Death of a Birkenstock

Edmonton

A no more war rally this weekend. This was a last minute gig, as Bruce Cockburn was bounced after saying that he would enlist if the Taliban invaded Canada. As Bruce should know, you are either with us, or you are a war mongering, racist, culturalist, homophobe, colonialist who deserves a line in the firing squad. The people organizing this rally know that violence is never justified. Not against Hitler, not against Pol Pot, and certainly not against the Mullahs.

Stevie understands this better than most, and in sympathy for Afghan women, decided to wear a burqa over her love beads. She looked awful, but I didn't want to get bopped in the head by her "violence never solved anything" sign for telling her, so I just shut up, played my autoharp, sang and tried to ignore the lady in black ghost costume beside me.

Some Muslim men in the audience liked how she looked, however, and kept calling up to her. "Show us your eyes," "sexy headgear baby," and, surprisingly, they seemed to be rapping "Burqa, Burqa Baby." Stevie was obviously flattered by the attention of the young, fit men, and after the show she went down to talk to them.

She thanked them for their attention, and lifted her burqa to give one of the young men a kiss. When he saw she was a middle aged white woman in a moo-moo he was stunned. When she kissed him on the cheek he became flushed.

His friend, immediately yelled "Infidel Harlot, pretending to be a good Muslim woman." Another friend started yelling, “stone her,” and suddenly Stevie's life and limb was being threatened by pacifist representatives of the religion of peace.

Tippy jumped off the stage to protect Stevie, but unfortunately jumped in front of her just as someone let go with a good-sized stone. It rocked off his head, making him woozy. He spun around, and a second stone caught him in the back of the head.

I could see by his eyes he couldn’t take too many more shots to the head. Stevie, realizing Tippy was in trouble, and thinking quick, took off her Birkenstock and started beating on one of the Arabian peaceniks with it. I honestly think Tippy would have been fine at this, as things seemed to be calming down a little. But he was still woozy from the first two stones and, even though the rock was thrown from a good distance away, was pretty darn big, and every body yelled Duck Tippy,. he never ducked. Tippy went down like he had been shot.

At this point the police came in and our brothers in peace from the oppressed parts of the world scattered, leaving Stevie with a half dead Birkenstock, and Tippy bleeding on the ground. A member of the controlling elites armed enforcement group went over to Tippy, presumably to se if he was OK. Stevie yelled "leave him alone you bloody fascists," and hit one with her sandal, causing him to throw her to the ground to try and calm her.

At this point Tippy woke up, saw Stevie on the ground, with a large man on top of her. Tippy is not violent, but he is protective of Stevie. He must have thought the guys who stoned him had Stevie as he picked up the rock that felled him and was about to hit the cop with it, when another cop belted him with his billy club, finishing the job the stones started.

Good Cooking - Bad Spinach

Clayoquot BC

We had a few days off, so we traveled to Stevie's home in Clayoquot. She loves to cook and promised to make us a gourmet meal. The problem is Stevie is a strict Vegan - no meat, no dairy, no fish, she doesn't even like animal crackers.

On the other hand I don't like vegetables very much. I agree with her stand visa-vie cruelty to animals, not eating flesh of our fellow creatures and so forth. But I simply don't like vegetables. While my mind says, "Be a Vegan, it's a good thing," my body says "Feed me meat." I do what I can to eat only humanely treated meat, dolphin free tuna, almost never eating veal, that sort of thing. But to sit and eat a meal of vegetables is just not on. So when we go to Stevies, I have a peanut butter sandwich, as nobody is allowed to eat meat on her property. (Although, I have to supply my own white bread and Kraft peanut butter, as she only has organic home made peanut butter, and bread with clumps of grain in it.)

Tippy, on the other hand, will eat anything: animal, vegetable or mineral. He is one of those people who eats anything and everything whenever he wants, and stays skinny. Stevie is, by all accounts, an excellent Vegan chef, so Tippy was looking forward to dinner.

The first course came and Stevie announced it was baked apple, with walnut and spinach stuffing.

"Spinach?" I said. "Isn't there bad spinach going around?"

"Oh, not this spinach." she said. “It’s organic.”

Tippy dug in and it was clear almost immediately that something was wrong. Within minutes he was a bit green looking, and I commented that he didn't look so well. He said he didn't feel so well and I asked Stevie if she was sure the spinach was OK.

"What can be wrong with spinach?" she asked. "I know what's good for upset stomach," she announced and went to the kitchen for a salad.

"Is that iceberg lettuce?" I asked.

"Of course. Full of vitamins, and there's nothing better for an upset stomach."

Tippy seemed to disagree, and within minutes of eating his salad was throwing up.

"Are you sure the lettuce was OK?" I asked.

"What could be wrong with lettuce?" she asked. "Now go and get him a drink to help calm his stomach,” she said to me.

"Right," I said, jumping up and running to the kitchen. "Ginger Ale coming up."

"Not Ginger Ale," Stevie said. "Full of sugar, it's terrible for him."

"What should I get then?" I asked.

"Carrot Juice."

No More Nukes

Calgary - No More Nukes Rally today. Everybody was out, and the fall whether of last week had warmed up enough that people were back in Birkenstocks and ready to party.

We did a set of favourites from the old no nukes rally's of the seventies, and people were grooving along. Old hippies in fold up lawn chairs and moo-moo’s brought coolers full of food, and sat in the sun enjoying the music. It was beautiful.

At the end of our set, one of the organizers came on and said, "There's been another nuclear test."

We were shocked. Here we were, singing and sitting for peaceful non-proliferation, and the ruling elite where ignoring us. It's not as though the media wasn't here. The Star was here earlier lining us up to look like more than we were, the Globe guy came past ten minutes later and did the same. Our rally of a few hundred will look like thousands in the papers tomorrow. And the CBC has seven camera crews here (and I thought I saw Ralph Benmergui).

But the fascists who rule the world will ignore the voice of the people. "Can you read this announcement to the crowd?" the organizer asked me.

"Brothers and Sisters," I read. "We must pass on grievous news. Today, the world has added one more nuclear power. While we have been offering non-denominational prayers for peace, and non-proliferation, North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon."

I nearly choked on my herbal tea, with organic honey (collected by bee keepers paid a fair wage for their efforts). North Korea? The glorious leader and our number one fan, Kim Jong-Il has tested a nuclear weapon? I didn't know what to do. He sends us three fan letters a week. (We have asked him to e-mail, but apparently they don't have e-mail yet in North Korea.)

The crowd started to boo, and let their displeasure at events be known. One woman yelled out that she was handcuffing herself to her cooler and staying where she was until North Korea changed and repented – or it got too cold for just a moo-moo.

Stevie would have none of it. She couldn’t have the glorious King Jong-Il, our most persistent fan, being maligned in this way.

“Brothers and sisters,” she announced. “Don’t blame the North Koreans, or their brave leader, who on this day has stood up to American Imperialist Aggression in the most logical way. Bullies only understand might, and Kim Jong-Il, and all North Koreans, know only bullying from the Bushites in the international community.”

She had them now, as nothing calms a crowd of angry hippies like an insult to George W. Unfortunately, one protester didn’t get all the memos and yelled up, “One more nuclear bomb is one more too many.”

While Stevie tried to protest, someone yelled out “Damn right.” Stevie worked to calm the crowd, and Tippy was just putting away his Zionist’s harp, when somebody threw a large bottle of carrot juice. It hit Tippy square in the head, knocking him out.

Stevie started yelling, “Who’s the aggressive imperialist who threw that?” But the crowd was now so angry that they started rushing the stage. Stevie and I barely got poor prostate Tippy dragged to the Prius before the mob got ugly.

Rally for the CBC

Toronto - We were playing a save the CBC rally in Toronto Thursday. It seems Bush lackey, 'Steve' Harper and his minister in charge of tearing down culture in Canada, Bev Oda, are trying to destroy the CBC by not supplying it with enough funding.

That Harper is such a philistine: I have heard he is a big hockey fan, and it shows. How can ay government not supply the CBC with enough money to buy the shows it needs to survive. I bet if it was a hockey game the CBC was buying, the money would magically appear.

The turn out was pretty good, maybe 12 or 13 people, which doesn't sound like much, but we know from experience, when you want to save institutions like the CBC, people just aren't interested. We only played a couple of songs as it was starting to get cold, and my Autoharp was going out of tune. However, we did get a chance to meet a CBC big shot, one of the director's of programming. Stevie what shows the government was cutting, and Mr. Big shot told us it was hockey.

"Hockey?" asked Stevie. "We thought it was Thursday night opera or Corner Gas"

"Corner Gas isn't CBC."

"No? So what shows do you have?"

"Hockey Night in Canada. Coronation Street. The Air Farce. Monday Report with Rick Mercer.

"Rick Mercer? That comedian with the curly hair and the smirk? He's not funny." Said Stevie.

"We had high hopes for a Ralph Benmergui variety show that we are in negotiations for, but now that the NeoCons have revealed that part of their hidden agenda is not provide us with 1.4 Billion dollars for hockey night in Canada, we probably can't afford Benmergui’s asking price."

"$1.4 Billion dollars. Who would pay that for hockey?"

"CTV. And of course they have the money dammit. How can we compete with people who are spending their own money? How are we supposed to fund our “politicians of the left mini-series” series now?"

Anyway, things didn't turn out too bad, as the exec had us in studio to do "The Hockey Song," on a show that would be played after the hockey game. Unfortunately, we didn't realize there were two hockey games on, and the show didn't come on until 2:00 AM. We heard the next day we had a nine rating. “Nine doesn’t sound so bad,” Stevie said.

“Nine viewers”.

The Canadian Folk Collective: mini-biography.

The Canadian Folk Collective is a socially progressive folk music group who travel Canada, from fair to fair, protest to protest, bringing enlightenment to our listeners.

We are myself, Jack on autoharp and vocals.
Stevie, our token female who plays tambourine and sings beautifully.
Tippy, who is our "Jack/Jill" of all trades who plays Dulcimer, Zionist's harp, jug, bongo drums and any other sound we may need. He sings little as he tends to be very busy.

I hope you enjoy our adventures.