The Georgia Straight - Gangsters Interrupted - Dec 19, 2019

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Gangsters Interrupted

Vancouver police detective and KidsPlay Youth Foundation founder Kal Dosanjh has joined forces with former drug boss Stan Price to prevent young people from being recruited into a life of crime DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019 | FREE

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KidsPlay Youth Foundation founder Kal Dosanjh works with ex-gangster Stan Price to keep kids out of trouble.

By Charlie Smith Cover photo by Shimon Karmel

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FEATURE

There’s been a troubling increase in the number of deaths in government-funded housing projects. By Travis Lupick

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FEATURE CALL ME FOR EXPERT ADVICE

Deaths increase in supportive housing by Travis Lupick

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ive people have died at the Woodward’s Community Housing building since 2016, according to statistics obtained through a freedom-of-information (FOI) request. Karen Ward lives there and is well known in the community. She knew and remembers all of them. “Gary died. Gary was [one of] the last survivor[s] of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge [accident in 1958],” she began in a telephone interview. “He was a union man and an ironworker and he was on the bridge [when it collapsed]. And he died in my hallway. “Pots died,” Ward continued. “My friend Dan died. He had a stroke and then he was trapped in his room…. I knew Colleen, on the sixth floor. That really impacted everyone…. Oh, God. There are too many. Hendrick was just taken off…” The five deaths at Woodward’s are a small sample of more than 330 deaths that the Georgia Straight has documented at government-partnered supportive-housing projects across the Lower Mainland between January 2016 (the earliest date for which statistics are available) and May 2019. (Woodward’s operator has clarified that these deaths occurred in hospitals. It was emphasized that they were of natural causes and that staff responded appropriately and in a timely manner.) Using FOI legislation, the Georgia Straight collected data for 90 addresses operated by the provincial government’s four largest socialhousing partners: PHS Community Services Society (formerly the Portland Hotel Society), Atira Women’s Resource Society (and its propertymanagement company), Lookout Housing and Health Society (formerly Lookout Emergency Aid Society and Keys Housing and Health Solutions), and RainCity Housing. Such deaths appear to be on the rise, and, the Straight has learned, no one is counting them. B.C. Housing is the arm of the provincial government that funds and works alongside those agencies and others to develop and manage supportive housing in British Columbia. Each time someone dies inside a government-partnered building, it receives a “criticalincident report”. But it doesn’t maintain statistics based on those reports. Neither does the B.C. Coroners Service. Marilou Gagnon is a nurse, housing activist, and associate professor at the University of Victoria. In a telephone interview, she said that if no one is compiling or monitoring these numbers, authorities are missing an opportunity to save people’s lives. If the province were collecting this data, Gagnon argued, it could

spot patterns, identify problematic trends, and react accordingly. “It’s a safe guess that many of these [deaths] are related to overdoses,” Gagnon told the Straight. “If that is the case, then these deaths are preventable. My question, then, is what are we doing to prevent them? Are these places properly staffed? What are we putting in place to prevent deaths? Because there is no way that this should be happening.” Gagnon said the numbers call into question common assumptions about government housing. “We present this form of housing as better for people,” she said. “That if we bring people inside, it will be better for their health. But if they end up dying of an overdose, that is not better [than remaining homeless].”

buildings, and no one is watching or even trying to understand why. Representatives for the four nonprofits analyzed spoke candidly with the Straight. No one was surprised by the numbers, and everyone agreed they are higher than they should be. “In the Downtown Eastside, you’re likely to die younger than everybody else,” Janice Abbott, the founder and CEO of Atira Women’s Resource Society, told the Straight. “Research demonstrates that if you’re poor, if you’re racialized, if you’re not cisnormative, then your lifespan is compromised.” Indeed, a November 2018 report for Vancouver city council states that, on average, men living in the Downtown Eastside will die 15 years earlier than their counterparts who live on the city’s wealthier West Side.

The longer you’ve been living on the street, the longer you’ve bounced in and out of shelters, the more complex and…challenging your health becomes. – Dominic Flanagan

At the 90 buildings analyzed, there were 62 deaths recorded in 2016, 106 the year after that (when B.C.’s overdose crisis intensified sharply), 109 in 2018, and then 62 during the first five months of 2019 (when the Straight first requested this information). The numbers are discussed here with caveats. Because there is no central index of supportive-housing addresses that cleanly defines the words “supportive housing”, the numbers are incomplete. The lack of a strict definition allows for a wide variety of programs that are each tailored to unique tenant populations and communities. That’s a good thing. But it makes collecting and compiling statistics difficult. And the numbers must be interpreted with caution. For example, an apparently shocking increase in deaths in Lookout buildings is actually a reflection of the organization’s growth. Lookout’s numbers are up, but primarily because the number of rooms Lookout operates has increased in recent years. Meanwhile, a decline in numbers might be because another organization closed a building for renovations. The data have significant shortcomings. Nevertheless, a rough picture emerges: more people are dying in Lower Mainland supportive-housing

In a separate interview, PHS director Tanya Fader said the need for low-barrier housing in Vancouver far outstrips supply, so much so that by the time someone gets into supportive housing, they’ve usually been on the streets for so long that they’ve accumulated numerous health issues. “Once we do get someone housed, we’re struggling with things that should have been prevented,” Fader told the Straight. “Nothing happens until someone is in a crisis. And even then, we struggle to get them an appropriate response and the health and care they need.” Shayne Williams, executive director of Lookout Housing and Health Society, similarly said that turning a tenant’s health around is often an uphill battle. “The people that are going into supportive, minimal-barrier housing, in some cases they should be in long-term care or even in a hospice,” he suggested. “The majority of deaths we’re seeing, at least within Lookout sites, are health-compromised people with very complex needs, usually with concurrent disorders underlying primary-care needs…and struggling with addiction and mental health.” Williams questioned the Straight’s use of the term “supportive housing” and raised concerns about inadequate see page 8

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from page 6

government funding. If there are only one or two staff members at a given building at a time, or if a building isn’t staffed 24 hours a day, he asked how much “support� is there? RainCity Housing co-executive director Catharine Hume spoke about “opportunities� that B.C. is missing by failing to monitor deaths in social housing. Authorities could be unaware of trends in which too many people are dying, she conceded. But they also might be missing patterns that reveal lifesaving programs that should be expanded across the province. “We are mitigating deaths all the time, every single day, and that information is invisible,� Hume told the Straight. She pointed to several on-theground innovations that Atira, PHS, Lookout, and RainCity have all implemented in response to the overdose crisis, for example. In late 2016, nonprofits integrated supervisedconsumption rooms into many of

their buildings and encouraged tenants to use drugs where an employee or another tenant is available to respond in the event of an overdose. Organizations have also flooded their buildings with the overdosereversal drug naloxone and encouraged tenants to learn how to use it. “Data around how many people have passed away at supportive-housing sites and data around how many lives have been saved—those stories are equally important,� Hume said. All four nonprofit representatives repeatedly emphasized the extent to which B.C.’s overdose crisis has stretched resources, and they told stories of the Herculean efforts with which staff inside supportive-housing buildings have responded. There’s nothing shocking in the data obtained by the Straight, or at least not anything that’s especially surprising. There are specific addresses where unusually large numbers of people have died in recent years. But for those buildings, operators specifically seek out high-needs

tenants who otherwise wouldn’t have a home. People enter those buildings with serious health problems alongside both addiction issues and mental-health challenges. Other

What are we putting in place to prevent these deaths? – Marilou Gagnon

buildings are known for tolerating heavy injection-drug use, and B.C.’s overdose crisis has taken a brutal toll on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where those sites are concentrated. B.C. Housing’s executive director,

strategic initiatives, Dominic Flanagan, told the Straight that without Vancouver’s low-barrier approach to supportive housing, many tenants who appear in these statistics would have died on the streets. In a telephone interview, he added that the priority needs to be getting people into housing sooner. “The longer you’ve been living on the street, the longer you’ve bounced in and out of shelters, the more complex and the more challenging your health becomes,� Flanagan said. He noted that B.C.’s last homeless count found 7,655 people lacked permanent shelter in 2018. “We need to bring people inside far quicker than we are,� he continued. “And how can we better integrate and combine housing with primary health care? What does that look like?� Flanagan acknowledged that authorities could monitor deaths inside B.C. supportive-housing sites closer than they do today. “We are going to look at ways

about how we track critical-incident reports—the reports we get from nonprofits—and do a deeper dive into them,� he said. “Could we be doing more? Absolutely.� On the phone from the Woodward’s building, Ward repeated a joke she’s heard several times over the years: “You only leave here in cuffs or a bag.� UVic’s Gagnon, who is also president of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association and an activist who works with homeless camps on Vancouver Island, suggested that if this were any other category of building than one that houses the poor and the marginalized, the numbers obtained by the Straight not only would be subject to close monitoring but by now would likely have set off an alarm. “If it were daycares or hospitals or prisons, and if there were one or two or three deaths, we would have reached a stage that triggered an investigation,� Gagnon argued. “People are dying in these spaces; no one is doing anything about it. No one is even looking into it.� g

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feature

Ex-thug and cop find common ground

F

by Charlie Smith

ormer drug-dealing kingpin and gang member Stan Price has come back to the Downtown Eastside on his 39th birthday. In an interview with the Georgia Straight in the Waves Coffee House at the corner of Cordova and Main streets, he concedes that he’s feeling emotional about returning to the neighbourhood. “I mean, I know I ruined a lot of lives,” Price says. “I was part of living off of people’s misery.” The erstwhile thug is sitting in the coffee shop with a former nemesis, Vancouver police detective Kal Dosanjh, to discuss how he’s trying to make amends for a life of crime. Price and Dosanjh have become an odd couple—the two visit antigang forums and schools to help kids avoid sliding into the criminal underworld. Dosanjh is founder and CEO Of KidsPlay Youth Foundation, a registered charity that helps young people forge positive connections and steer clear of gangs and drugs. Price has become Dosanjh’s unlikely accomplice in this endeavour. Price readily concedes that as a young Indigenous person growing up in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, he struggled with addiction to cocaine. He served time in several prisons, starting when he was 19 years old. “I don’t recommend it,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of shit happen there inside the prison for absolutely nothing. I’ve seen somebody get a coffee pot—a metal coffee pot—across the head for leaving crumbs on the table. It’s gladiator school.” After getting out of jail, a friend encouraged him to move to Vancouver, where he initially made a living as an ironworker. On the side, he and four others formed B.C.’s first chapter of Redd Alert, a notorious Indigenous gang with roots in the Canadian prison system. Price is intelligent and articulate, and he reveals that he went straight from drug addiction to overseeing a sophisticated network of drug dealers. “I ran it very smoothly, where I didn’t even have to touch anything,” he says. In addition to being in the narcotics business, Price discloses, he was also involved in property crime and guns. Price and Dosanjh share a laugh as they recall how they used to butt heads in the old days. “On the Downtown Eastside, he was a beat cop,” Price says. “He would just say, ‘Let’s have a chat.’ It wasn’t always a nice chat, right? I’d tell Kal to fuck off. We didn’t get along at all.” The young people whom Price

would recruit and oversee were sometimes the same ones Dosanjh was trying to discourage from becoming gangsters. Price admits that he would walk the other way to avoid a confrontation if he ever saw Dosanjh, a beefy power lifter, or other police officers. “But they knew what I was doing,” the former gangster acknowledges. Dosanjh used to tell Price that he was capable of accomplishing so much more than dealing drugs. The beat cop also warned Price back then that karma was going to come around on him in the future if he didn’t mend his ways. Dosanjh remembers telling Price that if one of his kids became addicted, he would understand what the officer meant by that. “There were multiple confrontations—a lot of hostility—because I would always tell him to stop,” Dosanjh says forthrightly. Almost a decade ago, Price was nearly killed in MacLean Park when he encountered a rival gang while cycling to collect money at a hotel on East Hastings Street. “I defended myself very well,” he says, “but there were gunshots. I thought for sure I was done.” He ended up having bear mace Stan Price was dealing drugs, he butted heads with VPD member Kal Dosanjh, sprayed in his face. When he finally When but now they work together to keep kids from joining gangs. Photo by Shimon Karmel got up, ran away, and hopped a fence, in salvation. I believe in giving some- consequences that come with that— he encountered a sea of cops. body the opportunity—and this sort and repercussions—and that’s what SO IMAGINE DOSANJH’S surprise of stuff doesn’t deter me at all.” we’re trying to teach them.” a couple of years ago when he reTwo years later, he says, many of the Price says he did have “father figceived a call from Price seeking as- critics have come around. Some have ures” in his life: uncles. But because sistance. One of Price’s sons had, in- apologized for not believing in Price. he never had a real father, he felt like deed, become hooked on drugs, and “I strongly believe that what the an outcast everywhere he went. He Price asked if he could meet Dosanjh Aboriginal community experienced suggests that he was lured into the because he didn’t want to lose him. at one juncture in time is essential- gang life because he was seeking acDosanjh admits he wasn’t really sure ly…what the South Asian commun- ceptance. But he also liked the power how serious Price was at the time. ity is experiencing right now: a loss and the money it provided. “I was After all, Price was one of the hard of identity,” Dosanjh says. “There’s like a celebrity, right?” rocks in the Downtown Eastside. But disproportionate representation of Over time, however, Price came to the police officer was willing to give South Asian youth involved in the realize that his criminal activities were him the benefit of the doubt. drug and gang scene, statistically wrecking his life and the lives of loved “When I sat down with him, I speaking. It’s because they’ve essen- ones. His relationship with his family could see his raw, visceral emotions,” tially gone through the same jour- deteriorated and his marriage broke Dosanjh says. “I saw it was authentic. ney that the Aboriginal community up. He didn’t like the person he had I realized, ‘Okay, it’s game on. He’s did…losing your sense of self, your become. “I was pretty much preying good to go.’ ” roots, your culture, your language, on vulnerable people,” he says. Dosanjh started bringing Price to your identity. And a lot of these So he quit the drug trade and drug and gang forums. When Price kids have become disconnected. So began working in addiction recovposted an image of the two of them they’re looking for their identity and ery. He’s hoping to return to school together on his Facebook page, there acceptance in destructive places.” and become an addictions counselwas a furious backlash over social In addition, Dosanjh says young lor. Price feels that he set a precedent media. Dosanjh says he was advised people join gangs because they’re by exiting the Lower Mainland gang not to work with Price because he was seeking instant gratification. They’re world and engaging in more positive “violent, cruel, and still a criminal”. not willing to wait like their parents, pursuits. And he finds that he gets “There was a huge amount of ob- who often worked hard to become a far greater high from speaking to stacles, challenges, and adversity financially independent and to buy kids than he ever did doing drugs. that was put up to prevent this rela- a car and a home. “Through the lu“I mean, if somebody like me can tionship from happening,” Dosanjh crative drug trade, they can literally turn my life around and leave that liferecalls. “But I’m the type of person make that type of money overnight,” style, anybody can, right?” Price says. who believes in redemption. I believe he points out. “But there are severe “Sure, the way I live my life now isn’t as

fast as it was then, but I’m more peaceful. I still look over my shoulder once in a while, but I just avoid the areas where [gangsters] are going to be.” Dosanjh says he’s “extremely proud” of Price. The veteran police officer adds that because the two of them have been photographed together, it’s led other gang members to approach police officers and say that they want to get out as well. “They know it’s possible, that it can be done,” Dosanjh says. “There’s a lot of them that are seeking a better life. They just don’t know how to do it.” A MAJOR TURNING point in Dosanjh’s life came when he was an acting sergeant working a rainy early-morning shift in the Downtown Eastside. He was alone in his patrol car when he turned into the south lane in the 100 block of East Hastings Street. He saw a kid behind a Dumpster getting his crack pipe ready, but the teenager threw it away and started walking after spotting the squad car. Dosanjh says he had already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to arrest the youth, who was only 14 years old. Dosanjh had already seen enough overdose deaths and he had arrested enough kids by that point in his career. So the acting sergeant asked the young crack user to stop walking away. The kid kept walking away, so Dosanjh hollered in a louder voice, instructing him to stop. At that point, the youth strolled back with his hands outstretched, inviting himself to be handcuffed. But then he did something surprising: he brazenly told Dosanjh that if he wasn’t being arrested, he would interpret this as being free to go. “He was a byproduct of his environment—with a very hardened, calloused edge. I just looked him in the eyes. I was very genuine and sincere and said: ‘Look, you are free to go. I am not here to arrest you. But before you go, I sincerely and genuinely want to know what you are doing here. Where’s your parents? Where’s your home?’ ” Dosanjh recalls. “And he looks at me and he could see I’m being sincere with him. “Instead of answering my questions, he posed the following question to me: he said, ‘If your mom left you when you were just a kid and you have no idea who she is or where she is— and if your dad is lying drunk right now on the sofa and has no idea where you are—and your brother is sitting in jail right now for dealing drugs, and there’s no one else at home…where see next page

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Westside 10 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019

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would you be?’ That was my tipping point. That was my revelation.” Dosanjh helped get the youth into foster care, but he doesn’t know if there was a happy ending. “I never followed up because there are a thousand stories like that,” he says. “He did change my life, because it was shortly thereafter that I asked for the funding [from the VPD], and that’s where we started the PAL program—Police Athletic League soccer tournament—for kids in the inner city.” That was the seed and the impetus for Dosanjh to launch the KidsPlay Youth Foundation. “Because of my experience in the Downtown Eastside, I was noticing a steady stream of youth entering the drug and gang lifestyle,” Dosanjh says. “And we’d be apprehending these youth and pushing them to the criminal-justice system, only to have them spewed out on the other end to become more hardened criminals engaging in that vicious cycle of perpetual violence. I just thought enough was enough.” There were 150 kids in the first soccer tournament in 2008. According to Dosanjh, many were jaded, never having had positive interactions before with police. With $500, he was able to buy trophies, medals, certificates, bottled water, and basic equipment for a one-day event. Officers volunteered their time on their days off. “The greatest feeling in the world—more than any kind of commendation or recommendation you can receive—is receiving a hug from one of these kids and them saying, ‘Thank you for taking the time. We really appreciate it.’ ” This year, the KidsPlay Youth Foundation soccer tournament attracted more than 1,000 children and youths to B.C. Place Stadium. That’s part of the charity’s sports component, which offers young people opportunities to participate in a multitude of athletic activities. There’s also an educational component, where volunteers, including Price, appear at various forums,

conferences, and schools. In addition, there’s a mentorship program offered through the Surrey, Langley, and Abbotsford school districts. “I strongly believe in early development and providing educational awareness to those kids in grades 6 and 7,” Dosanjh says. “They can grow up with strong fundamental values and principles, and they won’t get into that lifestyle in the first place.” The final component is teaching young people about civic responsibility and the environment. That’s accomplished through planting trees. He describes his experiences as a spiritual journey and cites two Sikh Gurus, Nanak and Gobind Singh, as major influences. “When I started KidsPlay Youth Foundation, it was built on two tiers,” Dosanjh explains. “Number one, all of our programs would be absolutely free so that no child would be deprived of the opportunity because it might be financially prohibitive on their parents. And number two, more importantly, it’s completely volunteer-based. Nobody gets paid. Every single cent we receive goes right into the community so we can build on these programs.” Since 2015, more than 70,000 kids have gone through the various programs. There are more than 500 volunteers, including police officers, sheriffs, and correctional officials. “But the greatest pride I have from all this is that we have individuals like Stan [Price] who are part of our family now,” Dosanjh says. “It just lends so much more credibility to our program to show that anything is possible. “It’s just a matter of believing, on a fundamental humanitarian scale, that we need to believe in one another,” he adds. “We need to give one another the opportunity for redemption. And people can find salvation if they’re given the resources, the amenities, the love and support, and guidance.” g

y a H d i l i t o s H December 13 26 to

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On February 1, there will be a financial benefit for the KidsPlay Youth Foundation at the Law Courts Inn (800 Smithe Street). For information, visit kidsplayfoundation.com/.

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DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 11

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HOROSCOPES by Rose Marcus

tarting Friday, Venus begins a short stint in Aquarius. As is typical for the last few days before the holidays begin, Venus can stimulate another wave of shopping and/or last-minute extras. The transit also keeps the social end of things upbeat. Making for the shortest day and the longest night of the year, the winter solstice happens on Saturday with the sun’s entrance into Capricorn at 8:20 p.m. PST. The winter solstice has been observed in many spiritual practices as a symbolic rebirth of the sun (creator consciousness), of holding great potency for regeneration and renewal, and as a time to seek a realignment of inner consciousness (personal will) with that of the divine. Hanukkah (the Festival of Lights) begins on Sunday. No matter how you spend your day, the stars set the dial to well timed and just right. A solar eclipse conjunct Jupiter and trine Uranus on Christmas Day marks this holiday as a standout one, not only for birthday boy Justin Trudeau but for many of us. The last time the holiday coincided with an eclipse was 1954 (Annie Lennox was born). Know it now or come to realize it later: this threshold-crossing eclipse marks an ending and a beginning of significance. Both ends have been long in the works. Holding potency regarding world events and trends, royalty, leaders, and newsmakers, the eclipse sets the foundation for our long-term/ long-range future. It will be of influence regarding your personal life if it makes a direct contact to your birth chart. Otherwise, you’ll be a witness to the action. On the immediate note, Tuesday through Friday, the eclipse and Jupiter/Uranus set up a wonderful backdrop for making the most of it. I wish you peace and joyous prosperity for the holidays and the year ahead!

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12 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019

March 20–April 20

As of Friday, Venus in Aquarius cuts you loose and boosts your mood. The transit shifts the attention from the work end to the more pleasurable parts of the holiday. Saturday/Sunday, the winter solstice and Venus are good for an energy shift. Tuesday through next Friday are as good as it gets. The Christmas Day eclipse marks the last and the first of many.

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TAURUS

April 20–May 21

Make the most of it! Venus has just entered Aquarius and Uranus is soon finished with retrograde in your sign. Both transits—the solar eclipse on Christmas Day and Jupiter in favour to your sign—place you at the start of something promising. Change is knocking on your door. Agree to take it on; welcome it. A whole new reality awaits you.

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Sat & Sun Dec 28 & 29 11am - 4pm

ARIES

GEMINI

May 21–June 21

Come the weekend, it’s time to shift gears. Despite the pressure or added work, Venus in social Aquarius keeps the general atmosphere upbeat. Holding court over Tuesday through Friday, Jupiter, Uranus, and the solar eclipse set an optimum backdrop for getting your pleasure fill. Hanukkah or Christmas, you may remember this one as a milestone reached or as holding some other special significance.

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CANCER

June 21–July 22

Marking a beginning or an end of a matter that has been long awaited or long in the works, the solar eclipse on Christmas Day will be of greater influence if your birthday falls on June 24 to 26 or close by. Now through next Friday is ideal for replenishing self and soul, strengthening loving bonds, and hitting the reset button regarding inner resolve.

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LEO

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PISCES

DECEMBER 19 TO 25, 2019 July 22–August 23

Added work or pressure simply is a fact of life at this time of the year. Despite the intensity provided by six planets in Capricorn, as of Sunday you should be on to an easier, smoother sail. No matter what you have planned for the holidays, Venus in Aquarius, Jupiter, Uranus, and the solar eclipse set the dial to “Ah, just right�. August 23–September 23

Saturday/Sunday, your sharper shooter and sharp shopping instincts are at peak. The stars agree: why waste your time, energy, or hard-earned dollars? The week ahead is ideally timed for taking a break from the work (and the worry), for replenishing and rekindling. Thanks to the solar eclipse on Christmas Day, you’ll look back on this year’s holiday as a notable/memorable last and first. September 23–October 23

Thursday/Friday keeps you going strong. By the weekend, you’ll feel you have cleared away a significant portion of the work and that you can move onto (more of) the reward portion of the holidays. Thanks to the solar eclipse, this year’s holiday can hold special significance in terms of a milestone reached. Say goodbye to the past or hello to the future. October 23–November 22

Mars, continuing in Scorpio, will keep you going strong through the start of next year. The moon in Scorpio keeps you going strong Friday/Saturday. As of Hanukkah (Sunday), you are likely to feel a shift of momentum. The week ahead is ideal for taking time out to replenish body, heart, and soul, to catch up with loved ones and yourself. November 22–December 21

Thursday/Friday can keep you on the go with people, places to go, or things to do, but come the weekend, you’ll be in the mood to avoid the crowds (good idea). Whether you observe the solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, or none of the above, the stars set an optimum backdrop for spiritual replenishment. Tuesday to Thursday, the solar eclipse keeps the heart full to the brim. December 21–January 20

Venus’s exit from Capricorn for Aquarius on Friday can produce another wave of last-minute spending or extras. Feeling superhuman? Despite all, your ability to cope and to power through is formidable. Know it now or realize it later: the solar eclipse on Christmas Day makes this holiday extra special, especially so if it falls on or near your birthday. January 20–February 18

Venus in Aquarius, starting Friday, supplies you with a fresh wind. Sunday (Hanukkah) can also be a good perk-me-up day. Monday through Thursday is ideal for taking a break from the world. Time is precious, loved ones are too. Immerse yourself right where you are. The solar eclipse marks this holiday as holding special significance. February 18–March 20

The weekend is good for travel, socializing, checking it/them off the list, and for the start of your holidays. Sunday (Hanukkah) through Tuesday can produce another activity wave, but overall, aim to slow it down and soak it up. For you and/or someone you love, the solar eclipse (Christmas Day) can foretell a big move or lifestyle change. g

Find out what 2020 has in store. Attend Rose’s public lecture on January 8. Info and tickets at rosemarcus.com/events/.

SEXUALITY

Kegel exercises can enhance orgasms

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by Gail Johnson

hen we think about the importance of exercising our muscles, what come to mind first probably things like the biceps, quadriceps, and abdominal muscles—not the muscles of the pelvic floor. But these muscles shouldn’t be overlooked, considering they help support some of our organs. It turns out they play a role in women’s sexual health, too. “With orgasm, there is a series of involuntary but specific muscle contractions that happen in the pelvic floor,â€? says Maryla Podgajny, registered physiotherapist and pelvicfloor physiotherapist at Vancouver’s Reformotiv Physio and Pilates. “The idea that the stronger your pelvic floor, the better orgasm you’re going to have is not necessarily true, but it’s definitely helpful to have a muscle that’s working well. You might have better sensation and more sensation. “People don’t often talk about the pelvic floor, but they should because it really does make difference in quality of life,â€? adds Podgajny, noting that men also have pelvic-floor muscles—and the potential for imbalances in them. “All can benefit from exercises for the pelvic floor.â€? The muscles in the pelvic floor act like a hammock, stretching from the public bone to the end of the coccyx, or tailbone, holding the bladder, bowel, and uterus in place. “Having a healthy pelvic floor is linked to better sexual health and experiences for some women,â€? says Lacey Forsyth, registered physiotherapist and owner of Bump Physio & Co in Port Moody. “A woman needs to be able to both fully contract and relax her pelvic-floor muscles in order to have a strong foundation for intercourse. If women’s pelvic-floor muscles are

When a woman orgasms, her pelvic-floor muscles maximally contract. – Maryla Podgajny

Maryla Podgajny, pelvic-floor physiotherapist at Reformotiv Physio and Pilates, says that certain exercises can greatly improve a woman’s sexual experience.

weak, for example, it can affect their ability to climax and reach orgasm as well as to maintain sufficient muscle tone for pleasure with penetrative intercourse. Sometimes clients report they don’t feel much when they have sex with their partners, and it may be due to low pelvic tone, muscle atrophy, or a decreased awareness of their pelvic-floor muscles. “Another area where women’s sexual pleasure might be impacted is during orgasm,â€? she says. “When a woman orgasms, her pelvic floor muscles maximally contract, followed by a full relaxation. If they are lacking in muscle strength, their orgasms are less intense or in some cases won’t happen at all.â€?

Exercises for the pelvic-floor muscles are sometimes called Kegels, taking their name from the American gynecologist who first noted that childbirth could lead to a weak pelvic floor and that these muscles could be exercised like any other. He developed a compressible bulb that went into the vagina attached to a dial; when women squeezed with their pelvic floor muscles, the dial provided visual feedback on the strength of that contraction. During orgasm, the muscles contract anywhere from three to 15 times, on average, according to Dr. Jen Gunter, author of the newly released Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina—Separating the Myth

From the Medicine. Host of the CBC docuseries Jensplaining, the Winnipeg-born obstetrician/gynecologist explains that relaxation and injury of the pelvic floor, most often in the form of tearing of the muscles during childbirth, can lead to incontinence and prolapse. Reduced orgasm strength can also result. Exercises can be part of the therapeutic approach for women who have difficulty achieving orgasm or who experience weak orgasms. Before starting them, the first step is learning how to isolate the pelvicfloor muscles. There are a few ways to do this, including imagining the exercise as “picking up a marble with your vagina�, according to Gunter. Another is to try to stop the flow of urine. “If you slow or stop your stream, you are using the right muscles,� Gunter writes. Once you feel comfortable with what and where the muscles of the pelvic floor actually are, there are two types of exercises you can do: sustained contractions involve holding the squeeze for five seconds,

then relaxing for 10 seconds; the goal is to build up the length of the contractions to 10 seconds. “Quick flicksâ€?, meanwhile, are simple contractions and releases lasting one or two seconds. (Gunter details the recommended number of daily reps for each in her book.) It will take six to 12 weeks to see improvement, but Gunter suggests four to five months of daily practise. Another helpful strategy is to practise diaphragmatic breathing—also known as deep belly breathing—on a day-to-day basis, Forsyth says. “As adults, we typically breathe into our shoulders and upper chest, especially during times of stress,â€? Forsyth says. “We have moved away from breathing low down into our abdomen, hips, and pelvis. By incorporating deep breathing again into our day-to-day activities, this helps us release the tension in our pelvic floor and create a gentle pelvicfloor muscle contraction with each breath we take, normalizing pelvicfloor muscle function. There’s another potential problem related to the muscles of the pelvis: if a woman’s pelvic floor is hypertonic—or too tight—she may be unable to relax her muscles to accommodate penetration. “This can have a significant impact on their intimate relationships and sexual health, because sex is painful,â€? Forsyth says. “Sex should never be painful for anyone.â€? g This article was created in partnership with Womyns’ Ware, a sex-positive adult business that celebrates and empowers women’s sexuality. Its retail store is at 896 Commercial Drive in Vancouver and it’s also possible to shop at Womyns’ Ware online.

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14 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019

FOOD

Six places sweetening up the holidays

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by Tammy Kwan

t’s that time of the year when sugary treats become a regular part of your diet, and no one’s complaining. Many spots in the city are serving up some exceptional holiday-themed creations, which range from beautifully decorated cookies to chocolate showpieces to truly delicious yule logs. If you’re wondering what to bring to that big family potluck or dinner with friends, we suggest checking out the festive desserts being offered at these six locations.

Temper Pastry is offering some festive chocolate showpieces (left); Soirette has created pretty Scandinavian gingerbread houses for the holiday season (right).

TEMPER CHOCOLATE AND PASTRY

BEL CAFÉ

(2409 Marine Drive, West Vancouver) Steven Hodge’s schedule may be hectic with a new gig on Food Network Canada, but he’s still able to crank out an impressive seasonal collection for the holidays at Temper Pastry. Find holiday-table showpieces in the form of a Christmas tree, Santa’s hat, or a snowman, all filled with salty chocolate-caramel balls. Other treats include Temper’s signature sugardusted Christmas stollen, ginger and shortbread cookies, eggnog truffles, peppermint patties, candied pecans, candy-cane chocolate barks, and more. MON PARIS PATISSERIE

(4396 Beresford Street, Burnaby) Pastry chef Elena Krasnova has once again crafted a taste-tempting line of festive sweets that are great for holiday gift-giving. Celebrate with signature items like a chocolate tree (dark or milk) studded with nuts and dried fruits, a real-looking chocolate poinsettia flowerpot, chocolate ornaments with chocolate truffles inside, and other stocking stuffers. Yule-log f lavours like pistachio raspberry, redcurrant vanilla, and orange marmalade with passion fruit and mango crème brûlée are also available this season.

(801 West Georgia Street and 1780 West 3rd Avenue) David Hawksworth’s Bel Café is celebrating the holiday season with plenty of yuletide treats, best enjoyed with good company. Indulge in housebaked cookies like vanilla shortbread, linzer, and cinnamon marzipan that can be packed up in boxes tied with a bright red ribbon. Peppermint macarons and a Christmas cake are also on offer. A range of caffeinated drinks should get you in a jolly mood: think sugarplum cappuccino, vegan nog, and dark-chocolate orange mocha BUTTERMERE PATISSERIE

(636 Main Street) This cake shop will be celebrating the holiday season in its own brick-andmortar location for the first time, graduating from Torafuku’s commissary kitchen. Vancouver’s sweet tooths will find cakes like the Ornament (with gluten-free chocolate sponge cake, caramel jelly, and mascarpone mousse), as well as the Christmas Gift (with vanilla sponge cake, chestnut cream, and chestnut panna cotta). But its signature Christmas pillow cakes are the eye-catching showstoppers: they come in the form of Santa (lychee yuzu), a reindeer (lime marshmallow), a wreath (whisky raisin), and more.

SOIRETTE

(1433 West Pender Street) The Soirette team has done it again by creating a gorgeous collection of holiday treats in a cozy winter-woodland theme this year. Its lineup includes macarons decorated with plenty of deer and greens, with flavours like wildberry hot chocolate, chestnut and fig, and cookie dough. A beautiful holiday-cookie gift box is also available, filled with treats such as matcha shortbread Christmas trees, gingerbread snowflakes, cranberry-andpistachio sablées, and more. We’re mesmerized by its fun edible pieces like the gingerbread holiday tree, gingerbread woodland cabin, and Scandinavian gingerbread house. REMI PATISSERIE

(2729 Arbutus Street) It’s not easy running a small pop-up cake business on your own, and Remi Ho is already slammed with preorders for the busy holiday season. But he’s saving a few yule logs for walk-in customers on December 24; they can be picked up at Sweet Barrel Creamery and Coffee Roasters. The two flavours that will be offered are Thai ice tea, coconut, pandan, 65 percent chocolate, and coffee; and matcha black sesame. We suggest heading there very early in the day to avoid disappointment. g

> Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < EXPO 86

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HELP WITH MY HOODIE - URBAN PLANET

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: AUGUST 13, 2019 WHERE: BC Pavilion Expo 86 The biggest long shot of all time - you were a hostess at the BC Pavilion at Expo 86 - I remember we shared smiles there! Later, I saw your picture in the newspaper - you were the “Smile of the day” Your name is Carol-Ann. I clipped it out and saved it. Fast forward 33 years - and I have come across the clipping I saved so long ago. Like so many other keep sakes, it is time to clean house - but in the outside chance you may see this - look me up!

CUTE BLONDE ELECTRICIAN

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 16, 2019 WHERE: DT - Pender St You were working in my lobby. We smiled twice at each other. I blushed both times and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Went back to say hi, you were gone. Maybe you’ll be back to fix the lights? *Breaks all the lights*

EXOTIC PRINCESS FLYING INTO FIRECRUST

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 7, 2019 WHERE: Firecrust Pizza on Davie St and Howe St Woah girl.. slow down. You, gorgeous petite, dark haired goddess dressed in all black. Not sure if you are Latina or Middle Eastern but man, you were stunning. I saw you running from across the street, not sure if you were coming out of work or what but you were so fast. You kinda had a funny run, but it was really endearing. You ran so fast in to the joint to grab your Margarita pizza and you ran out again but not with out smiling at me with those big beautiful brown eyes... I was the tall, dark haired, dressed in a suit grabbing my lunch aswell. I fly between here and NYC a few times a month. I would love to take you for pizza and wine.

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 10, 2019 WHERE: Willowbrook Mall, Langley Me - looking for some advice on a guy’s hoodie. You - friendly, attractive blonde (not a staff member but another shopper) who was willing to offer your advice. Just wanted to say thanks again for being such a good sport and hope I didn’t make it awkward for you, lol! It was the first time in a while where I’ve reached out to a stranger like that and I wasn’t expecting such a helpful, positive reaction, lol!! Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say. That’s why I thought I would try putting this out there in the odd chance you were looking around in here ;)

NEW WEST COLUMBIA STATIONS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 12, 2019 WHERE: Columbia station You had like short French braids and I jumped on the train to surrey at the last minute, waited for you at Columbia, I should have tried harder but looking back from the last car is a place we've all been and I would love to talk to you some time I don't know what I'd say and that's ok. Oh I had a couple bags and a hat on because I just washed my hair and had a tendency to offend people. I'm actually funnier when I'm sleeping. The gender profile selection on here is far too specific. Or is it too general... our are vague and specific actually the same? That's what I would ask. You saw me I saw you. Boom.

YOU STEPPED OUT OF THE 1930'S

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 4, 2019 WHERE: 99 Bus I saw you on the 99 going to UBC. I loved your jacket it looked like something Bonny Parker would wear. I hope to catch a glimpse of you again.

PORTSIDE PUB RUM N COKE AND STRIPPERS

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 12, 2019 WHERE: The Portside Pub Hi! You are an engineer in Gastown and we had a great chat about strippers, old dudes who watch it, the No5 Orange, nude beaches, culinary skills, dancing (among other things) over an extra rum and coke you ordered while you were out with colleagues. I regret not getting your number! Let me buy you another rum n coke :) :) :)

BEAUTIFUL YOUNG GIRL WHO WORKS AT THE BC LIQUOR STORE

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 11, 2019 WHERE: Cambie broadway bc liquor store You came out from the back. Because they needed help I couldn't help wonder if we had something we both locked eyes. Me earring hoodie dark gray, with a jacket over black with some brown outlines.

WHICH TOFU IS FIRMER?

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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: DECEMBER 10, 2019 WHERE: Safeway at Broadway and Commercial I was standing in the tofu section and saw that you grabbed a super firm tofu package. I thought to myself that person must know the answer to my lifelong question: which tofu is firmer, "extra firm" or "super firm"? I casually gestured to you and asked if you knew which variety was truly firmer. Although my intentions were innocent at first, the moment we locked eyes I was very much attracted to you, at times too shy to look into your eyes. You responded with, "did you do the feel test?", which prompted us to a session of feeling up all the tofu. After some moments of laughter and sweet connection, I regrettably ended the interaction too soon, feeling like our time together was too good to be true. I paced over to the fresh vegetables, wondering if I'd ever see you again.

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Happy Holiday’s from Coal Harbour Liquor Store Holiday Hours: Xmas Eve: 10am-10pm / Xmas Day: 12pm-7pm / Boxing Day: 10am-11pm / New Year’s Eve: 10am-11pm / New Year’s Day: 12pm-7pm

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16 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019

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arts

Goh Nutcracker boasts ex-Bolshoi star by Janet Smith

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Now with the National Ballet of Canada, former Bolshoi Ballet prima ballerina Svetlana Lunkina (left) has danced the Sugar Plum Fairy role around the world; at right, Goh Ballet’s picturesque The Nutcracker.

he Sugar Plum Fairy’s pas de deux with her Prince is one of ballet’s most iconic dances—the magical gift that comes right at the end of The Nutcracker, like grand icing on a particularly exquisite cake. Set to some of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s most achingly beautiful music, it’s technically challenging, but the flickering footwork, perfectly aligned arabesques, and spinning pirouettes have to look weightless and easy. In short, the fabled part demands a star. But rarely do we see one with quite the pedigree of former Bolshoi Ballet prima ballerina Svetlana Lunkina, as Vancouver will when she joins the Goh Ballet for The Nutcracker this year. It will mark the first time the world-class talent has performed here. The lithe, raven-haired Muscovite with the striking almond-shaped eyes joined the Bolshoi in 1997. At 18, she became the youngest Giselle in the legendary company’s history, going on to master all the leading classical roles, and many contemporary ones too. In 2012, she left Russia amid turmoil, controversy, and power struggles at the Bolshoi—but that’s another long story. By 2013, she had joined the National Ballet of Canada, where she won instant acclaim, including high praise for last year’s title role in American-German choreographer John Neumeier’s Anna Karenina. Along this dizzying journey,

Arts TIP SHEET

Ēriks Ešenvalds, and Einojuhani Rautavaara), all brought to life by some of the most transcendant voices in the city.

The hardest part is to hide the effort, just to make it look easy with beautiful lines.

c FESTIVE CANTATAS:

CHRISTMAS IN GABRIELI’S VENICE (December 22 at the

c A ROSE IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER (December 20 at Pacific Spirit United Church) Finlandborn artistic director Kari Turunen has come up with a glistening mix for Vancouver Chamber Choir’s holiday concert: Eastern European choral traditions (Mykola Leontovych and Vasyl Barvinsky) and glistening Nordic jewels (Otto Olsson,

Lunkina has, of course, danced the Sugar Plum Fairy around the world, in multiple versions. She can’t count how many times. But the modest prima says she retains a heightened awareness of how high expectations are each time she performs the role. “I know it’s special in every country and every theatre for every production,” she says over the phone, speaking from the Four Seasons Centre during rehearsals at that

– Svetlana Lunkina

Chan Centre for the Performing Arts) Celebrated early-music master and cornetto virtuoso Bruce Dickey leads period instrumentalists and eight smashing vocalists in the jewellike songs of 17th-century Venice. Close your eyes at this Early Music Vancouver afternoon concert, and you’ll easily picture yourself amid the pomp and splendour of the High Renaissance, perhaps wandering by the Doge’s castle along picturesque canals. g

Toronto venue, where she’s hitting the stage as The Nutcracker’s graceful Snow Queen for the National. “And to see it at New Year’s and Christmastime—it’s very special for every person. For someone who comes for the first time, it is also so special. “Because it’s a classical production it has to be very pure, very beautiful—and yet at the same time very strong, and you have to see the hard work,” she continues. “The hardest

part is to hide the effort, just to make it look easy and pure with beautiful lines. Because it’s very difficult.” If this prima ballerina is calling it hard, that says something about the role. Lunkina has, after all, trained with the best. She was mentored by ballet royalty: fabled Russian prima ballerina assoluta Ekaterina Maximova. Under the tutelage of that icon, Lunkina has made a name not only for her Bolshoi-grade technique but for a unique flexibility and floatiness that gives her work a famously ethereal quality that epitomizes romantic Russian ballet. Those are all attributes that should make for a spectacular Sugar Plum Fairy. Lunkina says Tchaikovsky’s music, from the rippling harp that introduces the work to its sweeping orchestral crescendos, is what helps power

her through the part: “I feel the energy of it, no matter where I perform.” She is also propelled by the sense that the audience is following her, especially the children who come out in droves to The Nutcracker at this time of year. “You can almost feel them breathing with you on-stage, almost like they are doing every step with you,” she relates. “It’s really different from other productions in that way.” The Nutcracker is a tradition she, as a performer who has to work at Christmastime, has found her own way to celebrate with her children, now 10 and 15. She fondly remembers them watching her dance this role from backstage. For the show here, Lunkina joins another exciting international talent, Bavarian State Ballet’s Dmitrii Vyskubenko, as her Cavalier Prince. And though the Goh Ballet’s lushly staged rendition, created 11 years ago by Canadian-born ballerinachoreographer Anna-Marie Holmes, is full of family fun—an army of cheese-throwing mice, an outsized gingerbread man, and a towering tannenbaum—it’s safe to say there’s going to be some serious dance at the end. Like we said, icing—a rare, dazzling confection that should please even the most discerning tastes. g The Goh Ballet presents The Nutcracker at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from Friday to Sunday (December 20 to 22).

Chor Leoni baritone brings passions together

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by Alexander Varty

ucky are those who manage to combine work and play, and this Christmas Paul Larocque has extra reason to feel festive. Not only will the Arts Umbrella president and CEO get to bring both worlds together, he’ll do it for an adoring audience in the elegant Orpheum theatre, as part of Christmas With Chor Leoni: Angels Dance. By day, Larocque is in charge of the business side of the thriving arts-education organization, with the added responsibility of overseeing its takeover of part of the former Emily Carr University site on Granville Island, slated for completion in 2020. By night, he sings baritone with the region’s premier men’s choir. And this weekend, he’s helping to bring his two passions together when students in Arts Umbrella’s pre-professional dance-training program join Chor Leoni in a rare fusion of choral music and choreography. “Collaborations are always exciting,” he tells the Straight in a telephone interview from his False Creek home. “But this one, for me, is ex- Paul Larocque is bringing the dancers from Arts tremely special, because these are two organ- Umbrella to Chor Leoni. Photo by Mau Modiano izations that I’ve been personally and professionally involved with for close to two decades. “Arty [Artemis Gordon], the artistic direcWith Chor Leoni, being a singing member for tor of the dance program at Arts Umbrella, 16 years, and with Arts Umbrella, off and on and Erick Lichte, the artistic director of Chor for a 24-year span. Leoni, they’re both dear friends of mine, and

To have this additional element of live dance really is going to be extremely dynamic for us. – Paul Larocque

I’m so excited to see how the two of them will work together,” he continues. “A very special collaboration will result.…and I think that the two performances, for us, will just be extremely special. To have this additional element of live dance really is going to be extremely dynamic for us, and we’re very, very excited about it.” As thrilled as Larocque is about being part of the musical accompaniment for choreographers Lesley Telford, Livona Ellis, and the Ballet BC team of Brandon Lee Alley and Rachael Prince,

he’s even more enthusiastic about what the student performers will take away from appearing on Vancouver’s most glamorous stage. “It’s an extraordinary opportunity for these dancers,” he says. “And it’s actually one of the foundational aspects of the program, to be a part of these kinds of exchanges. This year alone, these dancers will perform with Ballet BC, they’ll be performing with Chor Leoni, of course, with Bard on the Beach, with a number of choreographers creating new works. This program is about intensive artistic practice, the study of technique, working with choreographers—and then putting all that into practice at a professional level, which speaks to why so many of our students are moving into professional careers upon leaving.” Most of all, he adds, it will give the young dancers, right from the start of their professional lives, a profound sense of possibility—and then, in turn, they’ll give their gifts to us. A better Christmas present would be hard to imagine. g Christmas With Chor Leoni: Angels Dance takes place at the Orpheum on Saturday (December 21). Chor Leone will also perform, without dancers, at West Vancouver United Church on Sunday (December 22).

DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 17

ARTS Hits and misses with Holiday hilarity

THEATRE

HOLIDAY AT THE ELBOW ROOM CAFÉ

By Dave Deveau. Featuring songs by Dave Deveau and Anton Lipovetsky. Directed by Cameron Mackenzie. A Zee Zee Theatre and the Cultch presentation. At the Cultch Historic Theatre on Thursday, December 12. Continues until December 29

d WHEN HOLIDAY AT the Elbow Room Café really comes together, it’s glorious, and there’s no better example than Act 2’s musical number “Two Dreidels and a Ladle”. Playwright Dave Deveau’s spiky and sweet charm is on full display in this vivid reworking of the traditional children’s song “I Have a Little Dreidel”, and the show’s stealth VIP, recent Studio 58 graduate David Underhill, turns in a performance that is memorably sassy and fierce, with nods to Beyoncé and Bob Fosse. It’s a standout number for both its cleverness and its energy, and for what Deveau and director Cameron Mackenzie do with it. Of all of the traditional songs used in Holiday at the Elbow Room Café, this is the most ambitious rendering, so it’s no surprise it’s the most rewarding. But “Two Dreidels and a Ladle” is also the most fully formed of the show’s traditional songs, and this speaks to a bigger issue with the rest of the production, which often feels like a work in progress. Holiday at the Elbow Room Café features songs from Deveau and Anton Lipovetsky’s 2017 hit, Elbow Room Café: The Musical, based on the beloved LGBTQ diner of the same name. The original musical was a loving tribute to the infamous restaurant—which served insults and eggs side by side— as well as its proprietors, spouses Patrice Savoie and Bryan Searle, who ran the Davie Street spot for 35 years until Searle’s passing in 2017. The restaurant then closed for good in 2018. A lot has happened in the Elbow Room’s real world since the musical’s debut, and while Holiday subtly acknowledges Searle’s passing, it doesn’t focus on it. Holiday presents a world in which the Elbow Room is still open. Searle (David Adams) is still a character in this show, too, as is Tabby (Emma Slipp), the brash southern tourist who enjoyed an eye-opening education in the Elbow Room’s raunchy hilarity in the musical. They both return to try and give Savoie (Joey Lesperance) the holiday spectacular he craves. Act 1 struggles with jokes that fall flat, not enough music, and some pacing issues, but Act 2 moves quickly and with more confidence. Holiday revisits a couple of standout numbers from the musical—“Let a Girl Eat” is still a raucous delight—but the bulk of the festive songs are traditionals from the public domain. This is why Holiday shines most brightly with the aforementioned original “Two Dreidels and a Ladle”, a number that is truly inspired. I genuinely want to see how this show could evolve with more time and attention. Like its real-life namesake, Holiday at the Elbow Room Café isn’t perfect, but it has a charm that makes me want to return and check out what Deveau and Mackenzie cook up next year. by Andrea Warner

Makes a PERFECT GIF T for THE HOLIDAYS!

18 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019

GIRLFRIEND

Book by Todd Almond. Music and lyrics by Matthew Sweet. Directed by Chris Lam. A Fighting Chance Productions presentation. At the NEST on Wednesday, December 11. Continues until December 21

d AMID THE abundance of glittery holiday entertainment right now, Fighting Change Productions has staged an intimate coming-of-age story with its production of Girlfriend. Set to American pop rocker Matthew Sweet’s songs, this musical tells the story of a romantic relationship between two boys during the summer following their high-school

Actors Emma Slipp, David Adams, and Joey Lesperance bring sassy sweetness and a little raunch to Holiday at the Elbow Room Café. Photo by Tim Matheson

graduation. Through their relationship, the teenagers gain a sense of identity and contemplate how they fit into their worlds. The production captures the heart of the story in a sweet and sensitive way but could take more risks. Set during the 1990s in Nebraska, the musical follows the relationship of social outcast Will and popular athlete Mike. Through their nightly hangouts, they develop a relationship that leads to sexual awakening. As the summer nears its inevitable end, both teens are also faced with major life choices. What drives Girlfriend is Sweet’s music. The catchy, upbeat “I’ve Been Waiting” starts the show off with a bang; the playful “Girlfriend” draws Will and Mike together and captures the essence of youthful joy; and the tender “Your Sweet Voice” sings with newfound emotional maturity. Both actors, Scott McGowan (as Mike) and Julian Galipeau (as Will), are strong singers. In particular, McGowan shows impressive vocal and style range, from beautiful falsetto to soulful, deep delivery. McGowan and Galipeau’s talents are matched by a four-piece band that also provides backup vocals. McGowan creates a believable and touching portrayal as Mike. At the beginning of Girlfriend, he shows awkwardness around his sexual identity but layers that with a clear drive to get past this struggle. McGowan commits to his character’s journey, graduating from painful self-consciousness to confidently choosing his own path. Galipeau has a tough job in portraying Will, who’s nowhere near as developed as Mike. Will is written as a flat character with minimal arc. Galipeau plays Will as being overly awkward, maintaining that same level of discomfort throughout the show. He also seems rushed at certain times instead of allowing the audience to really engage with his thoughts and emotions. Director Chris Lam has staged Girlfriend in a theatre-in-the-round setting, with the audience members facing each other and the band split between the other two sides. Galipeau and McGowan frequently rotate around the set, effectively allowing each side of the audience to see the story up close and personal. However, it’s a bit odd when Lam stages the two actors to face the band, as this blocks out the audience. The production is conservative, with not a lot of physical intimacy between the two actors. At one point, after spending the night together, Mike tells Will to put on his clothes, which doesn’t make any sense, as Will is already fully clothed. For a story about young men experiencing sexual awakening, Lam could have pushed the sexuality and edginess of the show. While numbers such as “Girlfriend” and “Evangeline” boost the show’s energy level from time to time, dialling up the sexual spark would make a huge difference in keeping the audience engaged. That said, this production approaches the subject matter with welcome tenderness and sensitivity. During a season full of light holiday entertainment, it’s nice to take some time out to enjoy an intimate theatre experience with some genuine moments. by Vince Kanasoot

JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT

Lyrics by Tim Rice. Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Directed by Barbara Tomasic. A Gateway Theatre production. At Gateway Theatre on Saturday (December 14). Continues until December 31

d JOSEPH AND THE Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an extremely challenging musical to do because of the show’s scale. And while this production is a wonderful opportunity for young local talent to shine, its limitations take some of the gleam off. Joseph is one of the early musicals from Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s collaboration. The show is a fun, comedic pop-rock opera that tells the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis. In the story, Joseph’s brothers are constantly annoyed by their father’s favouritism toward Joseph, as well as Joseph’s attitude. Not that Joseph has ill intentions. He’s a dreamer—but because of this, he’s often in his own world. The last straw for Joseph’s brothers is when their father, Jacob, presents Joseph with an exorbitant “coat of many colours”. The brothers sell Joseph into slavery, and thus a wild journey begins for him. It’s inspiring and filled with hilarious parodies of various music styles, including country and calypso, and even a tribute to Elvis. Under the direction of Barbara Tomasic, this production reveals that Joseph isn’t the kind of show you can do well on a small budget. In what appears to be an effort to minimize the size of the cast, Chelsea Rose plays not only the Narrator but also Jacob and Mrs. Potiphar, the wife of Joseph’s first slave master. Whenever Rose is playing Jacob, she holds up a fake mustache on a stick. Aside from looking amateurish, it doesn’t allow us to feel an emotional connection between Joseph and his father. If you’re going to cut corners with Joseph, the one you really can’t cut is with the amazing technicolour dreamcoat referred to in the show’s title. But this production’s dreamcoat is a lacklustre bomber jacket with a few patches of colour attached to it. On the other side of the coin, the costumes in the Potiphar scene are a treat. Potiphar wears a fabulous Elton John–inspired gold top hat and coat, and his subjects wear glittery black cocktail dresses reminiscent of “The Rich Man’s Frug” in Sweet Charity. As Joseph, Oliver Castillo is a strong singer and delivers the show’s famous tunes, “Close Every Door” and “Any Dream Will Do”, well. The standout moment of the show is Suddaby’s rousing performance of “Song of the King”, in which she all but blows the roof off with her sensational voice. And the ensemble is a delight to watch in “Those Canaan Days”, with their parody of French accents and gestures. But the powerful cast isn’t enough to overcome the lack of so much else on-stage. During a long musical interlude in “Close Every Door”, there’s so little to look at on-stage that we’re left awkwardly watching Joseph as he cries while waiting to sing again. This Joseph will likely be enjoyed by friends and family of the young cast. But it lacks that pro polish. by Vince Kanasoot

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DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 19

CHRISTMAS WITH CHOR LEONI:

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ARTS

Bygones conjures eerie imagery out of the dark by Janet Smith

DANCE BYGONES

An Out Innerspace Dance Theatre production. At the Scotiabank Dance Theatre on Wednesday, December 11. No remaining performances

d OUT INNERSPACE DANCE Theatre conjures such a surreal world in Bygones, you sometimes wonder if your eyes are playing tricks on you. In the opening moments, the light catches bodies that seem to falling through space. Props and sets—a table, a book, an elbow lamp, and the world’s creepiest plant—move of their own accord. It’s cinematic, eerie, and beyond cool. Of course, it’s the ever-innovative contemporary-dance team that is playing tricks on you—elaborate trompe l’oeils that toy with notions of time, space, and the larger themes of resisting change, getting stuck, and letting go. Choreographic team Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond (who perform with Elya Grant, David Harvey, and Renée Sigouin) are careful not to get too swept away with gimmicks. Working with lighting designer James Proudfoot and video designer Eric Chad, they’ve come up with fresh ways to carve space out of the dark. The main effect depends on pale bodies, faces, and hands emerging from a misty void. Sometimes the light creates the corner of a room; at other moments, it erects a wall, and all the audience can see are hands maniacally reaching, pushing, and flailing through it. Most logic-defying, a black spotlight outright swallows people up. Tregarthen and Raymond are fans of old movies, and it shows not

presents Alberta Ballet

The Nutcracker CHOREOGRAPHY

Edmund Stripe

COMPOSER

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

only in the dramatic use of light and dark here, but in the way moments are “edited” by going to black—like flashes of thoughts or memories. What helps make this dream-logic universe work is that it’s driven by strong contemporary-dance chops. Tregarthen and Raymond, who also perform for Crystal Pite’s Kidd Pivot, constantly find unexpected ways for bodies to contort, bend, and crawl. Watch one figure creep backward, limbs bending unnaturally, or Raymond convulsing in a spotlight. Kate De Lorme’s eclectic soundscape of metallic beats and clips from the likes of Blessed Initiative and Kaboom Karavan adds to the otherworldly feel. Here, Out Innerspace is exploring some of its most abstract territory yet. The technologically pumped Major Motion Picture, from 2016, was much clearer in its commentary about privacy and surveillance. But with Bygones, in the murkier territory of psychology and instinct, its movement finds its greatest potential—as bodies twist and jerk with the shifting forces of instinct, or are caught in limbo, flailing as they fall. The work is accessible, relatable, and fun, but it’s also intelligent and complex. The midsection spins its wheels a bit. And there are aspects of Bygones that are cryptic. Artist LyleXOX’s mask work makes a dramatic appearance, summoning a strange creature whose role is puzzling. But sinister forces and mystical beasts seem to fit easily into the dark delirium this company creates here. Out Innerspace is doing some of the city’s most exciting, ambitious dancetheatre work right now, and the trip they’re offering is a rush—even if you don’t trust your eyes. g

Live Music by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

“A JEWEL OF A PERFORMANCE.” —VANCOUVER OBSERVER

December 28 29 – 1:00pm & 6:30pm December 30 – 1:00pm

Queen Elizabeth Theatre balletbc.com

SUPPORT FOR BALLET BC HAS BEEN GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY

MEDIA SPONSORS

PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOIVICHUK.

20 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019

Tickets from $29

ARTS LISTINGS

Arts

ONGOING LUZIA Cirque du Soleil presents a poetic and acrobatic ode to the culture of Mexico. To Dec 29, Under the Grand Chapiteau (Big Top), Concorde Pacific Place. $39-270. THE SOUND OF MUSIC Romantic musical about a young woman who takes a governess position with a large family and falls for the widowed father. To Jan 5, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage. From $39. EAST VAN PANTO: PINOCCHIO When a lonely old ice-cream vendor is given a puppet by the mysterious Beckwoman of Commercial Drive, his dreams of having a child suddenly come true. To Jan 5, York Theatre. From $26. HOLIDAY AT THE ELBOW ROOM CAFÉ Zee Zee Theatre presents a holiday tribute to Vancouver’s iconic eatery. To Dec 29, Historic Theatre. From $26. IT’S A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS-ISH HOLIDAY MIRACLE Canadian comedy about a blended family during a complicated season. To Dec 22, Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre. From $29. PETER PAN Adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s classic tale reimagines Peter Pan for the new millennium. To Jan 5, Waterfront Theatre. $18-35. A CHRISTMAS CAROL Ron Reed embodies Scrooge and 43 other characters in Dickens’s Christmas story. To Dec 21, 8 pm, Pacific Theatre. $20-36.50. MISS BENNET: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY A comic holiday play with classic Jane Austen charm. To Jan 4, Granville Island Stage. From $29. GIRLFRIEND Will, a social outcast, and Mike, the popular football player, figure out that there is more to life than what high school has taught them. Days after graduation they explore their relationship and begin to ask themselves where their lives begin. Girlfriend is a pop/rock musical for everyone who remembers their first love. To Dec 21, 8-9:30 pm, The Nest. $31/33. JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT Reimagining of the biblical story of Joseph, Jacob, and the coat of many colours. To Dec 31, Gateway Theatre. $29-55. MERRY KISSMAS: A ROYAL ROMANCE Vancouver TheatreSports presents improvised romantic holiday comedy Wed-Sat. To Dec 24, Improv Centre. From $10.75. VANCOUVER CHRISTMAS MARKET Authentic German market features more than 80 huts stuffed with sweets, treats, and treasures. To Dec 24, Jack Poole Plaza. $15. VANCOUVER ART GALLERY aVIKKY ALEXANDER: EXTREME BEAUTY to Jan 26 aROBERT RAUSCHENBERG 1965–1980 to Jan 26 aTRANSITS AND RETURNS to Feb 23 aCINDY SHERMAN to Mar 8 aRAPTURE, RHYTHM AND THE TREE OF LIFE: EMILY CARR AND HER FEMALE CONTEMPORARIES to Jun 28

HOT TICKET

FOUR SEASONS (December 20 and 21 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts) Italian conductor, Modo Antiquo founder, recorder virtuoso, and baroque connoisseur Federico Maria Sardelli (shown here) leads the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra through Antonio Vivaldi’s greatest hit—as well as several other gems. TEN SQUARED: A HOLIDAY ART EXHIBITION (To December

ORIGINALLY CO-PRODUCED WITH TARRAGON THEATRE

WRITTEN BY HANNAH MOSCOVITCH DIRECTED BY ROSS MANSON MUSIC BY NJO KONG KIE STARRING AMY RUTHERFORD, EMILY JANE KING, JONATHON YOUNG & VIOLINIST ANDRÉA TYNIEC

“The play makes you feel as much as it makes you think”

22 at the Federation of Canadian Artists Gallery) If you’re in search of an artful last-minute gift, this annual fundraiser is a goldmine. One hundred Canadian artists in every imaginable style—from pop to abstract—have painted 10-inchby-10-inch works. g

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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18 A JAZZY, JOYFUL CHRISTMAS The Vancouver Children’s Choir presents a cabaret-style evening of jazzy Christmas music. Dec 18, 6:15 pm, Christ Church Cathedral . $75. SLACKS: THE CHRISTMAS SHOW Sitcom centring around four queer women living in East Van. Dec 18-21, 7:30 pm, Havana. $21. BEERS & CHEERS Comedy variety show featuring standup, improv, and sketch comedy. Dec 18, 8:30-9:30 pm, Café Deux Soleils. $10.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19 THE (MUSICAL!) BEAST OF MT. SEYMOUR Modern panto about a friendly sasquatch, written by Toph Whitmore. Dec 19–Jan 4,

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Oliver Castillo & Timothy Liu. Photo By David Cooper.

DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 21

from previous page

Deep Cove Shaw Theatre. $18. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE Patrick Street Productions presents a new musical based on the screenplay by Frank Capra. Dec 19–Jan 5, Anvil Centre. From $29. N’SHAYTKIN Battery opera books presents a reading by Chris Bose of his new release. Dec 19, 7 pm, Grunt Gallery. Free. COEXISDANCE: WESTERN EDITION #2 Dance artists and musicians share short improvised works. Dec 19, 8 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre. Suggested donation $15. JOKES PLEASE! Standup comedy show hosted by Ross Dauk. Dec 19, 9-10:40 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. $10.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20 GOH BALLET’S THE NUTCRACKER Annual performance of the classic holiday ballet. Dec 20-22, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. $37-139. VANCOUVER CHAMBER CHOIR A Christmas journey through time with musical traditions from Northern Europe. Dec 20, 7:30 pm, Pacific Spirit United Church. $15/29/33. A WONDERHEADS CHRISTMAS CAROL A whimsical reimagining of the holiday classic. Dec 20, 7:30-8:45 pm, Kay Meek Arts Centre. $22-46. JAMES KENNEDY Canadian comedian performs two nights of standup. Dec 20-21 Yuk Yuk’s Vancouver. $20/22.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21 KAREN FLAMENCO Karen Flamenco Dance Co. performs to Tchaikovsky. Dec 21, 3-4 pm, Improv Centre. $20. ANGELS DANCE Chor Leoni is joined by Arts Umbrella dancers. Dec 21, 4 & 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre. $10/20/45.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22 THE NUTCRACKER Royal City Youth Ballet Company presents the holiday classic. Dec 22, Massey Theatre. $34-49. CHRISTMAS IN GABRIELI’S VENICE Experience the sounds of motets from two to 15 voices. Dec 22, 3 pm, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 MONDAY NIGHT COMEDY SHOW Comedy with MC Jeren Drew and headliner Larke Miller. Dec 23, 7-8:30 pm, Morrissey Pub. $7/10.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26 2019 YEAR IN REVIEW Improvised comedy based on 2019 headlines. Dec 26-31, Improv Centre. From $10.75. ARTS LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge. Submit events online using the event-submission form at straight. com/AddEvent..

22 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019

MOVIES

Peaceniks, liars, and a few old friends by Ken Eisner

REVIEWS A HIDDEN LIFE

Directed by Terrence Malick. In English and German, with English subtitles. Rated PG

d A HIDDEN LIFE is Terrence Malick’s first period piece since 2005’s The New World, and second visit to World War II after 1998’s The Thin Red Line. In a sense, his films are all historically based, whether trading on his own childhood, as the son of Syrian-Christian immigrants who ended up in Texas, or going back to a time before humans arrived (both in The Tree of Life). After his breakthrough Days of Heaven in 1978, it was two full decades before Malick directed again, and he has subsequently eschewed naturalistic dialogue in favour of swoony montages with characters’ thoughts conveyed in detached voice-over narration, not always matched with the scene being shown. Here, he takes both approaches in the relatively (for him) straightforward tale of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer whose Catholic piety made him refuse military service for the Nazis who annexed his nation in 1938. He’s played by Berlin-born August Diehl, who was a slimy SS man in Inglourious Basterds and, conversely, the title character in The Young Marx. In real life, Jägerstätter was a rangy, semiliterate bad boy who made waves with the first motorcycle in his tiny Alpine village, which looks like something from The Sound of Music. The man’s innate religiosity deepened when he married the devout Fani (Valerie Pachner, also seen opposite Diehl’s Walter Gropius in the new German series Bauhaus). Here, however, she’s just a strong, long-suffering farm wife with three small daughters, who can do nothing to impede her husband’s headlong rush into oblivion at the hands of town leaders, officers, and priests who all counsel him to just go with the fascist flow. It’s easy to see why Malick was attracted to this material, since Christlike mortification always anchors his philosophical quasi-storytelling. But this suffering is mostly in silence, as Franz refuses to explain himself to his interrogators, including Matthias Schoenaert’s Gestapo man and a judge played by Bruno Ganz, in his penultimate screen appearance. (The German-speaking cast largely works in English, inexplicably reverting to their home language on rare occasions.) The director’s choice is odd, because much of what we know about the real Jägerstätter, beatified by Pope Benedict in 2007, comes from a large volume of letters collected from what passed between the married couple. For Malick, stoicism is its own reward, and he seems uninterested in what his subjects actually thought and said. This means that, apart from some clever use of old newsreel footage, the film’s three hours must be spent with distantly murmuring folks either tilling the earth or staring at the sky, towards a heaven that promises God’s voice but only delivers enemy planes.

August Diehl refuses to bend to the Nazis in A Hidden Life (left); Louis-José Houde faces the truth in Compulsive Liar (right); Britain’s future speaks in 63 Up (bottom).

which may be the last installment, as least as envisioned by Michael Apted, who is now 78 and has directed all but that first episode. (He was an assistant there, before handling episodes of Coronation Street and other Granada shows.) The steadfast subjects—10 men and, still shockingly, only four women— have gone through the usual life changes; one has died, one’s gravely ill, and some have uprooted themselves several times. A few excused themselves from the series, most notably Charles Furneaux, who went on to be a television-doc producer himself. Perhaps he viewed it as a conflict of interest, but the subject never comes up. The saddest saga is that of Nicholas Hitchon, the scientist who moved to the U.S. and started a new family only to be stricken by cancer. (He did work with uranium and other radioactive materials.) But a formerly bleak pattern finds that idealistic Neil Hughes, homeless and adrift in several episodes, has had some success in local politics and is now living part-time on his own farmstead in France. Upper-class twits, like Bruce Balden and John Brisby, who seemed so priggish at the start, have become rather more giving and social-minded over the years. Paul Kligerman and Symon Basterfield, abandoned at the same orphanage at the start, have built large, happy families for themselves. Only three of the women are on hand this time, with the enterprising Sue Davis and tough-talking Jackie Bassett building solid middleclass lives out of hardscrabble beginnings. (Jackie continues to give Apted a right bollocking for the sexist assumptions on which the series was built.) If the Uppers have a central theme, it’s that of social mobility in class-bound Blighty. Many subjects complain that their grandchildren may be the first cohort not to do appreciably better than their forebears. Even Tony, the “cheeky chappy” from Hackney who went from jockey to cabbie and then got wiped out in the 2008 debacle, admits, “I usually vote Tory, but I might have to 63 UP A documentary by Michael Apted. rethink that.” All voice opposition to Rated PG Brexit, expressing the fatalism that goes with having seen Britain age in d “THIS HAS BEEN a glimpse of reverse—once Great, but now just Britain’s future.” Those words ended Little England. the debut, and subsequent installments, of the U.K. TV series that COMPULSIVE LIAR began when Seven Up! first aired, in Starring Louis-José Houde. In 1964. Now that Britain’s future has French, with English subtitles. passed, how do the original partici- Rating unavailable pants in the long-running series feel about where they’ve been and where d ALL ART IS a lie, of course, even if the good stuff tells the kind of truth they’re going? The most salient questions are you only find through fiction. That’s asked and largely answered in 63 Up, one reason obsessive prevaricators

make good story subjects, if not reliable leaders. Still, the serial-fibber concept hasn’t been that well-handled in movies. Ricky Gervais’s The Invention of Lying and Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar, for example, settled in for premises that never dug much beneath the surface of this most peculiarly human of skills. (Do chameleons lie? That’s for David Attenborough to determine.) When it comes to examining untruth—whether in life, movies, or politics—everyone seems to settle for embarrassment humour rather than enlightenment. Shame over game, you might say. All of this applies to the antihero of Compulsive Liar, known as Menteur in Quebec, where it was made. But the movie, written by veteran comic director Émile Gaudreault (best-known here for Mambo Italiano) and two others, ratchets up enough manic fun to at least gesture at something deeper. Louis-José Houde plays Simon, a lightly bearded exec at a Montreal aeronautical company. Simon doesn’t just make up shit to cover his tardiness and inefficiencies—his car is always running out of gas and what’s wrong with those elevators/computers/delivery guys anyway? He also talks smack about everyone he works with, inventing malicious gossip to make himself look good. Of course, how someone like this has kept a senior position is a mystery—unless it’s a dig at SNC-Lavalin and other perennially troubled engineering outfits. Anyway, you have to accept that premise for the tale to work, and to laugh when his tissue of lies combusts. On the brink of pitching a big contract to a visiting Russian oligarch (yikes), Simon is sent a translator who’s his polar opposite: the skittish woman (playwright turned actor Catherine Chabot) is a compulsive truth-teller, as well as a mitigating love interest, of course. But what really upsets the apple cart is a force field generated by faraway Buddhist monks, upset that his mendacity “threatened the fabric of the universe”. Make sense? Okay, maybe they’re pushing it a bit to have all his B.S. magically come true, and the film, which also centres on Simon’s tug of war with his resentful brother (Antoine Bertrand), is generally more silly than profound. But I enjoyed how his attempts to set things right only made things worse, and also how his habitual braggadocio paid off in unexpected ways. I mean, those lies turned his boss into an on-the-job drunk and his parents into brutal abusers, but at least now he really does love Duke Ellington and knows the complete works of Tolstoy. Is it true that all happy families are a lie? g

MOVIES The Cinematheque

Director Michael Apted is warming Up Essential Cinema

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by Adrian Mack

agle-eyed viewers of last week’s U.K. general election might have spotted a strangely familiar face. For 56 years, the Lib Dem candidate for Workington, Neil Hughes, has been talking to filmmaker Michael Apted about his mental-health issues. First seen as perhaps the brightest of the 14 kids captured in 1964’s Seven Up!, Hughes was homeless and wandering Britain’s north by the time 28 Up came around in 1984. Subsequent installments of the epic documentary series—which revisits the class-diverse group every seven years—leave the impression of a deeply principled man dedicated to public service. He lost his most recent race, but Hughes’s candour suggests a model of unique position for any politician. That unpredictable life path will yield yet more surprises when 63 Up opens in Vancouver on Friday (December 20). True to form, and without revealing too much, Hughes is where you’d least expect to find him. There has also been illness and one death among the series participants since Apted last checked in, along with the more mundane triumphs and travails. The Georgia Straight is only half-joking when we suggest to the filmmaker, reached in Los Angeles a week before the election, that the saddest decline belongs to the country itself. “Because of Brexit, we were very late finishing the film,” he says, with exasperation. “I was holding my breath that something would happen which would give us a nice political end, as it were.” Time ran out, and what remains, Apted predicts, “is going to be catastrophic. I can’t see any other way. It’s going to split the country in half.” Britain’s woes return 63 Up to the more sociopolitical tenor of

The filmmaker agrees that he’s a little more present than usual in 63 Up.

earlier episodes, although a warmth prevails in the end. He’s still a disembodied voice interrogating his subjects, but Apted agrees that he’s looser and more familiar this time around. There’s a sense in 63 Up of the shared experience, maybe even a whiff of relief. “Yeah, I think this one was not necessarily the easiest one,” he says. “But there was a good spirit. We all made it out to our 60s—and our 70s—and we’re still alive and well. I think there was that confidence about it.” Over the years, Apted has endured chastisement from councilestate-bred Jackie for the project’s inherent sexism, skepticism about the veracity of the documentary form itself from physicist Nick, and grief from almost everyone about the intrusion into their lives. The mood of 63 Up is one of acceptance. “The longer it goes on, and the more famous they become, and also

the more countries it gets showed in—it makes them feel good about it,” Apted says. “A lot of what’s in the film can be embarrassing to them, but I think they understand that everybody’s life has its ups and downs. As long as it feels authentic, I think we’re all right.” He adds that everyone is permitted their say in the final cut. “I didn’t want to lose people because of my own kind of infidelity,” he says, although 63 Up is missing one of its most intriguing personalities. At 21, upper-crust Suzy blazed with contempt for Apted’s project. Later years found her more contented, but still critical. At 56 she said she’d hang in despite hating it. At 63, she’s gone. “She’s screwed me every single time,” Apted proclaims. “There have been times when I’ve had a crew on the road going down to where she lives and she’s said, ‘I’m not gonna do it.’ And then she does do it, and she’s completely neurotic about it.” Laughing quietly, he explains that he’d “been bullying her for about eight months” when schedules went sideways and Suzy missed her slot. “If we continue, and enough of us are alive, I’m sure she would come back.” Those words, of course, are not said lightly. At 78, Apted is surely aware that he might not be up for another Up. (He even muses that Charles Furneaux, absent since 1977’s 21 Up and now a documentary producer, might be the guy to take it over.) He’s clearly affectionate when he says of Oxford-educated QC John: “People think he’s a bit of a twat, and yet he’s probably the most interesting and generous of all of them.” This is how family speaks of one another. The film’s tender ambiance is an acknowledgement, perhaps, of the one adopted relative who never goes before the camera. g

Happy Holidays December 21–30

Film Still: The Wizard of Oz

December 21–23, 28 December 21–22, 27, 30 December 22–23, 28–29 December 26 & 29 December 26–27, 29–30 December 26–28, 30

The Foreign Correspondent (G) Gaslight (PG) The Hidden Fortress 檱ͭᏂ΄ӣ䘂Ո (G) The Wizard of Oz (G) The Red Shoes (PG) Playtime (G)

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DECEMBER 19 – 26 / 2019 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 23

music

Our critics’ favourite albums of 2019

This year we loved left-field teen superstars, ambitious indie queens, and whatever 100 Gecs is

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BILLIE EILISH When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Already a left-field superstar at the tender y age of 17, Billie EilLANA DEL REY it re cr sis ish (with due credit Norman Fucking at ts a s t ll a t t e m p to her ingenious cowritRockwell! There was ing and producing brother, no better opening to a record this year than the title track’s Fineas O’Connell) is too busy rewritpiano-and-cinematic-strings-ac- ing the pop-music rulebook to bothcompanied “Goddamn man-child/ er with trying to be cool—which, You fucked me so good that I almost naturally, has made her a style icon. said ‘I love you.’ ” Impossibly, that was just the start of the brilliance on STRAND OF OAKS Eraserland Norman Fucking Rockwell!, a record This is the sound of a man blowing up that announced Del Rey as a super- his life (and music career) and rebuildstar who’s every bit as complicated as ing it again, told with the unswerving the times we live in. Hands down the emotional conviction that is Timothy Showalter’s stock-in-trade. Add in the greatest record of the year.

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d IF NOTHING else, 2019 will be remembered (by me, at any rate) as the year that, after two decades of insistently trying to sell me on the man’s brilliance, Mike Usinger finally got me to listen to a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds record. And I liked it!

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RACONTEURS Help Us Stranger After a decadelong hiatus, the Raconteurs return to action with a record that’s all red-line bombast and turbocharged rawness. Along with often underrated singerguitarist Brendan Benson, modern-day icon Jack White serves notice that, despite all evidence to the contrary, rock ’n’ roll isn’t as dead as it sometimes seems.

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HIGHER BROTHERS Five Stars BILLIE EILISH When We All Fall Coming straight outta China, where Asleep, Where Do We Go? Imagine exercising one’s freedom of speech being a teenager in 2019, a time can be a life-threatening decision, when the world is a shit-blizzard the Higher Brothers boldly emof right-wing lunacy, devastating brace 21st-century American hipclimate change, and being entirely hop and then warp it into their unable to get over the 30-followers own new and shiny thing. As a hump on Instagram. It’s no shocker window onto a culture most westthat Billie Eilish has become the erners never see, it’s fascinating. patron saint of disaffected youth As a banger, it’s essential. around the globe, her subterranean electro-pop suggesting that there’s WORMWITCH Heaven That nothing wrong with being vaguely Dwells Within Had Wormwitch terrified and endlessly traumacome together in a more traditional tized by life. metal stronghold—the Bay Area, Sheffield, or FinNICK CAVE AND nish church counTHE BAD SEEDS try—the Vancouver Ghosteen At his three-piece would recent Conversacurrently be a tion With show w it h-a-bu l let at New Westcontender for minster’s Masworld dominasey Theatre, Nick tion. Majestic as Cave told the the Final Fantasy audience that, in guitar wizardry, this phase of his spawn-of-Tolkien th c e e pa ff career, every new relyrics, and blacksa tro n s aint o f di cord is so different that mass choir flourishes fans need to decide if they might be, Heaven That still love his work. As an exorcism of Dwells Within’s major power is its the grief and the demons that envel- unswerving devotion to undiluted oped him after the accidental death old-school black-, death-, and punkof his son in 2015, Ghosteen isn’t an edged steel. Horns up. easy record to unpack—until, that is, one accepts the idea that sometimes BIG THIEF U.F.O.F./Two Hands there’s deep beauty in unimaginable After putting out an instant Top 10 tragedy. shoo-in at the beginning of the year with U.F.O.F., Big Thief promptly BLACK MOUNTAIN Destroyer doubled down in the fall with Two With the departure of long-time col- Hands, both records swinging from laborators Joshua Wells and Amber lazy-river country to Texas-sunset Webber, Stephen McBean went into psych to dissonant no-wave. When Destroyer with the challenge of not you make your best-of-this-year only preserving Black Mountain’s mix tape, start with “Not” and finlegacy, but building on it. Trippy, ish things off with “Cattails”, both heavy, and ambitious in the most fan- of which prove that, despite all evitastically retro of ways, this double- dence to the contrary, 2019 really fuzzed triumph makes a good case wasn’t that bad. that Black Mountain 2.0 is the most unlikely of beasts: an upgrade. JOHN LUCAS

fact that his backing band on Eraser- Angel Olsen’s equally reinventive All unflinching passion—the key topic land is four-fifths of My Morning Jack- Mirrors this year.) here being the wretched assemblage et, and you really can’t go wrong. of dead-end jobs and racist violence NICK CAVE AND THE that is life in the less-than-United BAD SEEDS Ghosteen Kingdom. The first great art of Boris ANGEL OLSEN All A shattering tragedy— Johnson’s ghastly reign? Probably. Mirrors Now, this the death of one of is how you open Nick Cave’s twin LUMEN DRONES Umbra Would a fucking record. sons—inspired an I include this Norwegian avant-folk Over six minutes album of fragile, masterpiece in this list were I comand 18 seconds, ethereal grace, piling it in August? Yes, but there’s “Lark” delivers with Cave ultim- no doubt that Lumen Drones’ coma roller-coaster ately concluding bination of eerie Hardanger fiddle, ride of shimmerthat this world echoing cymbals, and tripped-out ing synths and of loss and grief electric guitar is the perfect soundswelling strings, contains sufficient track for these grey December days. culminating in a e n i so e beauty and love to ofcrescendo of nearun nr d of se A n g el O l fer consolation in even ONLY A VISITOR Technicolour symphonic melodrama the darkest of passages. over which Angel Olsen Education Based on family stories beseeches “What about my dreams?/ of displacement and isolation—pianWhat about the heart?” It’s an auspi- LANA DEL REY Norman Fucking ist and songwriter Robyn Jacobs’s cious beginning to the most ambitious Rockwell! Lana Del Rey resists all at- Cantonese great-grandfather came to album of Olsen’s career (so far), which tempts to analyze the themes in her Canada in 1912, but her family was all but eschews indie rock in favour of work—and is known to respond to in- not reunited until 1988—Technicolour something both stranger and grander. depth, thoughtful essays on the topic Education is a smart and moving exwith dismissive tweets. Duly warned, ploration of disapora. The tension be100 GECS 1000 Gecs “You talk a lot let’s just say that it takes a certain kind tween Jacobs’s small, intimate voice of big game for someone with such a of artist to reference the likes of Syl- and her band’s neo-prog assurance is small truck” is the best lyric of 2019, via Plath, Leonard Cohen, and Rob- a thing of beauty all on its own. and if you don’t think so, you’re not ert Frost in her work, thus brazenly going to like the rest of this record courting comparison with them. Del PNEUMA Who Has Seen the Wind? either. An unapologetically abrasive Rey is that sort of artist, and she’s also Who knew that three clarinets and kick-in-the-head mix of pitch-shifted the sort to do so in the context of an a single voice could produce such a vocals, trap beats, and red-lined video- album that also includes a Sublime gorgeous sound? Pneuma’s entirely game squelches, 1000 Gecs is unlikely cover—“Doin’ Time”, which itself is unique blend of improvisational to even read as “music” to anyone who based in part on a George Gershwin fearlessness and carefully layered arisn’t a member of the TikTok genera- song. So many layers. rangements justifies the band’s name, tion. Even so, “Ringtone” and “Money which derives from an ancient Greek Machine” are the catchiest pieces of ALEXANDER VARTY word for the breath of life—and that’s pop-culture trash you’re likely to hear, exactly what you’ll hear here. at least until Lil Nas X finally puts out a d THANK YOU, Marie Kondo! The decluttering craze has allowed me to RAE SPOON Mental Health full-length follow-up to his 7 EP. purchase three large record collec- Using a combination of empathetic DIIV Deceiver DIIV’s music is often tions this year, two primarily of clas- role-playing and soul-baring selfpegged as “dream pop”, and if that’s sical music and the other focusing on examination, Rae Spoon has made the case, then Deceiver is the sound jazz guitar. So while I’ve taken time something beautiful and—dare I say of what happens when dreams be- off to check out Lizzo and Billie Eilish, it?—life-affirming out of dysfunccome nightmares. Through the haze I’ve been more concerned with decod- tion. Mental Health might not offer of shoegazing guitars that often build ing the subtle differences bea cure for psychic despair, but up to mighty walls of distortion, tween six-eye Columbias at least it will leave you Zachary Cole Smith tackles some and shaded dogs, while feeling like you’re not heady topics. These include climate savouring the tonal alone. change (“Blankenship”, named after perfection of Jim the science-denying coal baron Don Hall, circa 1959. DAVID TORN/ Blankenship) and the pharmaceut- Still, you can’t TIM BERNE/ ical industry’s role in the opioid crisis always live in the CHES SMITH (“Skin Game”, on which recovering past, and the artSun of Goldaddict Smith implicates the Sackler ists listed below finger Guitar, family by name). Gorgeous noise and mostly signal a sax, and percusbrighter future a social conscience? Sign me up. sion virtuosos than the politics of combine to creA da PURPLE MOUNTAINS Purple the moment might ate long-form imBe ms on Mountains David Berman’s simultan- suggest. provised psychedelia. e pond e rs tim eous comeback and swan song is the With just three tracks, sound of one man’s battle against the JOHN LUTHER ADAMS each running over 20 minunrelenting demon dogs of depression, Become Desert Concerning itself utes in length, don’t look for instant armed with self-deprecating humour with the passage of time—the desert- gratification here; instead, enjoy the and an innate knack for expressing the ification of arable land due to climate slowly unfolding pleasures of floatinexpressible. It’s a battle the former change, certainly, but also perhaps ing over and through a succession of Silver Jews frontman lost—Berman the play of light over a landscape luminous, otherworldly landscapes. ended his life a month after Purple during a single day, or the sprouting, Mountains came out—and while that blossoming, and dying of any green NATE WOOLEY Columbia Icefield fact certainly adds an air of tragic fu- shoot—this 40-minute masterpiece Nate Wooley is best known as an imtility to the proceedings, this is still an is a welcome invitation to take real provising trumpet virtuoso, and has time off from the daily grind. unexpectedly uplifting listen. made a number of minor masterpieces in that idiom. Here, though, LIZZO Cuz I Love You Armed with KRIS DAVIS Diatom Ribbons he’s working with a bigger canvas the voice of an old-school soul belter Former Vancouverite Kris Davis is and has arrived at the perfect synand a hip-hop sensibility, Lizzo more thriving in Brooklyn, and on Diatom thesis of live ambient music, smallthan holds her own when Missy Elliott Ribbons she showcases both her oc- group improv, and contemporary pops by to drop a verse in “Tempo”, casionally effervescent and always composition. Pedal-steel innovator expressive piano alongside her ru- Susan Alcorn is a particularly weland that’s really saying something. minative compositions. A who’s who come presence. SHARON VAN ETTEN Remind Me of improv luminaries—including Tomorrow Sharon Van Etten built Esperanza Spalding, Nels Cline, and VARIOUS ARTISTS Folk Music of her reputation as a songwriter who Terri Lyne Carrington—contribute, China, Vol. 3: Folk Songs of Yunlays her emotions bare and seems to sometimes raucously. nan Neither the plastic glitz of be singing for her life. Remind Me Cantopop nor the filigreed elegance Tomorrow suggests that she is also RICHARD DAWSON 2020 Per- of State Ensemble folk, this is music evolving into a bold sonic explorer. formed with amateur enthusiasm from the Old Weird China, as raw “Seventeen” is a heart-rending letter and sung in an undiluted Geordie and impassioned as anything you’d to her naive younger self, but it’s also accent, 2020 is folk music, but it’s hear in the Tuareg Sahara or the the closest Van Etten has ever come to folk music that’s willing to stretch American South. Barring a couple making a synth-pop banger. (It might as far as pop-punk, metal, and of electronically enhanced missteps, not be entirely coincidental that pro- grime. It’s also folk music in that it it’s fascinatingly unfamiliar and irducer John Congleton also worked on addresses contemporary issues with resistibly lovely. g A l l M i rr

d DEAR IPOD Classic 160GB with the clickwheel: I am profoundly sorry for almost totally abandoning you this past 12 months. According to my Apple Music account metrics for 2019, this is what I was listening to on the iPhone X while you were gathering dust on top of the fridge.

MATTIEL Satis Factory Mattiel has roots in grime-dipped garage rawk, but her brilliance is in the way she’s able to transcend the limitations of the genre. Satis Factory leaves you wondering who she’s more enamoured with: the White Stripes, the Rolling Stones, Nancy Sinatra, or the Velvet Underground, with the probable answer a four-way tie for first.

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MIKE USINGER

MUSIC

London Calling is not the Clash’s best When was the last time you cranked the stereo to sing along with Side 4’s “Lover’s Rock”? by Mike Usinger

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istory has a funny way of warping reality, which explains the drooling accolades currently being heaped upon the Clash’s London Calling. If you’re going to anoint one album as superior to all others from the Only Band That Matters, start debating whether it’s The Clash or Combat Rock, rather than a record that’s every bit as deeply flawed as Sandinista!. London Calling has been dissected by every news outlet that matters this past week because it’s 40 years old. The general consensus is that’s it’s the most important record in the long and spiky history of punk rock. That’s right: superior to the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Black Flag’s Damaged, D.O.A.’s Hardcore ’81, the Damned’s Damned Damned Damned, the Dead Kennedys’ Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, and the Ramones’ forever-overrated Ramones. Pop-culture obsessives have accurately argued that the Clash rewrote the rules of punk rock with London Calling. When Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon first began working on the record in May 1979, the genre had become more about what you couldn’t do than what you could. Punk bands were dogmatically required to be fast, loud, distorted, and stupidly simple, with a strong antisocial, antiauthoritarian, and antibathing streak earning invaluable street-cred points.

There’s a maddening thing about the admirably audacious album.

London Calling took things in an entirely new direction, drawing on everything from dope-slurred jazz (“Jimmy Jazz”) to Jamaican dub (“The Guns of Brixton”) to Studio One reggae (“Rudie Can’t Fail”) to Stax R&B (“The Right Profile”). Rather than railing on about the Queen’s subhumanry or scraping by on the dole, the quartet dived into Spanish history, American capitalism, nuclear-power paranoia, and the mythology of the bad motherfucker called Stagger Lee.

You want perfection? Start with downbeat anticonsumerism manifesto “Lost in the Supermarket”. Most of us go through life as everyman spectators, standing on the sidelines and accepting we’ll never be movie stars, rock royalty, or sports icons. Strummer speaks for all of us with lyrics like “I wasn’t born so much as I fell out/Nobody seemed to notice me.” Right from the call-to-arms title track, London Calling is loaded with songs fit for the most thoughtfully

MUSIC LISTINGS CONCERTS JUST ANNOUNCED RAY CHARLES—SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS Mike Henry performs a holiday tribute to Ray Charles. Dec 28, 7 pm, 9:15 pm, Blue Frog Studios. $49.50. NEW YEAR’S SPECTACULAR Yolanda Fletcher as Aretha Franklin and Bobby Brooks Wilson as Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke. Dec 31, 9:30 pm, River Rock Casino. $79.50. JIM CUDDY Member of Blue Rodeo performs on his Countrywide Soul Tour. Jan 10, 7:3010 pm, The Clarke Theatre . $49.50. DAVID FRANCEY Scottish-born Canadian folk poet and singer. Jan 10, 11, 8-10:30 pm, St. James Hall. $32/28. RANDY HANSEN—JIMI HENDRIX LIVES ON Tribute to guitar legend Jimi Hendrix. Jan 11, 7 pm, Blue Frog Studios. $49.50. BARNEY BENTALL B.C. folk-roots singer-songwriter. Jan 11, 7:30 pm, Genesis Theatre. $50. JOHNNY A—JUST ME & MY GUITARS American electric-guitar virtuoso. Jan 12, 7 pm, Blue Frog Studios. $44. WEST COAST CHICAGO Tribute to horndriven ‘70s rock band Chicago. Jan 17-18, 7 pm, 9:15 pm, Blue Frog Studios. $49.50. CHADWICK STOKES & THE PINTOS Boston musician and human-rights activist, frontman for Dispatch and State Radio. Jan 18, 7:30 pm, Fox Cabaret. $33.50. BONNIE SCOTT Female-fronted AC/DC tribute band, with guests the James Shepherd Band. Jan 18, 7:30-11:30 pm, Tsawwassen Legion #289. $20. ...AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD American art-rock band plays tunes from latest album X: The Godless Void and Other Stories. Jan 20, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. $20. GZA American rapper and member of Wu-Tang Clan. Jan 20, 8 pm, Fortune Sound Club. $35. VEDA HILLE’S LITTLE VOLCANO Pianist and songwriter draws from works by J.S. Bach, as well as her own compositions. Jan 21-23, 8 pm, Orpheum Annex. $39/15. NIGHTSEEKER Hard-rock band featuring fictional character Dean from the Fubar movies, with guests Dead Quiet and Killer Deal. Jan 24, 9 pm, WISE Hall. $25. BEÒLACH Traditional folk band from Cape Breton. Jan 31, 8-10:30 pm, St. James Hall. $30/26. BISON Local heavy-metal band, with guests Bob Sumner, War Baby, Hashteroid, and Killer Deal. Feb 1, 7:30 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $17.50. LLOYD COLE English pop-rock/indie-pop singer-songwriter. Feb 2, 8 pm, Rio Theatre. Tix on sale Dec 20, 10 am, $29.50. THE WORLD/INFERNO FS Punk/soul/klezmer/jazz band from Brooklyn, with guests the Bridge City Sinners and Vic Ruggiero. Feb 6, 8 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $16.50.

MATTIEL Pop-rock singer-songwriter from Atlanta, with guest Calvin Love. Feb 6, 9 pm, Fox Cabaret. $15. COUSIN HARLEY Rock ‘n’ roll trio led by guitarist Paul Pigat. Feb 7, 7 pm, Blue Frog Studios. $47. HENRY KAPONO Hawaiian singer-songwriterguitarist performs original songs with a rock vibe. Feb 7, 8 pm, Kay Meek Arts Centre. $45. MONSTER UNCAGED: ORIGINS Electronicmusic show featuring headliners Seven Lions and Joyryde. Feb 15, 6 pm, PNE Forum. From $52.50. POLYRHYTHMICS Instrumental eight-piece blends funk, soul, psychedelic rock, R&B, progressive jazz, and Afrobeat. Feb 28, 8 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. $20. DAVIDO Afrobeat singer-songwriter from Nigeria. Mar 1, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Dec 20, 10 am, $45. ALLIE X Canadian indie-pop singer-songwriter. Mar 27, 8 pm, Venue. Tix on sale Dec 20, 10 am, $22.50. SEBASTIAN BACH Former Skid Row frontman performs the band’s 1989 debut album in its entirety. Mar 31, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Dec 20, 10 am, $39.50. ZUCCHERO Rock singer-songwriter and guitarist from Italy. Apr 23, 8 pm, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Tix on sale Dec 20, 10 am, $59.50/44.50. ZZ TOP Blues-rock legends from Texas, with guests Cheap Trick. May 1, Abbotsford Centre. Tix on sale Dec 20, 10 am. THE FLAMING LIPS Alt-rock band from Oklahoma City. Jun 21-22, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $65.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20 THE VANRAYS East Van soul band plays two sets. Dec 20, 7 pm, Roxy Cabaret. $10/14. PEACE AND GOODWILL The Marcus Mosely Chorale presents its Christmas concert, featuring original music and gospel faves. Dec 20, 8 pm, Central Presbyterian Church. $25/30. THE FUNK HUNTERS Local electronic-music act and DJ duo. Dec 20-21, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $35. CHEZ DAMIER Deep-house DJ from Chicago. Dec 20, 11 pm, Paradise. From $25.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21 VOC SWEET SOUL GOSPEL CHRISTMAS 2019 Checo Tohomaso leads the VOC Sweet Soul Gospel Choir. Dec 21, 7:30-9 pm, Shaughnessy Heights United Church. Free to $20. CHRISTMAS WITH ELVIS Elvis Presley tribute show. Dec 21, 8 pm, River Rock Show Theatre. $34.50. DADDY ISSUES Punk band fronted by Holly Holly, with guests the Blow-Up Dolls and CLONE. Dec 21, 9 pm, Astoria Pub. $10/15.

curated mix tape. But there’s a maddening thing about the admirably audacious double album. For those listening to it the way that god intended—on vinyl—it’s called Side 4. There’s a reason that no one ever talks about “Four Horsemen”, “Lover’s Rock”, or “I’m Not Down” as the Clash’s finest moments. It’s because they aren’t. After three sides where every song is pretty much perfect, it’s like the band was left with nothing in the tank. That might explain the cover of Danny Ray’s “Revolution Rock”. Never heard the original? That’s okay, no one else has either. And admit it, you’ve never cranked the stereo in your vintage Vauxhall to sing along to “You must know a place you can kiss/To make lover’s rock.” Insanely, the Clash seemed to have “Bankrobber”—one of its greatest and most underrated songs ever—waiting in the wings, but instead we get four throwaways before the admittedly excellent album closer “Train in Vain”. That not even

“Train in Vain” (originally written as a throwaway and tacked onto London Calling at the last minute) rescues things speaks volumes. Which brings us back to the one record that deserves to be hailed as the Clash’s finest moment. For brute power summing up a time that hit Britain like a Molotov cocktail, there’s a strong argument for The Clash (the blue U.S. version, not the inferior green U.K. one). But for sheer ambitiousness and risk-taking, nothing ever reinvented punk rock like Combat Rock. The 1982 release is the sound of a band that’s officially outgrown a genre that it helped birth. The pianostrafed dance jam “Rock the Casbah” and the stutter-soul workout “Should I Stay or Should I Go” became smash radio hits that endure today. But it’s the druggy sonic experiments— including “Know Your Rights”, “Straight to Hell” and “Ghetto Defendant”—that really make a case that the Clash was indeed the only band that mattered. Meshing punk with funk, hiphop, swaggering jungle-boogie, and dreamscape psychedelia, Combat Rock showed Damon Albarn how to reinvent himself with Gorillaz. It blew Kurt Cobain’s mind enough to rank as one of his favourite albums. Without Combat Rock, M.I.A. might never have transitioned from world-music cult hero to platinum-shifting superstar. Best of all? That one is easy. Combat Rock was originally planned as a double album which ended up being scaled back. As a result, there was no Side 4. g

The Georgia Straight Confessions, an outlet for submitting revelations about your private lives—or for the voyeurs among us who want to read what other people have disclosed. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22 THE SWINGLES: WINTER TALES Folk- and jazz-inspired original songs. Dec 22, 7:30-9:30 pm, Kay Meek Arts Centre. $59.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 A HOLLY JOLLY F*CKED UP CHRISTMAS Erica Mac performs as Piano Punk, doing hardcore, metal, grunge, and punk on piano. Dec 23, 7:30 pm, The Heatley. Pay what you can/tips.

Scan to confess

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24 HARD ROCK MINERS CHRISTMAS EVE SINGALONG Sing along to your favourite Christmas songs. Dec 24, 9 am, Railway Stage and Beer Café. $10. A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS Christmas Eve jam session with John Nolan on drums and Bob Petterson on bass as the house rhythm-section. Dec 24, 8 pm, Princeton Pub & Grill.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26 FIVE ALARM FUNK Vancouver funk band, with guests Small Town Artillery and Rain City. Dec 26, 8:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. $32.50.

I know this guy, a former friend Who will stay in a relationship with a woman, no matter how dysfunctional, just because he’s afraid to be single. He’s constantly used by these women, knows he’s being used but lacks any backbone to help himself. It’s pathetic to witness and we’re no longer friends. I see this behavior in many others, male and female, and it just baffles me. It’s like an epidemic of poor self-esteem.

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CONTACT WINTER MUSIC FESTIVAL Twoday EDM festival featuring headliners Tiësto, Major Lazer, Kaskade, and Rezz. Dec 27-28, BC Place Stadium. From $169.95.

I wonder why some people find it necessary to yell and scream at a TV set when watching sports? As if the players even care that you exist whether they win or lose.

MUSIC LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge. Submit events online using the event-submission form at straight. com/AddEvent. Events that don’t make it into the paper due to space constraints will appear on the website.

I’m a plant murderer It seems that no matter how I try to keep them alive, they keep dying :( I’ve tried succulents, palms, ferns, trees, you name it, they die.

Imposter I have a Bachelor’s Degree in English; I still don’t know how to use a semicolon.

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Don’t live in the past I used to stay in touch with someone from high school until I realized now that we both have nothing in common anymore. I’m all about pushing forward in life, but he clearly has a backwards way of thinking. All he ever did was bitch and moan about how much he hated high school and the people in it. Whenever I told this guy that I’m too busy... (con’t @straight.com)

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b I AM A 60-year-old heterosexual man, and I am being told that I’m normal. I have been to several urologists, and they say I have no medical issues. But I’m having a hard time buying it, because for the last six months, my ejaculate has been extremely bloody. This is embarrassing, especially since oral sex—giving and receiving—has always been my favourite. The urologists’ explanation is that as you get older, there are blood vessels within the penis that can break during an erection. They gave me some pills to ensure there was no infection, but then they told me that I’ll probably have to use condoms for the rest of my life. My partner doesn’t need contraceptives, so we haven’t used condoms for decades. If I were bleeding out of any other orifice, there would be a team of doctors helping me. Is there really no hope? - Tell Me It Ain’t So “Hematospermia—blood in the ejaculate—is usually not considered a big deal, in the sense that the vast majority of the time it’s not a sign of cancer,” said Dr. Ashley Winter, a boardcertified urologist, the cohost of The Full Release podcast, and my go-to expert on all blood-in-spunk–related matters. “I’d want to know how much he’s actually bleeding and what they’ve done to check him out. But that said, sometimes a guy with a large prostate will bleed with orgasm.” For everyone out there panicking because they saw blood in their semen one time a decade ago, Winter says a one-off bloody load isn’t something to worry about. But if you saw blood in your semen that one time and you have

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health insurance and you’re a hypochondriac like me, Winter recommends a visit to a doc for a short consultation and a quick physical exam. “But in a case like TMIAS’s, where the issue is ongoing and the subject is over 55,” said Winter, “a typical evaluation would include a PSA blood test (a prostate-cancer screening test), as well as testing for STIs (such as gonorrhea, chlamydia, and herpes), along with a urinalysis to check for blood in the urine and urinary infections. If those tests were not revealing, I would consider doing an ultrasound or MRI of the prostate and surrounding organs, as well as putting a camera up the urethra (called cystoscopy) to check out the plumbing.” Assuming you’ve had all those tests, and your prostate was present on photo day, and the doctors found no sign of cancer or infection, TMIAS, then what the hell is going on? “Typically, the cause would be something such as dilated blood vessels along the ejaculate exit route,” a.k.a the urethra. Quickly: the urethra is a tube that connects the outside world (and all those piss bottoms) to your bladder; it’s the tube we all piss through. In males, the urethra pulls double duty: men also ejaculate through it (and some women do, too!). It runs through the prostate gland, a gland that produces about a third of the seminal fluid. An enlarged prostate squeezes the urethra, which can make urination difficult and uncomfortable, and can also result in—you guessed it—blood in the semen. One possible “fi x” for an enlarged prostate is a transurethral resection

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someone didn’t read the damn fine print on your profile before jumping straight to infatuation? He claimed his meltdown was an emotional response to the conflict he was feeling between (a) the expectation that serious relationships need to lead to monogamy and (b) the great time he was having with someone who turned out to be (gasp) nonmonogamous. Was there a better way to have shared this information? We were really clicking, so his b I’M A WOMAN with a dating profile freak-out was a huge surprise. - Read The Fine Print on OkCupid that states I’m nonmonogamous and only looking for the same. Recently, I had two great dates Dude should have read the fine print with a guy who described himself as on your profile. He should have done monogamous on his profile. However, his screw diligence—but you should after our first date and a lot of messa- have done yours, too. Or followed ging, I intuited that he hadn’t actually through with yours. You read the fine read the fine print on my profile. Usu- print on his profile, RTFP. You knew ally guys bring that up when they’ve he described himself as monogamread it, and he hadn’t mentioned it ous, but you went on a date with him once. So I brought it up at the end of anyway—you went on two dates and our second date when we were having swapped a lot of messages—without postdinner drinks at a bar. In retro- stopping to ask him the dreaded dirspect, I should have set up a time to ect question (DDQ): “My profi le says seriously discuss this, not spring it on I’m nonmonogamous and only lookhim while we were drinking, but I felt ing for the same, and yours says you’re like the longer it went unsaid, the more monogamous. Are you making an “betrayed” he might feel. And boy, did exception for me because I’m amazhe have a reaction. He went from “This ing or did you not read my whole prois not a deal breaker” to “Oh, my god, file?” You should have asked this guy I can’t do this; I should just go” in 20 the DDQ not to spare him the horror minutes, and then rushed out of the of your company and avoid wasting bar. We cleared the air the next day, his time, RTFP, but to spare yourself and he apologized for being a jerk and that stupid scene in the bar and avoid bailing. But, clearly, we’re not going to wasting your time. g be dating going forward. Maybe this was always how a guy like him was go- On the Lovecast, Erika Moen’s sex toy gift ing to react, but when is the right time recs! Listen at savagelovecast.com. Email: to bring nonmonogamy up if you meet mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter someone in real life first? Or if it’s clear @fakedansavage. ITMFA.org.

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and there’s nothing your doctor—or a team of them—can do about it. “Sometimes a lack of a ‘fix’ is not dismissiveness, it’s just an admittance that a lot of things medical folks do/ offer aren’t perfect,” said Winter. Follow Dr. Ashley Winter on Twitter @AshleyGWinter, and check out The Full Release podcast, which she cohosts with comedian Mo Mandel, at thefullreleasepod.com.

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of the prostate (TURP), which basically amounts to “a ‘roto-rootering’ of the prostate”, as Winter so vividly put it. A doctor shoves something called a resectoscope up your urethra and slices away chunks of prostate tissue. “The problem with these procedures is that they can cause a person to stop ejaculating at all,” said Winter. “So if TMIAS has already had a fairly robust evaluation, then either using condoms or just having his sex partner adapt to the presence of blood may be the best solution. And in the absence of an infection, shooting a bloody load into your partner is not dangerous. Couples have intercourse during menstruation without harm, and plenty of F-F couples have sex during menstruation as well.” But hold on and back up: didn’t your doctors say everything looked normal? Doesn’t that mean your prostate isn’t enlarged? “A ‘normal’ prostate generally means that it is not cancerous and normal in size for your age,” said Winter. “As you get older, your prostate gets bigger. So it’s highly probable that what TMIAS has is a big-ass-but-normalfor-his-age prostate. And bigger prostates tend to have larger blood vessels lining the urethra and are therefore more likely to bleed when he experiences those lovely contractions associated with orgasm. When TMIAS was told that ‘there are blood vessels within the penis that can break,’ I suspect his doc was referring to this and was trying to simplify the explanation.” And while the presence of blood in your ejaculate may not be normal or ideal, TMIAS, it’s likely your normal,

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