March 31, 2000
What to do when there’s nothing to write about? - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- So the Pope is back in the Vatican. Bill Clinton is on his way home to the White House and Queen Elizabeth is still on tour ‘down under’. The entire world witnessed the Oscars, and some of us are bored with the CUPE strike. Stockwell Day and Preston Manning continue their showdown for control of the almighty right, and I am out of topics to write about.
Sure, there are days like that for all of us. Days when there is nothing that interests you, even though there is plenty to write about. The world of politics could do without a day of writing from me, and show business, ah! show business...
I could tell you about what happened to me the other day. We were sitting to dinner and the phone rang. Naturally, I got up from my seat and went and answered the ringing invention of Alexander Graham Bell. It was a girl, say teen aged and she was looking for a “Tanya” (Names are changed to protect the innocent, because I forgot). I tell her she must be mistaken in pressing the numbers, because as far as I know there isn’t a Tanya living at my house. “Well isn’t this...?” and she rattles off a telephone number hardly resembling mine and apologises. I say that’s fine, hang up and proceed to my meal. I could have called up that number she gave me and tell Tanya myself that she’s got a friend looking for her, but alas, my meal. Wouldn’t it have been funny if I did?
I used to do a lot of movie reviews or reviews of TV shows, but I’m not in the mood today.
I bought a book years ago called “Love, Alice” It was a memoir by Audrey Meadows, she played Alice Kramden opposite Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners. She said in her preface that Alexander Graham Bell had a lot to answer for. And since I alluded to Mr. Bell a paragraph ago, Miss Meadows’ statement has some stock in it. She said that Alexander Graham Bell had a lot to answer for because people didn’t write anymore. (Note that her book was written in the dawning days of e-mail proliferation, circa 1993) I guess that’s true, because people hardly get mail anymore that contains personally written letters. We get letters all the time from either Dick Clark or Ed McMahon saying we’ve won a million dollars. Hell, if those damned things were true, we’d have had more money than Bill Gates! Back to Audrey. I guess she was right that people hardly write anymore due to the impact the telephone has had on the lives of most people on the face of the planet.
But with the advent of e-mail, people are writing more and more. (Witness my little endeavour.) I guess there are things you can say in writing that you really wouldn’t want to say in person. I mean I can call Jean Chrétien a dictator in a commentary of mine, but I don’t think I’d call him one to his face. The Commentary gives me a place to vent my praise and or frustration. Witness, Eugene Lee’s piece last week in which he talked about the teasing he received in school and how it evoked comparisons to the tragic death of that boy in Surrey. Well, I get a message the night before last from my colleague Michael Kwan who really took issue with what Eugene said. (By the way, you’ll see Mr. Kwan’s full response in his own column, Now That’s Entertainment, issue number 17.) I guess, The Commentary has not only been a venue for me, but for others. When I have nothing to write about, I feel better knowing my past writing has opened discussion and thought for others. For that, I’m proud, and it doesn’t matter a damn I have nothing written for today.
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