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The Citizen, 2003-06-25, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2003. PAGE 5. Other Views\l Fame is the name of the game In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. - Andy Warhol red Allen once described a celebrity as “a person who works hard all his life to become well-known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized”. Fame’s a curious commodity, to be sure. A little surprise package that can turtle-wax your glide path through life or bum your fingers to the bone. Elvis and Jimi and Janis all had their 15 minutes on the world stage, but came to ends as squalid as any skid-row junkie’s. That’s the catch-22 of fame: you’re never exactly sure when your 15 minutes are up. Take Vaughan Meader. There was a time, about 40 years ago, when he was the second most famous man in all of the United States. The most famous American at the time was John F. Kennedy. Vaughan Meader was a household name because he could do a devastating impression of JFK. He was a sensation at nightclubs from Los Angeles to New York. He put out a comedy album called The First Family that became the fastest-selling record in history. Vaughan Meader was well on his way to becoming even more famous, but then, on Nov. 22, 1963, three rifle shots rang out during a presidential motorcade through Dallas and instantly, nobody wanted to hear anybody making even gentle fun of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Meader tried shifting gears. He put out an album without his trademark Kennedy impersonations. It sank without a ripple. He Ministers feel they deserve bonus Why do politicians paid reasonably well and smart enough to become cabinet ministers risk their careers for the comparatively small benefit of living it up for a few days on the taxpayer in a fancy hotel? One reason is a mindset that sets in with many once they are in public office. While others believe they are remunerated adequately, many politicians don’t. They believe they work hard and deserve some sort of bonus and many see a way of taking it in lavish expenses. This sort of thinking, that hard-working ministers are entitled to fringe benefits even when the taxpayer has not sanctioned them, prompted Progressive Conservative environment minister Chris Stockwell to take his family on a European tour that was paid for largely by taxpayers, of little value to government and cost him his job. Stockwell has not explained fully why he did it, but responded lamely several times that he had worked hard. Ministers, who are paid $117,763 a year, often work long hours and, while it is no excuse, Stockwell put in more effort than most and once held three jobs, environment and energy minister and government leader in the legislature, at the same time. Ministers see others in the public sector often paid much more - salaries of three and four times as much are common on public boards. Ministers constantly meet top business executives who even come cap-in-hand seeking favours and earn 10 times as much for what ministers view as lesser responsibilities. Some ministers run departments which spend several billion dollars a year, more than many large companies, although one major difference is private sector executives usually have to keep making profits or they are out of Arthur Black tried singing and stand-up in smaller bars and nightclubs. Audiences yawned and trickled out the exits. He ran the American dream in reverse, going from riches to rags. Vaughan Meader went from hero to zero in one day. His 15 minutes were up. In no time, Meader became a chronic alcoholic, then a crack addict. He’s still alive, but not by much. He’s lost all his teeth and is in the late stages of emphysema. Incredibly, he still dreams of fame. “I’d like to come out with something, just one song, and be a hit. To hear my words and music on the radio, to me, would be a bigger thrill than anything.” And then there’s Charles Webb. He wasn’t quite as personally famous as Vaughan Meader, but his work was. Webb wrote a novel called The Graduate, which was turned into the classic movie of the same name starring Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman. In 1967 Charles Webb was the toast of Broadway and Los Angeles, as rich and famous as Vaughan Meader’s wildest dreams. Publishers were at Webb’s door waving open cheque books. Hollywood was his for the asking. And Webb turned it down. All of it. He formally forfeited all claims to The Graduate Eric Dowd From Queen’s Park a job. Ontario ministers feel justifiably they are treated miserly compared to federal ministers, who are paid $88,253 more, although they handle much the same responsibilities. Ministers mostly come from ordinary backgrounds and tend to go to Tim Hortons when they have to pay their own way, though are more generous when taxpayers foot the bill. Many did not have a chance to visit exotic destinations before and fabricate or inflate reasons to take trips abroad, feeling once there no-one will recognize them. They also have been encouraged to live well on expense accounts, because there was little chance they would be called to account. But freedom of information laws and stricter spending and disclosure rules have given easier insights into and more curbs on politicians’ expenses and forced two Tory ministers, Stockwell and Cam Jackson, who was tourism minister, to resign in the past year. Before that, no minister had lost his job for going on a junket in 30 years and that time it became public only by accident and was so blatant it left the Tory premier of the day, William Davis, no alternative. A newspaper reporter from Toronto was on holiday in Cuba in 1972 and spotted Ontario’s then provincial secretary for resources development, Bert Lawrence, on his way skin- diving. and gave away the fortune he’d received for the movie rights. He and his wife turned their backs on two homes they owned. They took to living in their van. They even sold off their wedding presents. They moved to England, where they’ve lived ever since, getting by doing menial jobs - short order cooking, dishwashing, fruit picking - even janitors in a nudist colony. And why? Were they nuts? On drugs? Nope, they just had a problem with fame. “The success felt phony,” Webb said. “It wasn’t slumming for slumming’s sake. It was the need to study something - to understand something. And being short of money was part of it. There’s nothing wrong with wealth. It just didn’t work for us.” Fame is a demanding mistress. Some people, like Elvis, Jimi, Janis and Vaughan Meader, get gobbled right up by it. Others, like Charles Webb have to throw it right out of the house to survive. And a few - a very few - handle it with class. Like the poet W.H. Auden. When he was young and on the way up, someone asked Auden what effect he thought fame might have on him, should he ever be so anointed. Auden reflected for a while and then said: “I believe that I would always wear my carpet slippers”. And he did. Which is why when he later became Britain’s most renowned poet, it was commonplace to see Auden at a fancy dress ball or a black tie dinner, resplendent in tails, bow tie and cummerbund, with a pair of very ordinary carpet slippers on his feet. Now that’s how you handle fame. Lawrence, who was a senior minister and ran for party leader and premier a year earlier when Davis was chosen, claimed he was on an eight-day trade mission to meet with and attend receptions hosted by Cuban ministers. The reporter found Lawrence, his wife and two children had arrived on a government turboprop usually used more mundanely for transporting civil servants through the north. A call to Queen’s Park showed the government knew nothing of Lawrence’s trip and the plane alone cost taxpayers $3,600 to take his party to Cuba and return to bring them back. When Lawrence arrived home more red­ faced than tanned, he acknowledged he had made no agreements for trade, but said he was sure some would follow. But his trip caused Davis so much embarrassment he later dropped him from his cabinet. Such chance encounters are no longer needed to cost free-spending ministers their jobs and they will be much more likely to stay home. A matter of hindsight You don’t have to have lived very long in this world to learn that hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing. And I’m almost certain that right now, the Huron Pioneer Thresher Association wish they’d had a little bit of it. Imagine that you are the only child in a close-knit family. Having attained a modest, though comfortable bit of savings through your own hard work and effort you purchase some property, develop it to generate income then generously donate it to your single mother. As a further gesture you offer to continue to upgrade and care for it at your own cost. A few years down the road, mom finds a new partner with his own family and while your hard work continues to improve the venture, its ever-increasing profit is now fair game for both families, going where the greater need is deemed to be. Such has been the situation with the Association. A vital organization that continues to stay strong in a time when volunteers are stretched thin, its members have been both a boon to the local economy and an exemplary display of commitment and dedication for decades. Several years ago, the group’s success resulted in a need for growth. They purchased land to expand the camping facilities, which they donated to the village of Blyth. The Association continued to donate hours and dollars to improve the land, creating a campground the equal of any with ful'y and partially-serviced sites. Then with the province pushing for amalgamation, Blyth, along with the majority of Huion County municipalities decided to have some control over the inevitable The village, the former East Waw. nosh Twp. and Town of Wingham joined to create the Twp. of North Huron. The campgrounds have continued to bring in dollars, most recently $20,000 with some major events held there. The Threshers have agreed to work with the municipality in promoting the campgrounds, which will in turn generate more use and thereby more income. The Association has committed its volunteers and money to this, as well as to other projects, including the future possibility of acquiring more land. However, as one Association member learned at a recent council meeting, there is no guarantee that the money .raised by the campground will be spent to benefit the campground. It is all lumped into the recreation portion of the budget and could, therefore, be used for any need within the area of recreation in North Huron. The reality did not go unaddressed by councillors, who, while knowing the big picture had perhaps not had it put into such perspective before. One noted that the Association should bring forward to the recreation director any issues regarding the campgrounds for which they would like to see some funds come back to assist. This, however, must be done in time for budget, requiring forethought, planning and no small degree of prayer that the work would get funding approval. While by no means an unfair request it does require a different approach to development, and still means that the profit realized from the Association’s foresight and generosity so many years ago is not their’s, even for the asking.