Why Teenagers Matter

Brought to you from the makers of Memory Sauce

Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead. The Author was in this Storm on the Night the "Ariel" left Harwich)

Painting by English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) from 1842.

Though panned by many contemporary critics, critic John Ruskin commented in 1843 that it was "one of the very grandest statements of sea-motion, mist and light, that has ever been put on canvas".

The following lyrics by David Lowery:

Frozen Sea, 1963.

First thing I remember
I'm looking out at the snow
In some English seaside town

People out on their front steps
laugh smoke cigarettes
look out at the frozen sea
say it ain't happened here since '23

I go down into the kitchen
strange man in a uniform
holds my mother’s hand

she kisses his cheek

my sisters all down at his legs
hug and call him pa
reaches down lifts me in his arms
puts a silk ball cap on my head Vietnam

we go down to see the frozen sea
my sister on her crutches, father and me
the boats they lay upon their side

at Margate harbor at low tide
we look out at the frozen sea

braces and crutches
my sister climbs the ramp
into the c-130 cargo plane

two airmen get to their feet
lift my sister in the air
put her in the seat
between the two of them
my sister laughs my mother still looked grim

we flew out across the English sea
over southern France across the Pyrenees
To an airfield just outside Sevilla
La Guardia, they greeted us
My mother muttered fascist under her breath

50 years later again at Margate bay
In the JMW Turner Gallery
Someone lights a cigarette
"Ma’am you can't smoke that in here
it was the artist Tracy Emin in the flesh
In the main gallery her famous bed

We went out across the Margate High street
Into the old market for cornish pasties
My sister bummed a cigarette
we went back out into the sleet
the sky was like a JMW Turner painting

David Lowery

David was the singer in Camper Van Beethoven, whose hits included Take The Skinheads Bowling, Joe Stalin’s Cadillac, We Saw Jerry’s Daughter, and Where The Hell Is Bill? We listened to these songs in our 20’s. They were funny, and their music jumped all over the place, from slacker rock to Eastern European Klezmer. They challenged assumptions, and created their own absurdist musical universe.

David has a new record out called Frozen Sea. The same humour is there from his youth, but age has made him more reflective. Consider his days with Camper were over 42 years ago. After CVB, he started Cracker. Frozen Sea is the lead off song on the album of the same name just released.

I love the specificity in this lyric,” My mother muttered fascist under her breath.”

My own Mother would often mutter under her breath. I am the Fifth Son of my Mutter. I come from a Family of Mutterers.

Also butterers. Once they asked me to whip the cream for dessert, but I whipped it too good, and it turned into butter.

Like the King in the A.E. Milne poem said, “I only want a little bit of butter for my bread.”

The King’s Breakfast

………

Talking of the butter for
The royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?"

The King said,
"Bother!"
And then he said,
"Oh, deary me!"
The King sobbed, "Oh, deary me!"
And went back to bed.
"Nobody,"
He whimpered,
"Could call me
A fussy man;
I only want
A little bit
Of butter for
My bread!"

People have definitely called me a fussy man. To my face. Even worse if truth be told. At a recent tradeshow, I discovered Unbutter. Unbutter is not butter, but it also is not margarine. Unbutter is a butter alternative from Ajax Ontario- Butter Up!

One of it’s principle ingredients is edible shea butter. Who knew? If butter alternatives are your bag, I recommend this brand.

Speaking of marmalade, I am reminded of Paul Serret, a santoor player from France, who played on the streets in Vancouver in the 80’s. I was complaining to him once day about how hard it was to get the public’s attention, to which he replied, ”Pigs and Marmalade! C'est donner de la confiture aux cochons.”

Translation is don’t feed your best marmalade to pigs, and expect them to care.

Speaking of pigs, Southern Baptists voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to call for the overturning of the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. Did they know it is Pride month? Do they not even care? What were they thinking?

The BC Pride Parade is coming in August, which makes me think of my late aunt Doris,( my Dad’s sister) affectionately known as Miss D. of Frederick’s of Hollywood. She knew all of the celebrities. She served Red Skelton‘s wife.

Do you ever wonder what kind of underwear Red Skeleton’s wife wore? Were they red? Did Red wear the same red underwear? Not that there is anything wrong with that. One size fits all. God bless.

Aunt Doris was one of the early victims of what came to be known as AIDS. She had a blood transfusion and contracted this strange new disease, which was emerging in California, primarily in the Gay community, but also among drug users, hemophiliacs, and “normal” people like my aunt Doris, who had the misfortune of needing a blood transfusion in that place at that time. Normally, a blood transfusion is a life saver, but unfortunately in her case, the blood was tainted.

As I am driving to work on this sunny day, my mind drifts back to my teenage boy years. All the big boys were digging underground forts. An underground fort starts with a hole in the ground, which burrows down to a tunnel, and that tunnel evolves into a big hole underground, like a dirt room with a dirt floor, dirt ceiling and four dirt walls.

Some were quite elaborate What did we store in these underground forts?

Secret things. Stuff that only young boys would need, like smutty magazines with sticky pages. Old issues of National Geographic. Marbles.

Was somebody’s dog down there?

There was always something down there that could hurt somebody, whether that be a pocketknife or a BB gun or even a can of gasoline, because young men will always look for something to do —just something to do.

Boredom compels teenagers to do these things—stupid things. Sometimes horrible things, cruel - totally unnecessary. But for the young teenager, whose brains are still forming, brainless things are completely obligatory, like driving fast in a car with the lights off down a country road late at night. Six of us crammed in the back seat. Seat belts? Are you kidding?

Or closing all the windows on a hot day, then cranking up the heat for what we called a sweat out. These were challenges. Hey, bet you can’t bite the head off a grasshopper. Taking that as a challenge, my friend Burger put a whole grasshopper in his mouth and swallowed. A live grasshopper. Burger’s real name was Greg, but got the nickname Burger when he was chased out of a house being built by the construction guys, running through the glass door, and scarring up his face in the process.

Right now as I recite these stories into my phone, I have one hand on the wheel —I guess I should put both hands on the wheel. Let’s put both hands on the wheel. That would be sensible and responsible. It is a bright sunny blue sky day with only a bit of cotton candy clouds in Vancouver. This last week’ weather alternated between grey depression soaked rain, and blue sky with spring fluff cottonwood blowing in the air

As I am driving down the highway, fluffy stuff flies at the windshield. The speed limit says 90– that’s fair, that’s reasonable. I am being responsible. Two hands on the wheel. I am using the mic function on my phone. I am saying things that a 67 year-old man does when he drives in his car responsibly while reciting into a phone.

Why am I even doing this? Do I really think these thoughts are worth recording?

I am like a dumb bored teenager. That dumb teenager is still alive and well inside this 67-year-old male.

Which makes me wonder, whatever happened to my old Schwinn Sting Ray with the banana seat and the wide handle bars? Did I have a sissy bar? A sissy bar was a metal bar shaped like an inverted U, that attached behind the banana seat of a Stingray, as a kind of roll bar or a backrest to prevent you from sliding backward off the seat, and on to the back wheel. Or maybe sliding right off into traffic.

Ooh my gosh, oh my gosh —the sign up ahead says Hope. There is still Hope in Late Stage Capitalism.

I remember Hope. I stayed up all night with Michael and Laurel, two actor friends. They were going out together. I had a crush on Laurel. I wanted to go out with her.

We were all talking and drinking and they said, “well we gotta go. We gotta drive up to Hope …well actually beyond Hope. We are going to drive to a place beyond Hope, somewhere in the interior of British Columbia.”

So I said, “Can I come along? Take me as far as Hope.”

“Sure. We will take you as far as Hope.”

So they did and we talked the whole way, and before you could say Actors, we arrived in Hope.

It was a grand time. They let me off. It was early morning or maybe late at night, I forget, but I was all alone in a tiny little town where Nothing was happening. The only thing left to do was turn around and get back home.

So I started trying to hitch a ride from Hope, right next to the signs on the highway that read no hitchhiking allowed.

Lucky for me, some evangelical Christians picked me up to save my soul. I had to listen to them talk about Jesus and God, so I fell asleep in the backseat. Well, thank God they were Christians evangelicals, and thank God they didn’t kill me. That was good and they dropped me back in town.

We did a lot of hitchhiking in those days. It’s what you did —you just stuck your thumb out and some stranger would pick you up and take you further on down the road like some kind of a Jack Cadillac Kerouac fantasy playing out in my teen mind.

Like they say, this is all very well until somebody puts an eye out. All very well until somebody picks you up and they are a bit of a creep.

Let me tell you about my creepy hitchhiker story. Most people who hitched had one. This one happened to me late at night, after I finished my job being an usher in the downtown theatre, and as I was still living at home out in Richmond at the time, a suburb of Vancouver.

Anyway, I stuck out my thumb, and some guy picked me up. He was kind of a fat large man - Sweaty upper lip. Slovenly shadow on his face with the shadow in his soul.

We were driving along and he’s like “oh boy wouldn’t you love to have a long, tall cool drink —wouldn’t that be great— a long, tall cool drink that would be so good.”

And I’m thinking to myself, this guy wants more than a drink. He wants to drink more than a long, tall cold drink, maybe he wants to suck my blood. Or something else.

I said well this is my stop, but he keeps driving. I said no no no that was my stop back there. I need to get out.

He keeps driving. He pulls off the road and he says I should give me a blow job.

I said I don’t think so.

“You fucking creep!”

I jumped out of the car and ran.

I ran until I came to a bus stop where I could catch a bus back home to Richmond.

I was lucky. He didn’t follow me.

The experience soured me on hitchhiking. It was not so romantic. Or convenient.

It was years later, when I was looking at the newspaper and saw a picture of Clifford Olson, a serial killer. He was picking up young boys and killing them. I’m not sure how old his oldest victim was, but i am pretty sure I was a bit older than that, so it may it was not Clifford Olson who picked me up. But what if it was? I thought maybe i should stop hitchhiking. Satisfying boredom is a lot of fun till you get picked up by a serial killer. Then the humour goes right out the window.

It’s crazy what we used to do when we were teenagers. And people have the gall to criticize Greta Thunberg, who is trying to focus world attention on the horror show that is Gaza. Meanwhile, all the Fox talking heads are losing their shit, going “Oh my God what’s this stupid girl doing now?”

Now I know stupid, and there are many kinds of stupid. And some kid’s stupid definitely matters more than other kids.

Considering all the really stupid things most teenagers still do, how can we make fun of the heartfelt actions of a young autistic teenager, who only wants to help stop a genocide, or maybe save the environment?

Why do they even care? That’s the bigger question. Why can’t they even acknowledge that there is a genocide and government sanctioned starvation being perpetrated on a brown skinned people who are not accorded any value, whose very existence is ignored —at best. Most Western leaders don’t care what Greta says or thinks. They do not even care about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Most could not even point to it on a map.

Don’t ask why Greta cares— ask why more people don’t care.

THIS BLOG IS BROUGHT TO YOU TODAY BY MEMORY SAUCE

Is it hard to remember time? Does time melt together, and become what doctors call brain fog?

Many people are finding relief with Memory Sauce, which can be added to any dish to bring out all the memories you want to remember.

Memory Sauce does not dip its toes in the waters of Umami.

Memory Sauce takes a deep dive in to your unconscious deep dish memories.

Memory Sauce may be habit forming.

Ask your doctor if Memory Sauce is right for you.

If overused, Memory Sauce can erase time, borders, and personal boundaries. Memory Holes have been known to occur.

The makers of Memory Sauce are not responsible for your misuse.

Use Memory Sauce responsibly.