Rita Moreno

            As I was not limping when I got up on Monday morning I felt like I was almost flying after fifteen days of painful steps. During song practice I was not only able to stand balanced on both feet but I could also dance again.

            I finished working out the chords to "Zig-Zig avec toi" by Serge Gainsbourg and I ran through it in French. It’s a fun song to play.

            I tried to take a siesta from 9:30 to 11:00 but there was whole crew banging, crashing and drilling downstairs. They had also brought a radio that was turned up to maximum volume so they could hear above their hammers and electric screwdrivers classics from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Sometimes I could feel someone hammering centimetres below my head and I felt my bed jump a couple of times.

            As I was getting ready to leave for school I met Benji in the hallway. He said that the workers downstairs have just started renovating the place for Popeyes. But I could also hear my landlord through the floor working with his man and talking in Sri Lankan. So maybe the demolition and the renovation are happening at the same time.

            It was a much warmer day than I’d expected and so I was overdressed for my ride downtown. I could have worn my spring gloves and one less scarf. I was able to put the arch of my foot on the pedal now that the wooden spike had been pulled out.

            There were three young women chatting in the lecture hall when I arrived. One of them asked to use the other’s little scissors but she said that hers had been confiscated by security at a Raptors game because they were considered to be a weapon. After the game she tried to get them back but they told her that since she’d surrendered them she couldn’t retrieve them.

            As he began the lecture White said he had a head cold that was really just allergies. A head cold can’t be “really just allergies". You could have one or the other or both but one can't be the other.

            The lecture was on the chapter on Health and Well-Being from Dale Belanger’s Ways of Knowing.

            It begins with the case of Jordan Rivers Anderson from Norway House, Manitoba. He was born with a rare muscular disorder and was in hospitals from birth. He was transferred to Winnipeg for treatment. Doctors said he should be in a special foster care home near Norway House but the federal and provincial governments squabbled with one another over who was going to pay for Jordan’s treatment and transportation. He died two years later in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of five. His health care would have been paid for if he’d been white or off reserve. In 2017 the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal issued a ruling called Jordan’s Principle that states that whether provincial or federal, whichever health service is approached first by an Indigenous person must provide them with care. One service can work out reimbursement from the other after the treatment if such issues arise.

            Trudeau’s turned Indigenous Affairs into two separate services. Indigenous Services now covers health and had approved over 19,700 Jordan’s Principle cases by the end of the 2017-2018 fiscal year.

            Indigenous people in Canada are denied basic health care.

            My research: The infant mortality rate on reserves is double the national average.

            Life expectancy fifteen years shorter among Inuit.

            Suicide rates among aboriginal youth are eleven times higher than the national average.

            In some communities the suicide rate of youth under fifteen is fifty times higher.

            TB occurs forty times more often on reserves.

            Harper’s government closed or cut funding for ten aboriginal health research groups. 

            The health inequality between Indigenous and white people is greater in Canada than in the United States.

            As far as I have been able to uncover, health care is only free for US aboriginals at special Indian Health Service facilities, which don’t always exist in urban areas. 

            There are assumptions on the part of health care workers that a sick Indigenous person is an addict.

            He says food is twice as expensive in Canada and of poor quality.

            The expensive part is probably true but Canadian food tends to be of a higher quality than in the States. The Canadian nutritional guidelines are better and Canadians tend to make better choices. You have a better chance of eating hormone free meat in a Canadian restaurant and there are stricter rules about food ingredients in general here. I think White prefers junk food like chips and pop and those kinds of food do taste better in the States because there’s more unhealthy junk in them.

            Campuses are opening food pantries.

            Diabetes among Indigenous people has been epidemic for almost a hundred years.

            A 2016 study showed that the lifetime risk of diabetes among male first nations in Alberta is 20% higher than non-First Nations for men and 40% higher for women. This means that eight out of ten First Nations people will get diabetes in their life compared to five out of ten non First Nations people.

            17.2% of First Nations people on reserves have type-two diabetes. Diabetes prevalence is three to five times higher than the general population. First Nations tend to be affected by diabetes in middle age while for the general population it is a disease of the elderly. Since First Nations women get diabetes during reproductive age there is a greater chance of giving birth to children with diabetes.

            But diabetes is only 2% higher in BC. It’s twice as high in Alberta but among the James Bay Cree it’s 14% higher.

            In 1940 diabetes was rare among the aboriginal population of North America. It began to increase rapidly in 1950 and is now epidemic.

            He said there was a raid on Tyendinaga last night.

            He said Wet’suwet’en was also raided again this morning but I think he’s talking about a rail blockade in Northern BC in support of Wet’suwet’en where fourteen people were arrested.

            There are vigilantes calling for violence against peaceful protestors. I think he means there are right wing groups on social media calling for vigilante attacks on protestors. They aren’t really vigilantes if their actions only exist in comment sections.

            Everybody thinks that Indigenous people cannot be social drinkers.

            Indigenous people do not metabolize alcohol differently than white people and they don’t have a higher prevalence of known risk genes. The reasons for more incidences of alcoholism among Indigenous people are related to poverty and trauma.

            Most accept that European diseases killed off 85% of the Indigenous population.

            By the late 1500s the Spanish had brought diseases that spread north before the French, Dutch and English arrived. The diseases affected the densely populated areas of Mesoamerica more than the nomadic tribes of the north because they would only wipe out small groups that were isolated from one another.

            The coronavirus is changing.

            The coronavirus can morph quickly from mild to deadly.

            Weaponized smallpox in blankets.

            During Pontiac’s uprising in 1763 Fort Pitt was being besieged. Among the settlers taking shelter in the fort smallpox had broken out. When two chiefs came to the fort to negotiate peace they were given two blankets and a handkerchief from the smallpox hospital.

            Indigenous people helped Europeans with scurvy.

            What has caused diabetes among Indigenous people? Indigenous people lack the enzymes to break down flour, sugar, lactose and white rice. Traditional food sources were wiped out, reserve life caused health problems, and ceremonies were suppressed.

            Obesity is high among Indigenous people in the States.

            Obesity rates among First Nations of Canada tend to be higher on reserve than off except in Alberta where they are either the same or lower. The average obesity rate among Indigenous people in Canada is about 18% higher than non-Indigenous people.

            In the States the Indigenous obesity rate 30% higher among adolescents and 50% higher among adults.

            Healthy food is expensive.

            There is a scientific basis for Indigenous medicine.

            Aspirin comes from willow bark. Indigenous people used it but so did Europeans before contact.

            He spent a lot of the lecture talking about what he likes to eat and how he’s unhealthy because he’s fat.

            The oldest living people maintained a garden. It provides healthy food and good exercise.

            He says white corn digests more slowly and is healthier than sweet corn. In general the only difference is pigment, but yellow corn has more beta-carotene, which turns into vitamin A during digestion. Sweet corn is also an antioxidant. He claims sweet corn has no nutritional value. He’s full of shit. Sweet corn is rich in vitamins and nutrients.

            We are disconnected from our food.

            He talks about not having a microwave and that so much supermarket food is for the microwave. I tell him that one can cook all microwavable food without the microwave.

            There is always food at Indigenous gatherings but also dancing.

            He says the recommended eating times in North America are unnatural.

            He talks more about the food he likes like fiddleheads and bacon wrapped asparagus.

            He related arguments he has with his dietician.

            A Tim Hortons large double double has six teaspoons of sugar.

            Western medicine seeks to cure rather than heal. Healing tries to get to the root of the problem. The question is does it really get there or does it think it gets there?

            The student who sits directly behind me said that doctors stopped treating arthritis with diet because it was so difficult to get people to change their eating habits.

            There’s a pill for everything.

            Indigenous communities accept the mystery of things while western culture attempts to solve everything.

            Health problems can arise from troubled relationships. People panic because they haven’t received a quick response on social media. We are distanced from one another in the modern world. That doesn’t explain why people are healthier now than they used to be.

            He asks how we interpret dreams. What if you dream someone is chasing you? It means you wish to stay ahead and to have your problems behind you.

            Poison ivy is spread by mowing. The treatment for poison ivy is calamine lotion. Someone showed him a plant that treats poison ivy. But he couldn’t find the plant later. He says it was only after he asked permission, offered tobacco and gave thanks that the plant revealed itself to him. The plant was playing hard to get. I rolled my eyes so hard it caused an earthquake. He’s talking about witch hazel, which if you know what it looks like and where it grows you can find it without any hocus-pocus. It can’t make itself invisible to avoid you because you are ungrateful.

            If you are healed you become part of the community of healing.

            If you take too much you disrupt the balance of things.

            Chicken pox was deadly at the time of first contact. He says chicken pox came from chickens but there is no evidence of that. The name probably derived from “Itching pox”.

            Diseases that can cross species include the bird flu, Lyme disease, AIDS, SARS, swine flu and rabies.

            The student four rows back with the tattoos in her hands claimed TB comes from slaughterhouses. Studies show that the original form appeared in cattle about 40,000 years ago and jumped to people that domesticated cattle in the Horn of Africa about 10,000 years later.

            He claims Indigenous people did not domesticate animals. The Aztecs and Mayans domesticated turkeys, ducks and dogs for food. The Incas domesticated llamas, alpacas and guinea pigs.

            People plant corn too close and use GMOs. Some GMOs are to resist pesticides.

            They are planning to dump sewage in the St Lawrence near Montreal. They dumped it in the late fall of 2018. Studies showed that not dumping it would be worse until they fix their sewage treatment facilities. Studies also say that it will not harm the fish population. They are pumping it deep in the river where it is too cold to breed bacteria.

            He says most pipelines run through Indigenous communities. I can’t find any confirmation that’s true.

            Las Vegas is powered by coal mined on and pumped from Indigenous land.

            Treaties are more important than the US Constitution. I think the exact wording is that treaties are the supreme law of the land but they probably didn’t mean treaties with Indigenous nations when they said that.

            Canada’s raids on Wet’suwet’en and Tyendinaga are in violation of UNDRIP.

            Somebody drove through a blockade but they were not charged.
            If this is the guy that drove through in Regina, it does not seem to have been a vigilante action. He saw a gap between protesters and started through. When protesters surrounded his car he got scared because his son was with him in the car and he just went through. No one was injured.

            If it’s the situation when the truck driver slightly injured a protestor in Manitoba, there may be charges after an investigation.

            The Mohawk maintaining blockades call themselves “Land protectors”.

            The tattooed student asked if it’s correct to say “Mohawk”. The Mohicans called the Kanien’keha:ka “Maw Unk Lin” but the Dutch heard it as Mohawk. White says it’s okay to say Mohawk.

            I would add every language has a different name for the people of other nations that they’ve associated with for a long time. The Germans for example don’t call themselves Germans.

            Life expectancy of Indigenous people in the United States is four years less than the national average. In Canada it’s a little over five years less. But the studies weren’t done in the same way.

            He talked more about his diet, his diabetes and his cravings.

            The tattooed student mentioned Indigenous women being water protectors. This renewal of an Indigenous tradition came out of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and spread throughout North America to the locations of other disputes.

            She said that she reports people for racist comments on social media all the time.

            A student further back says he was censored on Twitter and Instagram.

            White said some Indigenous people were censored on Twitter for quoting the term, “Merciless Indian Savages” as it was used in the Declaration of Independence. 

            On Saturday February 21 in the town of Seneca Falls, New York, tribal law enforcement officers acting on the orders of Cayuga First Nation leader Clint Halftown came in with guns drawn and bulldozed a daycare centre, a store, a school and several other buildings controlled by tribe members led by clan mothers that oppose his leadership on the reserve. The properties that were destroyed were occupied four years ago by the clan mothers group. Halftown is the federally recognized leader but the Great Law states that clan mothers have the power to select or remove chiefs. Halftown inherited leadership after the death of the previous chief in 2004 but clan mothers selected their own chiefs and claimed Halftown was stripped of power. When those opposed to Halftown’s leadership tried to vote him out in 2005 the Bureau of Indian Affairs said not enough people voted and so he stayed in power.

            There were only five students in tutorial.

            I complained that the course should be pointing out the difference between Indigenous health care and regular health care. Safia seems to think it would take an entire course to do that. But I found that Indigenous people use provincial health care but can also access a plan for prescription drugs through the federal government. It only gets complicated for conditions or health needs not covered by provincial plans.

            Safia said that because of limited time we would only get five minutes each for our media presentations and so we were not to read our entire papers.

            The WHO recognizes colonization as a cause of Indigenous health problems such as low life expectancy, diabetes and heart disease. These health problems would not exist if they could still be hunter-gatherers.

            In the 2011 census 28.9% of Indigenous people had no secondary school compared to 12.1 non-Indigenous. My research shows that the percentage of Indigenous people with high school diplomas is almost the same as non-Aboriginal people. About half of Indigenous people between 25 and 64 had postsecondary qualification. 14,4% had trade certificates, 20.3% had a college diploma and 26.5% had a university degree.

            Housing for the James Bay Cree in Attawapiskat First Nation is like that of a third world country. They have to live in trailers with holes in them. 85% of homes have been officially declared unfit for human habitation. By contrast the Cree on the Quebec side are thriving. 

            Safia said her first jobs in Canada involved telephone work. She worked for the Liberal party asking people whom they were voting for. She also asked people their annual income and one Indigenous man said he made $3000 a year.

            A little over half of Indigenous people off reserve are employed.

            The death rates of Indigenous children from unintentional injuries are three to four times higher.

            Suicide rates for First Nations are five to seven times higher. It’s actually three times higher.

            Suicide rates for Inuit youth are eleven times higher than the national average.

            The Medicine Chest Clause was only in Treaty Six.

            Healing ceremonies were barred.

            Self-determination is the key.

            An environmental group claims De Beers failed to report mercury poisoning in water from their mine.

            I volunteered to go first in our media presentations. I told Safia I have training in public speaking from having been a panhandler. She asked if the cops ever arrested me. I said they couldn’t arrest me for begging and so they planted drugs on me. She said, “Now you know what the cops are like!” I responded, “Now I know? I’ve known for a long time!”

            I stopped at Freshco on my way home where I bought a bag of cherries, four bags of grapes, a pint of strawberries, and a carton of soymilk.

            I had a late lunch of cold pork souvlaki and yogourt.

            I took an hour-long siesta.

            I worked on typing my lecture notes.

            I grilled four chicken legs and had one for dinner with a potato and gravy while watching the second made-for-TV Zorro movie of 1961.

            This story begins with Cuchillo and his men trying to stage another nighttime robbery in Los Angeles but Zorro foils them again. The next day Diego goes to the tavern where he sits with Cuchillo, who begins sketching him. He draws Diego in Zorro’s mask and hat. Bernardo “accidentally” ruins the drawing with food before anyone can see it. He also accidentally gets food in the face of one of Cuchillo’s men, who wants satisfaction. Diego says he is responsible for Bernardo and so he fights and beats the man. Later Cuchillo and his men rob the tavern and ride out of town. Garcia and his men give chase but Cuchillo and his men double back to Los Angeles where they try again to steal but Zorro stops them and duels with Cuchillo until the soldiers come. Later Cuchillo and his men occupy the home of Diego and his father. Cuchillo says that either Diego or Alejandro has to remain in a chair at all times as insurance. Garcia comes to tell Diego that the ship from Boston has arrived with the money for the hides. Cuchillo has Diego and Alejandro tied up and leaves Chato to guard them as he leaves with his men to steal the money. He tells Chato that when he hears his gunshot he can kill them both. The shot is fired but as Chato prepares to kill them Bernardo rattles the door of the secret passage. As Chato investigates Bernardo pulls him through and knocks him out. Diego and his father are freed and Zorro goes after Cuchillo. The wagon carrying the money is stolen but Zorro gets it back and drives it to Los Angeles. Cuchillo follows and they duel again. Cuchillo is knocked out by a falling ladder. The next day Cuchillo’s men are all sent ahead to Mexico so Cuchillo can’t lead them. Cuchillo is then escorted on horseback with his hands tied behind him. Chulita exits the tavern and Don Alejandro goes to console her. She says, “Pardon me but I must not be late” and then she goes to stand in the middle of the street. Alejandro is puzzled since there is no stage due. Suddenly Cuchillo, with his hand free comes riding up and sweeps her onto his horse. Later as Cuchillo and Chulita are riding along Zorro drops a rope around both of them. He leads them to a shrine where a priest is standing with an open Bible. Zorro says, “A married man does not have time to be a bandito.” Cuchillo says, “This is not what I had in mind!” Then he gives up and kisses Chulita.

            Chulita was played by Rita Moreno, who is one of the few performers to have won an Oscar (for West Side Story), an Emmy (for The Muppet Show and The Rockford Files), a Tony (for The Ritz) and a Grammy for The Electric Company Album). She said Marlon Brando was a better lover than Elvis. I could have guessed that.  

            

February 25, 1990

Thirty years ago today

            Nancy went to work and I didn’t go out at all. I did some work on the photocopy of my collage. I was wondering if I could get a lighter copy made. I spent the day from about 10:30 on cleaning the whole place including the bathroom and the floor.

            I sewed my old blue jeans but my sewing didn’t turn out very well.

            When Nancy came back she said it felt like the coldest day of the year.

            She scrubbed the shower walls.

            Just before midnight I was reading out loud to Nancy when the guy in the next apartment came hammering on my door and calling me names.

February 24, 1990

Thirty years ago today

            I had a nice 69 with Nancy in the morning.

            I went downtown to get copies made of my second collage. The coloured ones needed to be slightly reduced in order to fit the paper but they looked spectacular. The colour was richer than the original. The black and white copy was disappointing because it was too dark in the lightest parts.

            I had to wait until 18:00 to pick up some film and that was an hour away and so I went to the Bamboo Club for a beer. I was sitting and perusing my collages when the person at the table next to mine told me they looked fantastic. He said it was very similar to some of the popular stuff being done at the time by some Japanese commercial artists. On the way home that evening I stopped at the Squeeze Club and I got a similar reaction from someone else.

Unspiked!

            On Sunday I started working out the chords for “Zig-Zag Avec Toi” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I took a shower around midday and afterwards I sat down to have a look at the puncture wound on my foot. As I ran my finger over the hole made by that finger-sized piece of wood two weeks before I felt something solid. It was too hard to be a piece of dried skin. I pressed around it and saw that with pressure it protruded a little more and then went back inside when I let go. I pressed again a few more times until I could finally get a grip and I pulled out a sharp piece of wood about the length of the span between my first finger joint and the tip. It must have been the sharp end of the larger piece of wood that I’d pulled out two weeks before. I finally realized that I’d been limping all this time because I’d been continuously walking on a spike of hardwood. After I pulled it out I was barely limping at all. Obviously there’s still a puncture wound there but now there’s nothing to prevent it from healing.

            It’s so much easier to walk now but I’ve gotten so used to limping that I still expect it to hurt every time I step on my foot.

            I had a pastrami and old cheddar sandwich with mustard for lunch. Why are the Italians so good at preparing meat?

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story continues from when Sapphire left Kingfish and went to Florida with her mother before Christmas. Kingfish sees a picture in the society column of Sapphire and her mother having dinner in Florida with a wealthy man named Smithers. The caption says that wedding bells are in the future and Kingfish automatically thinks that Sapphire is going to marry Smithers. The reality is that it’s Sapphire’s mother who is engaged. Kingfish takes his first plane ride to get to Florida only to find that Sapphire has gone back to New York where the wedding is to be held. Desperate to stop the ceremony Kingfish goes with Andy to Smithers’s hotel room on the night before the wedding. They pose as two police detectives and warn Smithers that he is about to marry a notorious husband strangler. Smithers is convinced and decides to call the wedding off. Sapphire had planned on going back to Kingfish after the wedding because her wealthy stepfather to be would have taken care of the whole family. When Sapphire finds out that Kingfish broke up her mother’s wedding she says she’s never coming back to him.

            I did some more research into the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. It seems three female chiefs that formed an organization called the Wet’suwet’en Matriarchal Coalition were stripped of their titles for supporting the pipeline. Apparently there has been a power shift among the hereditary over the last eighteen years and they only recently declared themselves against the pipeline after new chiefs assumed power.

            I made a naan pizza with sauce, salsa and the last of the Black Diamond cheddar. I had it for dinner while watching the first of the 1961 Zorro movies.

            In this story a gang of banditos from Mexico led by a vulgar but suave and somewhat noble scoundrel named El Cuchillo comes to Los Angeles. Cuchillo tells his men not to do any petty theft while they are there because he is holding out to intercept big deals. He buys a drink for Sgt Garcia and Diego and learns that Garcia will be transporting silver house wares. That night the masked bandits ambush Garcia and his men en route and tie them up. But Zorro arrives to free the soldiers and gradually incapacitates every bandit but Cuchillo. Zorro tells Cuchillo that as a stranger he is entitled to one warning and then he slices a Z into Cuchillo's vest. They duel but then Garcia and the soldiers arrive Zorro and Cuchillo separate, promising to finish their duel later. The next day Cuchillo learns from Garcia’s big mouth that a valuable collection of hides from the various ranchers is accumulating in Los Angeles and waiting to be shipped out. Meanwhile Cuchillo has struck up a romance with Chulita the local barmaid. Diego tells Cuchillo that he would like to repay him for the drink and Cuchillo says that he will be repaying him soon. That night Cuchillo shows up at Diego’s house with some of his men and with Chulita. He tells Diego he is taking him up on his offer for a drink, Chulita dances for everyone but it turns out that it was all a distraction so that the rest of Cuchillo’s bandits could go into Los Angeles, free his men from jail and steal the hides. Later Zorro catches up with Cuchillo again and they duel. Zorro wins but Cuchillo’s men return and so Zorro leaves. Cuchillo’s man Chato tries to shoot Zorro as he’s riding away but Cuchillo stops him and says a Cuchillo does not shoot a man in the back.

Candy Samples

            I stayed up after midnight because I was collecting pictures of porn star Candy Samples, who I found out had died five months ago.

            The first name that Candy Samples used professionally was Mary Gavin. She was already in her thirties when she moved from Nebraska to California with her son. Her husband had died in a car accident and she was a single mom on welfare. One day in Marina Del Rey a photographer approached her and she got her first work as a nude model. She was 42 when she did her first porn film and 44 when she appeared in Flesh Gordon. After working with Russ Meyer in Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens she was a full-fledged porn star in her early 50s.

I thought it was only going to cut a little bit into my sleep but I should have realized there would be lots of pictures of her. I ended up going to bed after 3:30. I didn’t go to sleep right away and ended up getting less than one hour of sleep before getting up at 5:00.

            I wasn’t limping as much this morning.

            I finished memorizing “Zig Zig Avec Toi”  (Zig Zig With You) by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I was getting pretty tired in the late morning and so I couldn’t concentrate on my essay. To keep myself awake I decided to go to the supermarket a little earlier than usual. My neighbours Benji and Shankar were in the hall chatting as I was leaving. They mentioned that yesterday was the annual Shivaratri festival. It’s a celebration of the wedding night of Siva and Parvati. I only participated in one Shivaratri when I was living at the ashram in 1975. As I recall we stayed up all night fasting and when it was over there was a big feast of mostly Indian sweets. I know my landlord is a worshipper of Siva. He was downstairs as we were speaking hammering away to complete the renovations of the commercial space where Popeyes is supposedly moving in.

            At No Frills I bought six bags of black sable grapes, a pack of three chicken legs that were on sale for $2.10, mouthwash, a pack of stainless steel wool, a carton of soy milk and a container of Greek yogourt.

            After bringing my groceries home I went out to the liquor store to buy a six-pack of Creemore. I paid by debit.

            I had a pastrami and old cheddar sandwich for lunch and it was quite delicious.

            I took a much-needed siesta at 14:00 and got up at 15:45.

            I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This was their annual Christmas show and the script tends to be pretty much the same every year. Andy goes window-shopping with Amos’s daughter Arbadilla and she shows him a big talking doll that she wants but her father tells her she wrote too late to Santa for it. This means that Amos can’t afford the doll. Inexplicably Andy is broke for this story as usual even though earlier in the year he inherited a small fortune that would be the 1950 equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars. Since it’s the same story every year with the same doll I guess it exists outside of real time. As usual Andy is upset about not being able to give Arbadilla what she wants from Santa Clause. He gets a job as a department store Santa Clause. His dialogues with the kids on his knee are only slightly altered from previous years. One boy says he hates school and refuses to try to do well but Andy tells him he’ll get what he wanted for Christmas if he tries harder. He wants a Hop Along Cassidy hat, a Hop Along Cassidy costume and a Hop Along Cassidy gun. Andy says Hop Along Cassidy must be his favourite cowboy but the kid says it’s Roy Rogers. A little girl says she’s already sent her list to Santa but just came to sit on Santa’s lap to wish him a merry Christmas. When Andy says he doesn’t have a little girl like her she gives him a hug and a kiss. A tough kid challenges Andy to name all the reindeer but he has to make up some of the names. He gives him a list of what he wants but Andy says he would probably get some but not all of it. The little boy threatens to punch him in front of all the other kids and so Andy says he’ll get everything he wants after all. The last kid says he wants a baby sister but Andy is too embarrassed to explain how he would get one. So as usual Andy gets the doll for his payment and brings it to Amos’s place for Arbadilla along with lots of other presents for Amos’s family. The final part of the story always involves Amos tucking Arbadilla in and explaining the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer to her before Christmas music closes the show.

            I worked on my reflection paper, condensing and simplifying the two anti-pipeline Maclean’s Magazine opinion pieces into their essential arguments.

            I made pizza with a loaf of naan. I spread it with some Hunt’s Thick and Rich (like Donald Trump) pasta sauce and some leftover salsa. I covered it with slices of Black Diamond cheddar, baked it for about fifteen minutes and had it with a beer while watching the last episode of the second season of Zorro.

            This story begins with a wealthy young woman named Cellesta Villagrana travelling along the highway by wagon with her servant Montez as the driver. Suddenly their way is blocked by a hooded highwayman. Montez pulls his pistol but the robber fires first and the scene goes black. Shortly after this Bernardo is riding along the same route when he sees something shining in the bushes. He dismounts and finds a brooch, which he finds attractive and so wraps it in his handkerchief and puts it in his pocket. Then he sees just off the rode the overturned carriage and hears the moaning of Cellesta. She is still unconscious and so he begins to carry her. Suddenly however she becomes conscious and thinks that Bernardo is the highwayman trying to carry her off. She struggles and runs away just as Sergeant Garcia and Corporal Reyes come riding up. Cellesta accuses Bernardo of robbing her and so Garcia has not choice but to arrest him. Diego convinces Cellesta that Bernardo could not have been the robber and so she asks Garcia to release him. However when Bernardo pulls out his handkerchief to wipe his brow the brooch falls out. Cellesta asks for Garcia to arrest Bernardo again. To make matters worse Montez shows up alive with his arm in a cast and insists he saw the face of the highwayman. Instead of telling Montez to describe the attacker Garcia stupidly asks if he was a little man with a bald head and of course Montez confirms that he was. Diego insists that Montez pick out the attacker in a line-up. Six other short bald men are selected and lined up in the tavern with Montez kept out of the room. But one of the men in the room is Lopez, Montez’s accomplice. Lopez sees Bernardo escorted into the room and placed in the middle and so when Montez is brought into the room Lopez holds up four fingers so Montez knows that Bernardo is the fourth man from either end. He declares that Bernardo was the highwayman. Both Diego and Alejandro saw Lopez give the signal but could not prove it. Later Zorro comes to the tavern where Lopez and Montez are drinking and discussing a plan to stay in town until after Bernardo has been hung because to leave might arouse suspicion. Zorro is watching them from the storage room behind the bar. Garcia and Reyes are also at a table and they see Zorro. They go to the storage room to catch Zorro but the vigilante locks them in the room. Then Zorro draws his sword and confronts Lopez and Montez. Lopez insists he does not know anything about the robbery but then Zorro slices open Lopez’s coat and Cellesta’s bag of money falls to the floor. Lopez attacks Zorro and they duel. Montez tries to help Lopez but Zorro throws a knife and nails his sleeve to the wall. Zorro defeats Lopez but Montez pulls his fake cast off and grabs the knife from the wall. Garcia has been watching from a small window in the storage room door. He shouts a warning just as Montez throws the knife and Zorro is able to stop the projectile with a stool. Zorro catches Montez and brings him to the storage room door. Garcia reaches his arm through the window and hooks it around Montez’s neck, squeezing until he confesses.

            This was the last season of Zorro as an official TV series but there were four made-for-TV movies with the same characters the following year that is thought of as a third season.

February 23, 1990

Thirty years ago today

            In the morning I couldn’t find a sweater I was looking for and so I tore everything out of the closet.

            I worked with Norm all day.

            On the way home I shopped for gel, deodorant and groceries.

            When Nancy came home I found out that she had worn my sweater. She also said she had to take the electric typewriter back to her sister. I found that interesting because two days before that Ibrahim had taken his stereo and so it felt like the gods of technology were abandoning me.

            I went for dinner at what turned out to be a Yugoslavian restaurant. It was strange because unlike most ethnic restaurants that want to share their cuisine with the rest of Toronto this was a Yugoslavian restaurant for Yugoslavians. Even the waitress couldn’t speak English. I had some bland fish.

Zig-Zag

            On Friday morning at the end of the second week since the bottom of my foot was punctured by that piece of wood, my foot hurt almost as much as it did the day of the accident and my limp was more pronounced. The black spot where the puncture occurred has shrunk but my foot is still slightly swollen. They say a deep wound can take several weeks to heal.

            That morning I finished posting my translation of “Eva” by Serge Gainsbourg and began memorizing his “Zig Zig Avec Toi” (Zig Zig With You). He seems to be playing with the “zig” from "zig heil" and the expression "zig zag" and perhaps he’s also making fun of the zig zag shape of the swastika. I remember that all the years my father smoked until suddenly quitting before I became a teenager, he always rolled his own from Zig-Zag brand tobacco with Vogue papers

            I had two chicken hot dogs for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story continues from the previous one in which Sapphire left Kingfish for good. She’s been staying with her mother at her house in Brooklyn but Kingfish does not know that they are planning to vacation in Florida and to rent out the house while they are gone. Sapphire’s mother has bought her daughter new dresses and has told her to burn the old ones in the furnace in the basement. They rent the house to a man who takes Sapphire's bedroom as his. Kingfish misses Sapphire and decides to go to Brooklyn to plead with her. He and Andy climb up a ladder to Sapphire’s bedroom but find the room is full of a man’s things. When the man comes home they hide in the bathtub but he reaches in and turns on the hot water. They break the window and fall to the ground. Later they discover the remains of Sapphire's burnt dresses beside the furnace. The man is building flower boxes in the basement but all they know is that he’s building boxes, which they think are coffins. They conclude that he has killed Sapphire and her mother.

            I worked some more on my reflection paper:

The parallels between the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and the hereditary chief of the nation of Canada are not as solid in relation to the land. While Indigenous hereditary leadership is intrinsically tied to a territory, Canada's hereditary chief is the symbolic caretaker of so much land that it would be impossible for her to have a deep connection with it all. To be fair, if the Wet’suwet’en leaders had control over one sixth of the planet’s surface they probably would be less concerned about 190 kilometres of pipeline in the arm pit of Canada.          

But despite there being no documented official spiritual connection to the land on the part of Canada’s hereditary chiefs, the two future Canadian hereditary chiefs, Charles and William, are both very outspoken and active on environmental issues. If they were allowed to take sides they might indeed side with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs on the issue of the pipeline, as does the mainstream media.

The two Macleans Magazine opinion pieces and the twelve CBC articles that resulted from a Google search of “Wet’suwet’en” were all very supportive of the anti-pipeline protests.  They all mention gratuitously as a passing attempt at balance that twenty elected band councils signed benefits agreements.  But both Macleans and the CBC seemed to deliberately avoid publishing quotes from Indigenous leaders that are opposed to the protests. Only one news source featured such opposing views from Indigenous leaders and I was refreshingly surprised to discover that it was APTN.

Kathleen Martens of APTN gave very balanced coverage of the Wet'suwet'en pipeline protests by giving voice to all Indigenous sides of the debate and not just that of those opposing the pipeline. She even quoted Dale Swampy, president of the National Coalition of Chiefs saying that poor Native people on the streets of Vancouver and Calgary are being offered hundreds of dollars to protest against the pipeline in order to counterbalance the fact that the majority of protestors are white. This is a claim that no one else has repeated and which does not seem to have surfaced anywhere else. As a former street person I can confirm that the homeless could be paid to protest but it would be impossible to pay them to shut up about it afterwards. The fact that only Swampy is repeating a claim that would be common knowledge if true strongly suggests that it is merely a conspiracy theory.

Later in the day my limp wasn’t as bad until I stepped on a crack in the floorboards and pinched the wound.

I cooked the six pork souvlakis that I’d bought recently. I also fixed the too thick gravy that I’d made the night before by adding some chicken broth. I had two of the souvlaki for dinner with a potato and gravy while watching Zorro.

In this story a merchant returning to Los Angeles discovers a Chinese man stowed away in his wagon. The man speaks no English and so he cannot communicate his circumstances. Through sign language Bernardo is able to discern that the man escaped from a ship. Sgt Garcia is confused because there are no Chinese people in Los Angeles. He is forced to place the man in jail. The man has written a page of text in Chinese and so Diego attempts to get it translated. It turns out that a friar from a nearby mission is able to read some Chinese although it has been years since he has tried. Meanwhile a sea captain named Vinson arrives claiming that the Chinese man is an escaped murderer. Garcia releases his prisoner into the captain’s custody just as Diego discovers that the man is actually a Chinese prince named Chiu Chang who had been kidnapped for ransom. Zorro intercepts the captain in the mountains and in the midst of a fight the captain falls to his death. Chiu Chang is shipped back to Shanghai in style.

Chiu Chang was played by the great character actor James Hong, who auditioned for the role of Sulu in Star Trek but lost to George Takei.

But how could they know Chiu Chang was a prince just because he wrote it on a piece of paper?