HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2002-10-23, Page 5Bonnie
*01 Gropp
The short of it
THE C T ZEN WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2002. PAGE 5.
Other Views
The high cost of being famous
6 6 get between two thousand and fi ve
thousand fan letters a month and we
answer them all. Being famous runs
me to about $25.000 a year in stamps. coloured
photos and a secretary to answer it all."
So spake Wayne Gretzky at the height of his
hockey celebrity a few years ago. Sounds like
a set of problems a lot of us would like to have.
but maybe not.
Oh. yeah - celebrities get the red carpet
treatment - the best tables in restaurants, free
limo rides, adoring fans - but there's a down
side to being a household name, too.
Much of the front page of a recent edition of
The Vancouver Sun was taken up by a photo of
a pudgy. bespectacled, slightly cranky-looking
middle-aged white man with orange hair
shuffling down a city street.
The photo was in full-colour and splashed
across three columns. Must be a pretty
significant news story. I thought. A visiting
prime minister, perhaps? A U.N. dignitary? A
Mafia kingpin on his way to trial?
No. the photo caption reveals that it is only
Elton John. the pop singer.
And he's shopping in downtown Vancouver.
The news story below the photo emphasizes
that all the investigative resources of The
Vancouver .Sun were unable to ascertain
exactly what Mister John purchased during his
10-minute downtown walkabout, but that "we
do know that he made a purchase, thanks to an
alert BC-CTV cameraman, who was able to
run from his office and record the star getting
into a dark-coloured van. A bodyguard had a
bag of purchases.'-,
This non-story proves the world has already
Ontario's political parties are warming
up for an election that is showing all
the earmarks and even facial bruises of
being bitter.
The election is not due until next year, but
more is at stake than usual. It will be the last as
Progressive Conservative leader, if he gets
turfed out of government, for Premier Ernie
Eves, who was brought in like a relief pitcher
only six months .ago. to succeed Mike Harris.
The Tories felt Eves would provide a more
moderate style and policies. But they see it as
almost their right to be in government, having
been in power 49 of the last 60 years.
They would be in no mood to give a second
-chance to a 57-year-old leader who had never
won an election and would quickly call their
bull pen for someone else.
Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty had one try
to win an election in 1999, when he added to
his party's vote. But if he fails to win next time
the Liberals, who usually have short shrift for
losing leaders and have had seven plus several
caretakers in four decades, would be unlikely
to give him a third chance.
They would be chagrined particularly
because McGuinty led in polls for three years
and still failed to finish off the Tories and such
falling at the _last hurdle has become a Liberal
habit.
The stakes are high also for the parties. The
Tories will recall it took them 10 years and two
changes of leader to win back government last
time and leave no stone unturned to avoid it
happening again.
The Liberals also have led in polls so often
but failing to win. they lack confidence and, if
they' stumble again, it may be a long time
before they dare entertain notions of winning.
The Liberals have launched most of the
attacks that have seen the debate between the
parties turn hitter. They showed four ministers
spent lavishly on entertainment and drew
absorbed and digested the horrors of Sept. II.
We're back to 'our usual fatuous pursuits -
including the cult of celebrity.
Strange phenomenon, celebrity worship.
Used to be confined to the high-born, the
desperado and the filthy rich. The Brits cut the
dotty and dysfunctional Windsors all kinds of
slack because they carry 'royal' blood in their
veins. Common folk revered Robin Hood
because he gave handouts to the poor.
People deferred to the Morgans and the
Rockefellers because they hemorrhaged
greenbacks wherever they went.
Today, we're less choosy. We make
celebrities of potty-mouth rappers, anorexic
teenage clothes horses and seven-foot freaks in
baggy shorts whose only talent is stuffing a
ball through a hoop.
Andy Warhol was wrong - people aren't
famous for 15 minutes; they're famous forever.
Somewhat.
Adam West was the actor who portrayed
Batman on TV a million years ago. He's still
out there, in cape and mask, opening shopping
malls and making guest appearances at
plumbers' conventions.
Ozzy Osbourne used to be a rock star. Now,
he's a clapped out, drug-raddled mumbler with
blood when one, Cam Jackson, was tired. They
now claim Eves also overspent, but got his
staff to pick up some of his tabs.
The Liberals showed some who might want
favours from government, including a
racetrack eyeing lucrative slot machines,
donated handsomely to candidates in the
leadership campaign. Eves won.
They showed Harris in his last days as
premier secrtly gave a huge tax cut to big
sports organizations who were his friends and
the few ministers who knew about it never told
Eves. •
The Liberals revealed half the defeated Tory
candidates in the last two elections have been
compensated With government jobs, mostly on
boards, patronage unequalled since the Tories
of the 1980s.
The Liberals and New Democrats also
forced an apology from Northern
Development Minister Jim Wilson, who called
civil servants who offered advice he disagreed
with politically partisanism and threatened to
fire them.
These arc legitimate concerns, but the
Liberals have dug deeper to find then than
some previous opposition parties.
The Tories have retaliated by demanding
McGuinty produce receipts showing how he
and his staff spent public money, „which they
are not obliged to do.
They have identified Liberals and New
Democrats they named to public boards, but
about II functioning brain cells, but that's
alright - he's a celebrity, so he gets his own TV
show.
Celebrities get the trappings, but they also
get trapped in a Klieg-lit time capsule. Wayne
Gretzky is always going to have to talk about
hockey.
Ozzy Osbourne will always be a petrified
Rock Star. Nobody is ever going to ask Adam
West to audition for the part of Hamlet.
Dini Petty is a Canadian who has known the
mantle of celebrity. She started off in the
media game by hitching a ride in a helicopter
to do radio traffic reports over the streets of
Toronto and wound up with her own daily TV
show. Does she like being famous?
"I don't think fame is worth a tinker's dam
because it's very intrusive and the more you
have the more intrusive it is. If I had to do it all
over again, I'd rather just be rich."
Which takes me back to that newspaper
photo I started out talking about - the one of a
dyspeptic-looking Elton John walking down a
Vancouver street.
Only now I'm looking at the photograph
from his point of view - a guy who's just
trying to go out on a simple shopping
expedition — and here's this idiot television
cameraman cantering along beside him with a
Sony Portacam on his shoulder, grinding away.
He's Elton John. He's got enough money to
buy a six-pack of castles in Spain. There's
scarcely a door in any city in the world that he
wouldn't be welcomed at and fawned over.
But he can't walk down the street and buy a
couple of CDs or a pair of socks in peace.
No wonder he looks so cranky.
they are few and every government appoints
token opponents to counter complaints it looks
after its own.
The Tories also have criticized Liberal
Deputy Leader Sandra Pupatello, who has led
the charges against them, for using a courier
service provided for MPPs to send a shipment
for a friend.
There is no suggestion the taxpayer had to
bear any cost,. and any wrongdoing is nowhere
on the scale of that committed by Tories, but
they have called on the integrity commissioner
to investigate.
McGuinty also has said he will make ethics
an issue in the election and opponents of
private radiology clinics are running
newspaper ads showing a grisly dissection of a
head and declaring 'We know Ernie Eves has a
brain - why won't he use it'?'
In an election the adversaries are likely to
get even deeper under each other's skins.
Letters Policy
The Citizen welcomes letters to the
editor.
Letters must be signed and should
include a daytime telephone number for
the purpose of verification only. Letters
that are not signed will not be printed.
Submissions may be edited fgr length,
clarity and content, using fair comment
as our guideline. The Citizen reserves
the right to refuse any letter on the basis
of, unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate
information. As well, letters can only be
printed as space allows. Please keep
your letters brief and concise.
Saving daylight
F4
eryone appreciates the long, light
evenings. Everyone laments their
shortage as autumn appivaches; and
everyone has given utterance to regret that the
clear, bright light of an early marking (luring
spring and summer months is so seldom seen
or used.
—William Willett
It's not that it's unexpected. For weeks now
I've been noticing its ebb, fading away with
the gentleness of a lovely dream at the end of
a restful sleep.
Yet even with its gradual withdrawal, the
early signs of its imminent transition, it has
altered the way I'm living. I too have
withdrawn, spending evenings sheltered
inside. Hours are lazier, leisurely passed. The
process of cocooning has begun.
And I already have begun to miss the sun.
I noticed the other evening, how in what
simply seems to have been a natural reaction
to the season's change, I have gone from
spending regular hours outdoors in the
daylight, to virtually none. A fall dreariness
hangs over early mornings as I head to work.
and by the time I arrive home and get the
evening meal over with, the dark of night has
fallen.
And this weekend it will only get worse as
we say goodbye yet again to Daylight Saving
Time. •
I am, most know by now, .less than fond of
winter, what is to me a hopeless season. I
detest the cold and I abhor the bundling,
trudging and slipping that goes along with
frigid temperatures, snow and ice.
But even if 1 had some yearning to
experience frost-bitten skin and a .nip in the air
that takes your breath away, the dark winter
months offer very little opportunity to get out
and enjoy some sunlight. What good is the
beauty of sun dancing of a pristine white
ground if you can't be out to see it'?
• In a hook recently it was
,Feciornmended that at least 15 minutes of
sunlight on average be absorbed into your
body every day. Let it blaze down on you and
soak it up.
During the balmy season I practised this
piece of wisdom with the enthuSiasm of a
cheerleader on uppers. Every chance I could
get. I spent my time feeling that blessed sun,
enjoying the brightness of daylight.
I'm not alone. After all, more daylight was
the principle reason behind Daylight Saving
Time„ What you might not know is that the
idea was first considered by Benjamin
Franklin in a 1784 essay -An Economical
PrOject." The main purpose is and was to
make better use of daylight and to save energy.
It was not until the early 1900s. however.
that William Willett a London builder,
proposed that clocks be moved ahead 20
minutes for four Sundays in April. then
reversing that in September.
In much of North America and the majority
of European countries Daylight Saving Time
has been in use since the first world war.
So if it's so great why not keep it and stretch
Out our afternoon daylight year round"'
- The problem is that as we head into the •
bleakest months of winter, any advantage of
having more afternoon daylight is offset by a
late sunrise.
Thus it would seem I can come hack to my
original point of west. When it comes to
winter, it's hopeless.
Election has potential for bitterness