big, fat neon buddha shines on

Rockers give famed club sign to museum

Smilin' Buddha prime example of neon heyday

The Vancouver Sun

Friday, October 19, 2007

By John Mackie

Vancouver rockers 54-40 drew their name from a historical slogan, "54-40 or fight." Now they're making a bit of history themselves by donating one of Vancouver's landmark neon signs to the Vancouver Museum.

The sign is for the Smilin' Buddha Cabaret, a legendary dive on East Hastings where Jimi Hendrix played in the 1960s and 54-40 played their first gig on Dec. 31, 1980.

The sign was a civic icon for several decades, featuring a big, fat neon Buddha with a rippling belly reclining atop Smilin' Buddha (in script) and Cabaret (in oriental lettering). In a city that was once full of playful, imaginative commercial neon signs, it was one of the best.

The Buddha closed in 1987, and 54-40 purchased the sign a few years later from a guy who had bought it and stored it in a warehouse. They then used it as the title for an album, and took it on tour.

The band lent it to the Vancouver Museum for a neon show a couple of years ago, but the sign has mostly been in storage. So the band decided to donate it.

"We essentially consider ourselves stewards of the sign, never really owners," says bassist Brad Merritt, who will appear with 54-40 tonight and Saturday at the Commodore Ballroom.

"We happened to buy it and fix it up and get a case for it and all that stuff, but we were struck by the fact that it's a historical landmark. It meant a lot to me, personally. I heard my parents talk about the place, taking their little brown bags of booze [when it was a speakeasy bottle club] and sticking them in a little spot in the table as the cops go by . . . it was just an amazing place, part of Vancouver's lore."

The sign is at the Vancouver Museum being fixed up for an official unveiling in January or February.

That means it won't be with the band at the Commodore, which has long been the band's favourite local venue. Last year, they released a live DVD, This is Here, This is Now, of a Commodore show.

"We could play anywhere, but a couple of nights there is the most fun," says Merritt.

"It's a giant love-in. What shocks me is that when I turn around and look at the band, everyone in the band is just smiling away. The crowd loves it and we love them: it's an amazing thing. A celebration."

The quartet may play some songs from a new album they've been recording which should be available next March. Part of the album was recorded at the Chapel, a converted funeral home at Dunlevy and Cordova in the Downtown Eastside.

"In the parlour part, where they had the showings and the service," Merritt says.

Did they run into any ghosts?

"Well, I don't believe in spectres or ghosts or gnomes or any of that stuff, but it definitely had a vibe," he says.

"We had a lot of fun down there. I think our experience down there will somehow be evident in the sound of the record."

The band has cut back somewhat on the heavy touring of their youth.

"If we do 60, that's a big year for us," says Merritt, 47.

"We used to easily do more than double that, 140, 150 shows a year. We could go out there and slog more, but there's no point."

He laughs. "We're a bit more high-end now. But that's okay. You have to be conscious of your physical and mental health. When you're 22, it doesn't matter so much."

How do they fill in the rest of the year? Guitarists Neil Osborne and Dave Genn do a lot of producing, while drummer Matt Johnson DJs one night a week in Victoria and plays in a band on Saltspring Island with Tom Hooper of Grapes of Wrath fame and Tally Bachman. Merritt has an Internet business selling coffee cosies for Bodum coffee makers (www.decentcoffee.com).

But don't expect 54-40 to pack it in any time soon.

"I always say when the Rolling Stones quit, that's our 20-year warning," says Merritt.

"'Okay guys, the Stones have packed it in, we've only got 20 years left.'"

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Canucks polite, Vancouverites more so than most, mag finds

Vancouver outshone only by Moncton

The Vancouver Province

Friday, October 19, 2007

By Ian Austin

Thank you very much, Reader's Digest.

The magazine sent undercover reporters to 15 cities across Canada, and they determined that Vancouver is the second-most polite city in Canada.

If we weren't so polite, we might say that top-ranked Moncton, N.B., with just 120,000 souls, can barely be called a city.

So The Province went out at what should be a most impolite time of day -- afternoon rush hour in a deluge -- to see if the magazine knows whereof it speaks.

At the geographic centre of downtown Vancouver, Georgia and Granville, passengers queued politely for buses to the suburbs while motorists queued patiently, except for the occasional horn, to make their way to the Lions Gate Bridge.

"Vancouver is very polite compared to other cities I've been to around the world," said Leigh Gittings, an executive assistant who hails from Australia's Gold Coast.

Gittings was waiting for a bus to her home in West Vancouver, what she called "a very polite city," where she has found "a Canadian boyfriend."

Nellie Bugden, a transplanted Newfoundlander who lives in White Rock, travelled in by bus and was headed to the Sunshine Coast to visit her granddaughter.

"People give me a spot on the bus," said Bugden, a spry 67, who wasn't surprised that Moncton won the grand prize for politeness.

"If you ask someone in the Maritimes for directions, they'll probably say, 'I just live around the corner. Why don't you come 'round for a cup of tea.'"

Bugden added: "If you're nice to people, they'll be polite to you."

The magazine measured a city's politeness by observing the percentage of people who held doors open, how often store clerks thanked a purchaser of a small item and how often people helped pick up a folder of papers deliberately dropped by a reporter.

At 700 West Georgia, The Province noted a flurry of elevators and glass doors being held open.

Bike courier Jenn Jefferys said if someone holds an elevator or a door open, it makes her day.

"Some stuff is common courtesy -- I hold doors for people, hold elevators for people," she said.

"When people hold the elevator, or receptionists say 'thank you,' that lets you know they appreciate what you're doing."

Mario Trejier, owner of Mario's Coffee Express on Howe Street, gets a broad cross-section of customers.

"I have the opportunity of dealing with people from all around the world, with students from all over the world," said Trejier, who immigrated to Canada from Argentina in 1989.

"Canadians are the most polite by far, but the British are very polite, too. A lot of the students from other countries say to me, 'People are very polite here.'"

Trejier, who admits to being a bit of a neat freak, is also impressed by the cleanliness of Vancouverites.

"People will carry a piece of paper around looking for a garbage can," said Trejier.

"Even during the garbage strike, this was a very clean city."

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public safety: a real buzz kill

West Coast drug jokes aside, BC Ferries has to take action

The Vancouver Sun

Thursday, October 18, 2007

By Vaughn Palmer, Sun Provincial Affairs Columnist

VICTORIA --The statement from the National Transportation Safety Board seemed to confirm the worst stereotypes about the drug-addled West Coast.

"There is strong evidence of regular use of cannabis by crews on board the Queen of the North," the board said Wednesday in an official statement of concern.

"The investigation revealed that the Queen of the North crew members who were regularly using cannabis showed insufficient awareness of its impact on fitness for duty."

Insufficient awareness? Isn't that the whole point of consuming Mother Nature's giggle weed? Regular users seek to lower their awareness of any number of pesky realities.

The jokes, needless to say, were not long in coming.

"Welcome aboard the Queen of Mary Jane. Be sure to visit our gift shop, selling Zig Zag papers and copies of High Times magazine, or relax in our Acapulco gold lounge, with your own individual hookah. Three sheets to the wind or eight miles high? The choice is yours."

By the time BC Ferries president David Hahn responded to the safety board, reporters were swapping Cheech and Chong routines and hoping that Hahn could be lured into a reenactment of that comedy duo's most notorious routine.

Hahn: "It's Dave. I'm here to comment." Media: "Dave's not here." Hahn: "No, I'm Dave." Media: "Dave's not here." And so on.

Cheap laughs aside, there was a darkly serious side to the prospect of drug use aboard the Queen of the North.

The board hastened to say that there was "no evidence" of impairment being a factor in the wreck of the ill-fated ferry.

Sure enough. No one was tested for drugs or alcohol, so "no evidence."

But the board was clearly disturbed by what it did discover during confidential interviews with crew members.

"The board considers the use of cannabis by crews of vessels to be an unsafe condition, one that could lead to a serious accident," the official letter of concern said.

Though members of the marijuana lobby might insist their drug of choice is no more dangerous than the ones sold in government liquor stores, the board is concerned that cannabis lingers longer in the system than booze.

"Impairment may last 24 hours," the board says, quoting authoritative sources. Moreover, "cannabis users are not normally aware of the longer-term effects."

The risk is heightened on the northern ferry routes because vessels are staffed on a long-term basis. One crew serves on board for up to two weeks. The second crew rests back at home port.

Members of the working crew are off-duty only for relatively brief periods. Even when sleeping in their cabins, they are subject to being called to their posts in an emergency.

"As the effects of cannabis can last for 24 hours, there is risk that performance will be diminished in the next shift or during their rest period should users be called for emergency duties," the safety board wrote.

"Any impairment of employees who perform safety-critical tasks in the transportation industry is a clear risk to safety."

BC Ferries has a zero tolerance policy toward use of alcohol or mood-altering drugs.

On the northern service, the policy applies to "all hours on duty or off duty from the time an employee joins the ship until release for rest days."

With a strict policy in place, you'd think that supervisors would have cracked down on any instance of drug abuse.

But the board found "some evidence to suggest that not all senior crew members aboard the Queen of the North consistently took sufficient action to ensure the company's no-tolerance policy was strictly adhered to."

No wonder the board directed BC Ferries to "address the issue without delay."

Review the effectiveness of the existing policy.

See how it needs to be strengthened.

Determine if this sort of thing is going on with other crews and other vessels in the fleet.

Then advise the board of "measures taken to ensure that the public and the environment are not placed at risk by crews whose performance has been impaired."

In response, Hahn issued a call for the federal authorities to clear the way for all ferry operators "to conduct mandatory drug and alcohol testing on all employees in safety sensitive positions."

The "only proven method of ensuring protection of the travelling public," according to the Ferries boss.

Push him, he pushes back. But while Hahn waits for a green light on testing, he also needs to respond decisively to the concerns raised by the safety board, particularly regarding supervisors who turn a blind eye to drug abuse.

---

In the interests of full disclosure, I ought to note that, many years ago, I worked on the BC Ferries northern run. But I did not inhale.

stupidity shines in the province

Argentine play 'Stupidity' shines in Theatre Conspiracy production

By Jerry Wasserman, The Province
Sunday, October 14, 2007

STUPIDITY (La Estupidez)

Where: Studio 16, 1545 W. 7th Ave.
When: to Oct. 21
Tickets: $24/$16 at 604-231-7535
Grade: A-

Argentine writers and artists are not generally well known outside of Argentina, with the exception of Jorge Luis Borges. His short stories are dazzling intellectual puzzles in the form of labyrinths, gardens of forking paths where multiple dimensions of time and space proliferate and mirror each other in brain-twisting fashion.

Argentine playwright Rafael Spregelburd has written a Borgesian farce, set in a series of identical Las Vegas motel rooms in which five actors morph seamlessly into a couple of dozen characters entangled in multiple sub-plots.

Spregelburd's Stupidity (La Estupidez) only hints at the intellectual density of Borges. But in Theatre Conspiracy's English-language premiere production, it's one of the funniest plays Vancouver has seen in years.

The various plots have to do with a trio of corrupt gay cops, a couple of shysters trying to sell a phony painting to a variety of sleazy rich people, a scientist who has an invaluable secret about the future of the Earth and a son in trouble with the mob, a trio with a scheme to beat the house at blackjack, an investigative journalist, good time girls and more.

As you might guess from the title, none of them - except the scientist - shines in the brain department. And he sells his story to a gossip magazine.

What does dazzle here is the work of the five performers under the slick, high-tempo direction of Richard Wolfe. Each one excels in a variety of characters, each with a distinctive comic tic and cheesy accent. Moving in and out of Al Frisk's cleverly simple set, a generic motel room with three doors, they change into one after another of Barbara Clayden's wonderful costumes and transform in record time offstage. After a few scenes, the audience's anticipation of who will enter through which door into which scene as which character is almost as much fun as the performances themselves.

It's hard to choose favourites. There's Allan Morgan's blowhard cop, hilarious Japanese businessman and blond-wigged party guy, Naomi Wright's gagging girlfriend and mod English con-woman, Johann Helf's Texas oilman and angry son, Alex Zahara's barbecuing neighbour and Mafia heavy, Nicole Leroux's talkaholic honey and wheelchair-bound mute.

A scene in which Morgan and Zahara's cops and Leroux's mute try to communicate in sign-language had me laughing so hard I thought I would hurt myself.

Credit needs to go to Crispin Whittell for his superb colloquial English translation, and to stage manager Jaimie Tait and dressers Dennise Velasco and Norine Webster for maintaining what must be an insane backstage pace.

Although a few scenes go on too long, I didn't want this show to be over. Who knew that Argentines, Vegas, or stupidity could be so much fun?

jerry.wasserman@vancouverplays.com

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STUPIDITY (LA ESTUPIDEZ)

By Rafael Spregelburd

Oct 11th to 21st, 2007 at STUDIO 16

Theatre Conspiracy presents the English-language premiere of STUPIDITY (LA ESTUPIDEZ) by Rafael Spregelburd. Translated and adapted by Crispin Whittell Crispin Whittell through National Theatre's (London) Channels Series.

Five of Vancouver's finest actors play 24 characters in Argentine playwright Rafael Spregelburd's fast-paced comedy set in The Desert Flamingo motel on the fringes of Vegas.

The play, one of a series of seven works inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's painting Wheel of the Deadly Sins has been produced in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, Mexico City and soon in Paris.

Directed by Richard Wolfe. Featuring Allan Morgan, Johann Helf, Nicole Leroux, Alex Zahara and Naomi Wright. On stage at STUDIO 16 (1555 W. 7th Avenue at Granville in Vancouver), October 11-21, 2007.

***

Where

STUDIO 16 - 1555 W. 7th Ave (half block west of Granville) in Vancouver.

The South Granville neighbourhood offers excellent dining opportunities plus some of the West Coast's best art galleries, antiques and jewelry stores and a collection of the most exclusive furniture and lifestyle stores in the Lower Mainland. Recommended pre-show dining options include:

* Bin 942 at 1521 West Broadway
* Cactus Club at 1530 West Broadway
* Memphis Blues Barbeque House at 1465 West Broadway
* West at 2881 Granville Street

When

October 11-21, 2007 (only 11 shows!)

* Preview: Thursday Oct. 11 at 8pm (2-for-1 tickets, only $12)
* Opening: Friday Oct. 12 at 8pm
* Show times: Tuesday to Saturday at 8pm
* Matinees: Sunday Oct. 14, Saturday Oct. 20 and Sunday Oct. 21 at 2pm

Tickets

* Tickets can be purchased at www.ticketstonight.ca or call (604) 231-7535
* $24 for adults (+ service charges)
* $16 for students/seniors/all matinee performances (+ sc)
* $12 for preview on Thursday, Oct. 11, "2-for-1" tickets (+ sc)
* Group rates by arrangement; please leave a message at (604) 878-8668
* NOTE: No service charges will be applied to tickets purchased at the door.

Official Website:
http://conspiracy.ca/upcoming.php

Facebook Group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2372248480

of etiquette and union solidarity

Unions didn't so much bargain as put the city under siege -- and it backfired

The Vancouver Sun

Thursday, October 11, 2007

By Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun columnist

Pardon my smile.

But the Vancouver civic strike is over.

Officially, it might drag on for a few more days, even weeks. The garbage might continue to ferment in the back alley, the weeds in the park might enjoy a few more days' reprieve.

But this fight is finished.

The unions lost everything while -- delicious irony, here -- they won almost everything they wanted.

The end came with the admission that anywhere between 50 to 65 per cent of outside civic workers had found jobs in the real world. Not only that, but those "striking" union members were making so much money in their new jobs that the majority of them, according to union spokesmen, were vowing never to return to city hall once a contract was ratified. Life was too good on the outside.

This was intended as a threat as much as a boast. It implied:

We don't need your stinking bargaining! We can last this out as long as we have to!

It backfired. Citizens -- and not a few of their union brothers and sisters enduring picket duty, I'll bet -- could only wonder at the hubris of it.

What of the etiquette of union solidarity? Do a majority of outside civic workers feel it is good form to take well-paying private sector jobs while their colleagues on the picket line survive on strike pay and doughnuts around a barrel fire?

What of citizens' sense that there could be no bargaining in good faith in so lopsided a situation? Outside civic workers can prolong negotiations indefinitely by taking outside work, but the public has no recourse to hiring replacement workers? How could there be anything but complete surrender to union demands? It wasn't bargaining the union was conducting: it was a siege.

When the union leadership tried to respond to criticisms of their members taking outside work, their response was that their members were only taking "vacant" jobs in the private sector. So they weren't, like, you know, reverse scabs displacing private-sector labourers out there looking for work. They were filling a need!

One, the excuse was fatuous and unprovable -- after all, all jobs are vacant at one time or another -- and two, it had the air of craven self-justification. It didn't wash.

Then came the biggest blow to the union's public relations. When once the union had the momentum by its clever, and unfair, campaign of painting this as "Sam's Strike" -- meant to force the image-sensitive Mayor Sullivan to cave -- that campaign and public goodwill evaporated when a minority of Local 1004 members forced the union to reject mediator Brian Foley's recommendations.

A majority of 57 per cent of city workers voted to accept Foley's contract offers (as did a majority of 58 per cent in the park board).

And in the normal course of democratic institutions, which unions insist they are paragons of, it would have been enough to get the garbage moving again.

Under its arcane constitution, Local 1004 insists that a plurality of 66 per cent is needed to ratify a contract, for reasons not quite clear, at least to me. The union at The Sun feels 51 per cent is enough to carry the day: most unions do. So one has to wonder where Local 1004 adopted its model of equitable representation. Perhaps the Chinese National Congress.

But there was an even greater irony at work here than the ones above, one more damning to the union cause than all of them. It was this:

Of all the combatants involved in the civic strike, those who most found merit in the world of privatized business were the striking union members themselves. They flocked to the private sector and found it good.

They have found it so good that even an offer of 17.5 per cent over five years, increased medical benefits and more vacation days convinced enough of them that this was an insult deserving rejection. The real reason for the rejection was job security, which Foley didn't recommend in absolute terms, though he did recommend everything short of holding union members' hands and tucking them in at night if contracting-out of civic services was being considered.

It wasn't enough to get 66 per cent of Local 1004 on board, though. The garbage stayed in the back alley.

Meanwhile, Local 1004's members were happily embracing their own brand of contracting-out, and demonstrating that there were not only efficiencies to be had in the private sector, but profits, too.

The citizens of Vancouver might take note of this, as have those in most of Metro Vancouver's suburbs. The contracting-out of garbage services has long been the norm there. Whatever their costs compared to the municipal model, uninterrupted service is insured. That counts for a whole lot.

In Vancouver, however, there have been civic outside worker strikes in 1964, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1981, 1997, 2000 and 2007. They ranged anywhere from one day to 13 weeks in duration. The present one is now 12 weeks and counting.

Question to Vancouverites:

Had enough of that garbage yet?

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Common sense, maturity missing among some of the union leadership

The Vancouver Sun

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Section: Editorial

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need.

-- Jagger/Richards

Children learn early on that they can't have everything they ask for. By the time they reach kindergarten, the concepts of limits, trade-offs and compromise are well entrenched.

These principles are reinforced in adulthood when common sense comes with maturity. They are fundamental to social order, to family relationships and to employment contract negotiations.

Vancouver's inside city workers, members of CUPE Local 15, recognized that labour negotiations require give and take and voted 73 per cent in favour of accepting the terms of a contract proposed by mediator Brian Foley, which include a 17.5-per-cent wage hike over five years, a $1,000 signing bonus and amendments to provisions covering contracting out, harassment, whistleblowing and job reclassification.

CUPE Local 15 president Paul Faoro, who recommended his members approve the proposed deal, clearly understood those fundamental principles. He said the collective agreement "had been bettered," and that his members can go to work knowing it is the best deal they can get "under the circumstances."

No, the union didn't achieve everything it might have hoped for but it has improved the terms of employment for its members. That's its job. The settlement matches those of public servants in similar occupations in neighbouring municipalities. It's one they can live with until the next round of negotiations.

But the leadership of CUPE Local 1004, representing outside workers, and CUPE Local 391, representing library workers, told their members to reject Foley's recommendations. Library workers did so overwhelmingly -- 78.1 per cent voted against it -- even though nearly half would benefit from a job classification upgrade on top of the regular wage increase. "They'd would have had a wishy-washy committee that went nowhere," Foley said of the union's demands. "I gave them pay equity."

Most outside workers defied their union leaders, who had urged rejection of the proposals, and voted 58 per cent in favour. It's a rare event when the rank and file fails to heed the advice of its local executive. Nevertheless, the members' clearly stated intention to accept the deal, end the strike and return to work will be denied because of a union bylaw that requires a two-thirds majority to ratify a contract.

Foley said he had "poured his heart and soul" into finding a solution to the strike. But Dave Van Dyke, a Local 1004 bargaining committee representative, disparaged his efforts. "Foley's sold us down the river," he said.

Since a majority of outside workers don't share that opinion, Local 1004 leaders might want to tone down the rhetoric if they plan on being re-elected. Besides, CUPE locals agreed to have Foley mediate their contract dispute with the city. To suggest he was partisan and did not act in good faith is untrue and an insult that warrants an apology.

Like children who want it all now, some union leaders are demanding benefits and restrictive contract language (particularly as it relates to disciplinary measures and caps on deferred vacation) beyond what Foley has proposed. They are also beyond what the city is prepared to pay. Even so-called non-monetary issues carry a cost, whether they're sick leave, vacation entitlements, extended health insurance or contracting out. Such measures make it more expensive to run the city.

City finances are not infinite. Municipal funding comes from taxpayers -- indirectly from the province and directly through property taxes and fees. Vancouver residents already face a property tax hike of eight per cent and aren't likely to welcome further increases to pay for richer wages and benefits for city workers than they receive for their own labours.

Foley's proposals meet the test of a good compromise -- they don't make everyone happy, but set reasonable terms that provide all at least some of what they need.

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