90% of reality from the reportage. It’s
just absurd to make such a claim. It’s advisable to take everything with a
grain of salt but not with an industrial sized mountain of salt.
They said that they consider human-interest stories more true and so my
impression is that for them what is more fake is the news they are less
interested in. It seems that fear of fake news has made people more susceptible
to faker news.
Speaking of mountains, suddenly three bike cops arrived and one of them
was an abnormally large and tall hulking brute. While the other two little ones
waited on their bikes, he went to the door of PARC, tried it but found it
locked. He walked back to his bike but Beth advised him to rap on the window
and so he returned to the door just as someone else was going in. Veronica
asked the little cops what they were doing there. The one that looked like he
just got his badge in a Kinder Surprise Egg answered, “We’re just chillin!”
What a diversionary asshole! Obviously they weren’t there to “chill”. He said
they’d been there the day before when Valdene the food bank manager had locked
her keys in the van. Then three more bike cops rolled up and waited.
It was well after 10:30 and time to get in line and so I stepped back
three places to my spot. Beth and Veronica had a pleasant conversation with the
baby cop. To be fair, I’m sure there are hundreds of people that had delightful
chats with Hitler sometimes.
Downstairs my volunteer at the shelves was Larissa. There was very
little of interest or value there. There were a lot of boxes of turkey helper.
There were crackers. There were energy bars. There were canned chestnuts and
Cheerios. From the first set of shelves the only thing I took was a can of 2%
evaporated milk.
Since I hadn’t taken much from the first set of shelves Larissa let me
take an extra can of beans from the next set. I got a tin of black beans and
another of chickpeas. Below those I grabbed a can of tuna but Larissa told me
to put it back and then reached behind the tune to give me a can of tuna salad,
which she said was Italian and very good. I thanked her for her efforts but I
told her I preferred a regular can of tuna. Larissa gave me a couple of apple
juice drinking boxes.
From the soup section I got a small carton of tomato and roasted red
pepper soup and from the pasta section I grabbed a small can of tomato paste
because it's always useful to have some on hand and it doesn't take up much
space.
From Angie I didn’t take any milk, eggs or generic meat but I accepted
a large container of vanilla flavoured Greek yogourt. She asked, “You don’t
drink milk?” I said that it depends on the percentage. I drink 0% or 1%. Angie
wished me a happy New Year and I wished her a happy decade, so I won.
From the bread section I picked a round loaf of raisin, cranberry and
nut bread.
Sylvia gave me a 2.27-kilogram bag of organic P.E.I. “red” potatoes as
if one couldn't tell through the transparent sack that the potatoes were red.
She handed me two small onions and I commented that it was the first
time they’d had onions for a long time. She said it’d been three weeks but I
think it’s been longer. I said we could have used the onions last week for
dressing. She asked if I’d gotten my turkey. I answered that I had but that
it’s a lot of meat for one person. She suggested that I share it but what am I
going to do, take plates out into the street? Mail drumsticks and wings to
people?
She gave me two yellow peppers, two oranges and two tomatoes. At the
“take what you want" bin by the door, Veronica asked if I wanted some
carrots or beets but I said no. I wished her a happy New Year and headed home.
There was still a considerably long line-up outside stretching all the
way back to where I’d locked my bike.
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