Also, if you haven’t yet, read this (same family): The cheese, the Cadillac, and the man who tried to blow up his house

My grandmother developed late‑stage hearing loss of epic proportions. For example, once, she asked my older brother, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I’d like to be a prosecutor.”

“A PROSTITUTE?”

“NO — a prosecutor.”

“A what? A paratrooper?”

“…Yes. A paratrooper.”

Another time, she was yelling into the phone. The person on the other end asked, “What’s the population like out there?”

“What’s the coffee spiked with over here? I don’t know, what an odd question, anyway, I drink tea.”

I could practically hear the eye‑roll through the receiver.

We had a party line back then. This meant that neighbours could hear your calls and had to wait until you hung up before they could make their own. Privacy was a theory, not a practice.

One time, a neighbour, Mr. Goodfellow, got on the line and thought I was some lady named Janet. We had a jovial conversation, and then he forgot who he was about to call. So, he hung up. That’s when I proceeded to call my friend Jax to come out and play.

I accidentally addressed Jax as Janet, and he hung up.

When Gram wasn’t misinterpreting our career goals, she was misinterpreting my friend Jax’s bizarre habit.

Jax had a childhood peeing issue. His mom told him, “If you feel like you have to pee, just go right away.”

He took this literally.

One day, when we were seven or eight, walking to the park to play catch, Jax suddenly dropped into a plank position on the sidewalk, pulled down his fly, and peed like a racehorse. A thirty‑foot stream. Then he brushed his hands on his shirt as he’d just finished a light chore.

This became routine.

I preferred the dark side of a hedgerow. Jax preferred the sidewalk. If he were facing downhill, he’d do a frantic hand‑dance to avoid the warm yellow river running through his fingers. Uphill, he worried about his shoes.

“Gram,” I said once, “Jax pees at the drop of a hat. He just goes into a pushup position anywhere and pees.”

“WHAAAAT?” she yelled. “Jax pees on the robin’s mat?”

“What does that even mean? Robins don’t have mats; they have nests.”

“Well, what did you say?”

“NOT THAT.”

She stared at me, convinced I was the one who’d misheard her.

Jax didn’t care who watched. Once I saw him pee into the wind. I walked in front of him for safety. It was so absurd, I thought, Why isn’t he planking? But no, he was just standing there, peeing directly onto himself.

“Don’t bother shaking it off, Jax. It’s not going to matter.”

“Be nice,” he said, brushing his hands on his sweater.

“Gram, Jax was standing up peeing into the wind today.”

“Jazz is like seeing into the crypt?”

“Nope.”

“Jazz is like peeing into the wind?”

“Nope.”

“You hope Jax pees into the wind?”

“Sure.”

Ugh.

“You kids are odd.”

One day I walked past his house and found him rolling around on the neighbour’s lawn, trying to dry the pee off his clothes. Stop, drop, and roll, but for urine.

“Jax, you live right there. Why don’t you just go inside and shower?”

“Almost done.”

I was grateful we weren’t the hugging type.

We liked climbing a Norwegian Pine in the park. Fifty feet up, a lookout where no one could see us, but we could see everyone.

One time, from the branch below me, Jax said, “I gotta pee,” and peed straight down the trunk.

“Jax, how am I supposed to climb down now?”

Blank stare.

I slid down the outside of the tree like a cautious firefighter. When I reached the bottom, I looked up and saw Jax climbing down the trunk. The same trunk he’d just peed on.

“Gram,” I said later, “Jax peed down a tree and then climbed down the trunk where the pee was.”

“Max jumped free clowns a pee…?”

“I’m not doing this again.”

“Never mind,” she said. “It’ll get better.”

“Can I make you a tea, Gram?”

“NO. I JUST WENT.”

One day later that summer, Mr. Goodfellow was on the line and asked how Gram was doing.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll let her know you asked.”

“Thank you. By the way, I was wondering what her coffee or tea is spiked with. She seems to be hearing things.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you, Mr. Goodfellow.”

I hung up.

For once, I was pretty sure I had heard him correctly.

I had not seen Jax for a few years. There was no particular reason we had not visited during that period. It just had not happened. We grew up together for about 10 years, starting from ages 4 and 3. I was one year and three months older.

From our mid-teens on, we spent time together about every five years, made annual calls, and then at some point we had a stretch of visiting and getting to know each other again. I even stayed at his condo for a few nights while visiting Calgary for a job. He barbecued delicious Alberta beef on his deck in -28C temperatures, wearing shorts. No problem. Being from the West Coast, I avoided the deck and the shorts.

When Jax got married a few years later, I ended up being a co-emcee at his wedding.

A couple of years after the wedding, Jax came over to our house with his mother, Trudy, whom I had considered like a distant aunt. She had a nice Dutch accent and a pleasant, motherly tone to her voice, ending sentences with an upward lilt.

Being Dutch, they had quite the surname: “Boombeichlingenboom van den Huevelboom.” His mom’s second marriage was to a German Canadian named Bert. She decided to pull a feminist move and hyphenate her surname with Bert’s surname when they got married in 1969. So, her surname became “Boombeichlingenboom van den Huevelboom-Wolfe­schlegel­stein­hausen­berger­dorff von Wolfing.”

When I was about age 20, I asked her why she did that instead of, like many other immigrants, Anglicizing her name to something like “Wolf.” Shortening her surname to Wolf would accomplish two things: 1. It would make it pronounceable and 2. She could write it on the short little boxes on the medical, tax, legal, and insurance papers and such.

She answered, “I did it to make life difficult for lawyers and officious people,” she said, laughing. “You know how many times legal documents contain defendants’ names? Too many.”

My German great-grandfather switched to Anglo, going from the blue blood “Von Krueger” to “Clever” (then opened a butcher shop. Not kidding).

So, Trudy Boombeichlingenboom van den Huevelboom-Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff von Wolfing it was.

Jax would have none of it. That is why he moved to Calgary to live with his biological father, whose last name was “Pass.” You cannot get a shorter name than “Jax Pass.” Plus, it sounds cool.

It sounds solid and concise, like Karl Marx, Spud Webb, Bruce Lee, and Don Ho. Those are names you can remember.

Remember Don Ho and his ukulele? Everyone remembers his ukulele playing, but no one knows that he tickled the ivories and played the tin whistle. Ho also played the guitar, bass, drums, and the little-known instrument called the Ververgaert. The Ververgaert is a brass instrument that has plunger-like keys, where the sound would waver like a Bixby arm on a guitar.

Can you imagine Trudy Boombeichlingenboom van den Huevelboom-Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff von Wolfing playing Bach’s Secular Cantata BWV 208 in F major on the Ververgaert?

In German, the song is named “Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd.”

Imagine being the Master of Ceremonies and having to introduce the next song.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce the next song the orchestra will be playing for you, which is called Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, and it will be performed by Trudy Boombeichlingenboom van den Huevelboom-Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff von Wolfing on the Ververgaert in F major.”

Anyway, here were Jax and Trudy in our living room. We put out sweets and salty foods, teas and coffee, water, and offered beer and wine. It was daytime, and our kids, aged 8 and 10, were home, so drinking that early felt like setting a bad example, so none of us did. Jax took water.

He drank a lot. I think he was hungover. Already very blonde and pale with blue eyes, he burnt easily in the sun during our summers. And having grown up with him, the BS meter I had on him was accurate like Dolly Parton’s percussion fingernails on the hit song 9 to 5. I could tell that last night he must have thrown back a few. He seemed slightly hungover to look at. His eyes were like two pee holes in a snowdrift.

Suddenly, he burped, and with it, about a litre of water jettisoned from his gob and landed on the coffee table with a loud splash. The used water was clear; one could have drunk it off the table. Our daughter, who is caring and empathetic, ran to grab paper towels and cloths. She mopped up the water while Jax, feeling very awkward, apologized profusely. He was embarrassed, and Trudy said his name in astonishment, “JAX!”

We acted calm, like we projectile vomit liquids all the time. I felt embarrassed for him.

Now his face was red, and his pee hole eyes were bloodshot and concave. He looked like a 1980s girl on the prowl in a nightclub, white as a ghost except for the rouge and pee holes.

His hair was messy and looked like organized chaos and was white like Edgar Winter’s, damned near albino, a Dutch Q-tip, a face you can hide in a blizzard.

Anyway, Trudy did not play the Ververgaert. She just sat on my sofa with her knees together, clutching a handbag that contained legal documents designed to ruin a notary’s afternoon, watching her thirty-something son stare at a wet spot on the glass-top coffee table.

“It’s just water,” I said again, perhaps a little too loudly, as my daughter tossed a damp paper towel into the bin, with a heavy thump, “Practically distilled.”

The wet heaths, here, were warm and damp; the far side of the mountain was not. Shale and scree lay scattered, indifferent to my hangover, as heaths and hangovers both eventually are.

I looked up. Scuttling clouds, sheep working the grass as it owed them money, willow tits nasal-tchaying through the scotch pine. Fine company for a man lying about in the soft grasses, reconsidering his choices.

Dry fallen leaves skittered breezily, too loud for my aching head.

The evening before, I had left County Sligo, specifically a place called Carneybeg. I departed warm and full of hope. In fact, I had a hop in my step, having enjoyed much fine fare and a few glasses of the local IPA.

How I got here in the night, I do not know, but it does not matter, as I am a cultured parasite infecting these heavenly lands.

From there, the Maugherow Peninsula might as well have been in America. The winding roads bent the distance as only bad-faith negotiations could bridge.

Then, there was Benbulben Mountain and the Atlantic coast looking west toward America, metaphorically at least. I was told the mountain featured a wine-friendly picnic area, forested walks, and proximity to the historic Lissadell House. Interesting because looking west to America was of no interest to me; I came from there.

Well, I came from Canada. But every time that I opened my mouth, people asked where in America I had come from. I do know that my grandfather was Irish, from County Cork; it seemed as though I had no home. Well, at least until I explained where I am from, Western Canada. With that, the barkeep winked, pulled the tap, and the pint arrived with a head so sturdy it could have supported a small family of migrating voles.

Meanwhile, my thoughts went to North County Tipperary like a sonnet in my heart. It is of the Glengarra Woods in the civil parish of Cloghprior, after all. Tipperary has a small village and surrounding townlands, including Carneybeg and Carney Castle. These are all situated roughly a half hour from Puckane and an hour from Borrisokane, but right next to my soul. The people loved Carney Castle.

I, too, loved Carney Castle.

Meanwhile, one, Mr. Dónal Mámh of the Cork area, refused to negotiate with the folks of Carneybeg. Some considered him mildly deficient in culture, couture, and class. And when he bellied up to the bar to negotiate, he simply dictated unfavourable terms, which the people of Carneybeg declared in poor taste, jarring and benefiting only Mr. Dónal Mámh and his few self-aggrandizing followers.

Lying there, amongst the sheep in the soft grass, I got up and brushed myself off. I looked right down the motorway: too loud, too fast, unbothered by vagabonds. Well, I was not so much a vagabond, rather someone of self-importance, seeking to embed himself in the culture of Ireland. I looked left: a lone Irish draught horse, unbothered by any of it, radiating the quiet superiority of an animal that has never once had to negotiate the terms from where he emerged.

It was a beautiful sight.

I headed north and east, or possibly south and sideways; the compass had begun offering opinions instead of directions.

In town, I found transit that promised to take me from Galway to Dublin in a few short hours.

I stepped out of the 19th century and directly into the 5G aura of the village square, pulling out my phone to face the full, unbridled horror of the modern world.

When I found Wi-Fi and began reading the latest posts on social media, I stood for so long staring at my phone that first my neck hurt, then my brain. Give me a lobotomy, I thought. I cannot take any more of this.

As it turned out, Mr. Dónal Mámh had invited the people of Carneybeg to Washington Street in Cork City to hash out an accord.

Months earlier, Mámh had sent Carneybeg and Carney Castle a treaty — rudimentary, but fair enough to pass for mercy. Ireland had already done its centuries of suffering; it wasn’t volunteering for more.

When Carneybeg’s representative showed up in Cork City, word on the street was that Mámh had quietly rewritten the offer, hoping to catch the people flat-footed. He did.

But the folks of Carneybeg had one for Mámh too: no deal. They stood up at the eleventh hour and walked out. No deal is better than a deal that signed away minerals, territory, or the language formerly called Gaelic and now, in defiance, called Irish.

Mámh stood alone at the bar, still holding terms nobody wanted, looking like a man who’d brought a fast-food menu to a tavern offering haute culture.

When my shadow finally stretched long enough to cross the yardarm of a sloop anchored in Dun Laoghaire Marina, it was time to move on. I would meander south past Carneybeg, and past the strange idea, still wandering loose in Mámh’s head, that Ireland was simply an inconvenient county of America.

Tomorrow night, I thought, I’d bend an elbow while the barkeep pulled the tap, and share a chinwag with some gentleman who’d tell me, over the second pint, exactly what kind of man Mámh really was. And Ireland, like the bogs and the fjords, would go on breathing fine without him.

The snacks, marketed under the brand TicTrisTacscuits, combine the wholesome, woven-wheat crunch of a Triscuit with the minty, vaguely medicinal flavour profile of a Tic Tac.

According to the ingredient label, each snack contains whole grain wheat, rice starch, sugar, natural peppermint oil, and artificial human femur.

“We wanted to create something that would fundamentally challenge consumers’ expectations of what a cracker can be,” said Ferrero Vice President of Marketing Giuseppe Luciano. “And also test how creative we can get with human femur.”

Luciano noted that Ferrero spent 14 years developing the product, which retains the texture and structural integrity of a Triscuit while tasting overwhelmingly like a Wintergreen Tic Tac.

“Fourteen years,” Luciano said, staring blankly into the middle distance. “Fourteen beautiful years. Viva! Gesù!”

The snacks will initially be manufactured in Milan, offering two European launch flavours: Neapolitan Wood-Fired Mint and Roman Carbonara Spearmint. A secondary facility in North America will produce regionally targeted varieties, including Deep Dish Pepperoni Orange and Soggy Italian Beef Peppermint.

Asked whether the R&D team faced any challenges blending savoury meat flavours with chalky mint, Nabisco Product Manager Chad Kobalawski shook his head.

“We tried an extra-savoury version early on,” Kobalawski said. “Three test subjects died instantly.”

Despite early concerns from food scientists, dental professionals, and at least one shopper who reportedly spent four minutes reading the ingredient label before quietly placing the box back on the shelf, executives remain confident.

Focus group testing revealed that 87 percent of participants described TicTrisTacscuits as “an event,” while the remaining 13 percent were rendered temporarily non-verbal.

TicTrisTacscuits are expected to hit store shelves this fall. Ferrero confirmed that additional flavours are already in development, including Tuscany Divorce, New York Subway Water, and non-therapeutic artificial human femur: Extra femur supermint.

“Consumers are always asking for something new,” Luciano said. “They are going to regret that.”

Personally, I didn’t have time for this; I had a high school rugby game to play. This was Grade 12. During Grade 11, our team of 18 kids had exactly zero minutes of rugby experience. We came from different sports and the streets. Misfits, to be sure. We ended the season 1-10.

This year, we were 2-1 after three matches and were brimming with confidence. It helped that we dropped a division and, of course, had a year of experience under our belt.

Anyway, Dr. Grant struggled, breathing heavily, grimacing. He reminded me of Dirty Harry with a pistol: “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” That’s the look that was on his face, inches from mine.

About three hours into the ordeal, he finally finished pulling the four wisdom teeth.

I was left for a few minutes alone in the chair, face full of gauze, staring at the ceiling; numb from the brain down to the chin.

After what seemed an eternity, the nurse returned. She proceeded to sit me down in a chair in the waiting room. She asked me to stay for 30 minutes, so she could assess me to see if I would be fit to leave.

As soon as she turned the corner, I fled and staggered back to school. When I got there, I changed into my rugby kit and headed down to the pitch.

“Kelsall, what’s with all the blood?”

“Wizz numb theeth pooled by dennish.”

“Dennis who?”

I made hand motions to indicate dentist, but there are no universal hand movements for dentist, unless you know sign language, which I do not. Nor does Jake, so even if I had known to sign, it would have been a mute point.

So, Jake thought I was hand-signalling that someone used a knife on me.

“Where did this happen to you?”

“Dennish off us.”

“I’m calling the police, and I do not think you should play.”

“No!”

I waved him off and began warming up. Damn, I felt good as the anesthesia continued its magic.

The first tackle I made was not so much a tackle, but a flying horizontal human bar. I ran at a line of guys moving the ball to the outside while they ran at us, three of them. Sideways, I helicoptered, taking out the trio.

Pretty good for a 135-pound winger.

Blood everywhere.

“Kelsall, I am taking you out of the game; you need first aid,” said our coach, Tillman, the national coach, who happened to be rather big and nuggety and full of character.

I reluctantly left the pitch. We won by a single try.

Next practice was on Wednesday after school. As I made my way to the pitch, I could hear the hooting and hollering growing louder.

Tillman did not use a whistle to stop plays we ran in practice; he hooted. We laughed every time. “HOOOOT.”

At the end of practice, whoever was caught dogging it would receive the rugby ball and would be placed at center. The team would be on the touchline. When Tillman yelled, “HOOOOT,” the team would chase the ball carrier and tackle him. After the first practice, we found out that no one was going to dog it again. But Tillman still had to pick a player to make his point.

Dan Schein received the ball. He was 5’8” and approximately 250 pounds. Strong like bull, smart like tractor. We had some fast people on the team, including me. He flew. When he got to the soccer goal, he leapt, grabbed the crossbar while in full flight, and flung himself over the top like a gymnast. He found himself sitting on the crossbar, right in the middle. It sagged. We stood there as a team looking up and watching the bar bend, bend some more, creak, crack, and finally snap, and down came Schein. He landed on the turf with the crossbar embedded deep in the crack of his cheeks.

Three days later, the stitches held and I hadn’t bled since the game. I went back to practice. The broken crossbar stood as a stark reminder of the consequences of dogging it in practice.

After the next practice, Murray Chang received the ball. It was barely perceptible to the human eye, but someone had to be chosen, and Chang was it. This guy was not fast, but he was today. To center, he went with the ball, and before Tillman fully elicited his loud hoot, Chang was off at what appeared to be a Ben Johnson-level full-out sprint.

Lance Wilson, we all knew, was high as a kite. He was also on the spectrum, and when Wilson was given a task, he locked onto it with extraordinary focus and determination. This was where Wilson was at his most useful. He was a task fulfillment engineer. As we had experienced much difficulty catching Chang, Wilson, in great desperation, dove through the air like Superman, caught hold of Chang’s shorts, and hung on for dear life.

The shorts tore off Chang’s body. He was now running in just a jockstrap, his bare bum on display. As he sprinted, the left foot went up, the left cheek went up; right foot up, right cheek up. Rinse and repeat. This was mesmerizing for Wilson. The cheeks were hairless, and to Wilson, they were like two babies fighting under a blanket.

For Wilson, the missing shorts were not his focus. He had a task.

Chang was desperate that under no circumcisions was he going to allow himself to get caught; Wilson was focused. Soon, Wilson was pursuing Chang down Grant Street, who had a look of horror on his face, hair streaming back, teeth bared, yelling loudly, “Call Wilson off, call Wilson off.”

Wilson, in full flight, removed a shoe and swung it at Chang with force. And then he took off the other shoe and hit Chang again.

Wilson didn’t seem to notice that he had lost his shoes. He had a task.

By this time, Tillman was running hard across the parking lot. “Chang, RUN BACK TO THE FIELD; THE TEAM WILL INTERCEPT HIM,” yelled Tillman.

Chang followed the instructions, ran straight back to the field, with shoeless Wilson in full flight, very focused. No one helped. Chang went flying by with Wilson in hot pursuit.

Chang turned to look back and ran directly into one of the two freestanding posts that had been the soccer goal. He bounced off it, hard. Dropped to the grass and lay there holding onto the ball, blood coming out of his nose. Wilson stood over him as the post fell, first in slow motion, then, suddenly fast, it bonked Wilson on the head, knocking him out.

The two, Wilson and Chang, lay there, beside each other.

Sixteen of us stood laughing to tears. Schein announced, “I’d rather have a crossbar up my ass than lay there knocked out with my jock on display.”

The howling continued. We laughed so hard we cried.

My wisdom teeth sutures ruptured, and blood crept down my chin.

I didn’t care. Next week, I was scheduled to have a root canal.

I did. I bled. We won.

The friendship taught me early that ridiculous and dangerous were not opposites. Sometimes they lived in the same man.

The plan, apparently, did not include standing in the middle of a sort of gas chamber, if you will. He died after inhaling the propane. Derry just wanted to blow up the house and burn it to the ground. He did not want to die.

Now this man was smart. He could draw out the equation E = mc² in long form, the whole damned thing by memory. He was an architect who had designed prominent buildings in Victoria, including provincial government ministries.

In retirement, he imported specialty cheeses and distributed them to independent boutique retailers.

His name was ironically Derry, which was quasi-anglicized from Diepold. He was a German immigrant, but a long-time Victoria resident, who loved to play tennis. He owned several cars. Cadillac, when they were posh, VW camper van and an everyday car. I forget now what make and model the everyday car was, that is how everyday it was.

Del’s mom was a looker. She was tall, Dutch, and made terrific sandwiches, and my father liked to watch her walk by. Sometimes he would linger and take a long gander, then see me looking at him, looking at her and say something distracting like, “I hope she is okay, she seems to be in a hurry,” or something like that.

But, even at age four, I knew he was looking at her skirt, wondering if it was made with seersucker or New Zealand lamb’s wool. You couldn’t fool me. I, on the other hand, was looking at her legs. She was a tennis player too, and I thought that they were good legs and she could probably kick a soccer ball really hard (I played soccer).

Del was not Del’s real name, but Cribdeath might as well have been the name of the hamlet that I ended up living in.

I was painting the side of my house decades later in Victoria when Del called to tell me Derry had accidentally killed himself.

Here was a man who had everything. Well, he didn’t have everything, but he had just about everything a 65 or 70-year-old man would want. But Del’s Mom, let’s call her Nancy, after the character in the Beatles song ‘Rocky Raccoon,’ because every delightful story needs a Nancy. She was trying to leave him. Nancy, or Lil as she was also known, had had enough of him and his crazy temper.

He could snap at the drop of a sandwich.

Derry also had selective brain function due to post-traumatic listening syndrome. For example, once, sitting in the sitting room, I was talking about something being “nasty,” he flipped his lid, screaming, yelling, and gesturing. He thought I said “Nazi.”

I went over to Del’s to enjoy a Lil sandwich, with her exotic cheeses and carelessly placed my bicycle in the driveway. Derry, returning home from work, ran over my bike. He got out of the car, picked it up over his head, and announced that he was going to destroy it.

Derry put the bike down when Lil ran from the house and pleaded with him, while cheese and mayonnaise splattered from her mouth onto his face. She was otherwise a very graceful and dignified lady. He didn’t seem to mind the cheese and mayonnaise on his face.

But he also had charming perspectives on everyday things. For example, Del was describing to me what it is like to get kicked in the balls. How badly it hurts. His eyes grew big and round like garbage can lids, and he drew out the explanation with big sweeping gestures and exaggerated tones. “And then Derry added with his very German accent, “Zat eez ven your ballz exchanges places with your eyez, YAH! ZEY DO, YAH.”

I imagined being in the fetal position on the ground, gripping my family jewels, writhing like a lizard on a windowpane.

I was age 6 at that time and took Derry literally. I walked around for five years, avoiding being kicked in the balls out of sheer terror of going through the rest of my life having testicles for eyeballs. But I got over the fear of that happening by being kicked in the balls. As it turned out, the eyes remained where they were.

He was not medically correct. Emotionally, however, he was peer-reviewed.

Derry was right; that is what it feels like. I, too, have carried on the tradition of describing what it is like to get kicked in the balls. Doing my part to help young men everywhere avoid being kicked in the balls.

Anyway, during that phone call (while I was painting my house), Del explained how ridiculous Derry was behaving leading up. For example, Lil was reaching for a recipe book to pack up with her other belongings, and he grabbed it out of her hands, and they fought over it.

“Derry doesn’t even cook,” said Del.

“No, but he sniffs gas.”

“Not anymore,” replied Del.

“That was risky of me, saying that, glad you took it okay.”

“No, that is fine. I am dealing with it.”

“So, do you need anything. Is there anything you need help with?”

“Well, if you could go remove his inventory from the garage.”

“The cheese?”

“Yes. There is nothing else in there.

“The cheese stands alone.”

Everyone was looking down at my feet.

Some people looked back up at me with the blank stare reserved for tax auditors. While others giggled, some pointed and giggled at the same time.

At first, I thought the guys were jealous, and the girls were having a looksee, you know, as Mr. Handsome was walking by and everything. As it turned out, it was the six-foot length of toilet paper that grabbed their attention. I finally noticed it in the reflection of a window in the restaurant. So, I said out loud to the toilet paper, “We are almost there.”

I was really talking to the people watching me talk to the toilet paper.

This was a tactical maneuver to ensure people kept their distance, as obviously, I displayed a little of the “crazaay.”

Once I arrived at the exit, I stepped on the toilet paper with my other foot. It was a smooth dance move designed to detach it so I could carry on.

But, unbeknownst to me, it stuck directly to the heel of my other shoe.

So, here I was walking down Main Street. I was rocking the legendary Tony Manero Saturday Night Fever swagger. Behind me, a six-foot length of toilet paper trailed elegantly. It looked exactly like a banner flying behind a stunt plane: “I LOVE YOU MARY ANNE, PLEASE MARRY ME, NOT TED.”

From the reflection of another store window, I again discovered the awful truth. The white banner was still attached to my shoe.

I bent over to detach the tail and throw it into the nearest garbage receptacle. That is when I noticed the handwriting. Naturally, I had to take a closer inspection.

Being of the inquisitive variety and all.

On it were scribbles, crossed-out words, and menu ideas.

So, I bent down to read it. What I saw was surprisingly noteworthy. The name Big Mack’s Burgers was crossed out, with a caution warning next to it. There were other names like Mike’s Beef Saloon, Where’s the Beef? Cultured Cow Beefhaus, among others.

I liked ‘Where’s the Beef?’ It reminded me of the beef commercials that played on TV during the 1980s, where the little old lady yelled, “WHERE’S THE BEEF?”

I saw other information scribbled. There were some pictures of characters, some cross-eyed or tongue hanging out, and eyes looking up, you know, THAT look. Today, we call these emojis.

Then there were some phone numbers with names, and then ‘Goldsmith, Stein and Associates LLC.’ I assumed this was a law firm.

I stood up and looked closer at the secret scroll. I also saw a drawing of dollar bills and burgers, dollar bills and beer, and dollar bills and desserts.

On the other side was a list of ingredients and time segments.

Whoever wrote this wasn’t planning lunch. They were fighting for their financial life. Food costs. Labour. Three exclamation marks. One desperate declaration of “Solve this now!” Whoever Mack was, he appeared to be losing the burger wars.

On the other side, I saw: “shrinkage +5%, growth +3%, P&L +9%, and again Big Mack’s Burgers (crossed out). Solve! Now!!!”

This was quite an informative piece of toilet paper. It appeared that the owner was working out how much food cost to buy, prepare, and serve against how much to charge customers. And to resolve the issue of shrinkage.

After five minutes of studying the six-foot length of toilet paper, I was convinced I understood the predicament well enough to save it.

I folded up the toilet paper tidily, placed it in my jacket pocket, and marched back to the restaurant.

When I arrived, the hostess, recognizing me, asked if I had forgotten something.

“Thank you, but I would like to speak with your owner, please.”

She asked why (thinking I was going to complain about the food or service from earlier).

“Because I have a document that I believe he will want to see.”

“Can you show it to me?”

So, I pull the toilet paper out of my pocket and show her. She hesitated, looked at the toilet paper, looked at me, and exhaled with terrific exasperation; the sigh of someone who had already lived too much life for one shift.

“I’ll get Mack.”

I panicked. I knew nothing. And I now had no idea what I would say to help this poor man. I stood there thinking of solutions, around less packaging and keeping a certain level of inventory frozen before pulling them out of the walk-in freezer, which may cost more time per burger, but if they drop on the floor frozen, they should be fine; they will just sound like a garbage can lid dropping in the alley. Ideas were buzzing through my mind.

Mack burst through the doors belly first, carrying a twenty-litre pail of Crisco.

“WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT?”

I proudly held out the toilet paper.

“You can stop the shrinkage!”

Recognizing the toilet paper, he yelled, “HOW IN GOD’S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP THE SHRINKAGE?”

Pointing to his 20-litre container, I said, “Crisco. It’s shortening!”

Mack didn’t blink.

“Shrinkage? I’m not losing in the business of serving hamburgers.”

“You’re not?”

“No!

“I’M BEING SUED BY MCDONALD’S RESTAURANTS BECAUSE MY RESTAURANT IS NAMED BIG MACK BURGERS, YOU IDIOT.”

Mack’s words echoed off the restaurant walls, instantly deflating my grand plans for frozen burger inventory. My Tony Manero swagger evaporated on the spot. As it turned out, the scribbles on that six-foot scroll of toilet paper weren’t financial projections—they were Mack’s panic-induced notes reacting to the official legal nightmare that had landed on his desk earlier that morning:

GOLDSMITH, STEIN & ASSOCIATES LLC
Attorneys at Law | Intellectual Property & Corporate Litigation Division
100 Corporate Plaza, Suite 400 | New York, NY

CONFIDENTIAL VIA CERTIFIED MAIL

Date: August 4, 2026

To:
Mr. “Mack” [Owner/Operator]
Big Mack’s Burgers
452 Main Street

RE: NOTICE TO CEASE AND DESIST – TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT AND UNFAIR COMPETITION

Dear Sir or Madam,

We represent McDonald’s Corporation in all matters regarding international intellectual property protection. It has come to our attention that your establishment is operating under the trade name “Big Mack’s Burgers”.

This letter serves as formal notification that your current branding directly infringes upon our client’s internationally recognized, multi-billion-dollar federal trademark registrations, most notably the “Big Mac” mark.

1. Description of Infringing Activity

Your use of the phonetic equivalent “Big Mack’s” paired directly with the sale of ground beef patties (”Burgers”) creates an undeniable likelihood of consumer confusion. A reasonable consumer walking down Main Street could easily be deceived into thinking your establishment is an authorized franchise, subsidiary, or dynamic pop-up experience affiliated with McDonald’s.

2. Statutory Legal Basis

Your unauthorized commercial exploitation of this identity constitutes:

• Federal Trademark Infringement pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1114.

• False Designation of Origin and Unfair Competition under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a).

• Trademark Dilution, effectively blurring the distinctiveness of our client’s historic global menu items.

3. Formal Demands

To avoid immediate, catastrophic federal litigation, our client demands that you satisfy the following criteria within ten (10) business days of receiving this notice:

1. Cease and Desist all current and future use of the name “Big Mack’s Burgers,” or any name containing the words “Mac,” “Mack,” or the prefix “Mc”.

2. Destroy and Remove all infringing physical assets, including exterior storefront signage, interior menus, custom burger wrappers, and promotional materials.

3. Deliver Written Affirmation to our offices guaranteeing that you have permanently phased out the name and will not attempt to register “Mike’s Beef Saloon,” “Cultured Cow Beefhaus,” or any other phonetically adjacent titles.

4. Consequences of Non-Compliance

Failure to comply by the designated deadline will leave us with no choice but to file a formal complaint in federal district court. We will aggressively pursue a permanent injunction, an accounting of all profits generated under the infringing name, and triple statutory damages plus attorney fees.

Govern yourself accordingly.

Sincerely,

Harvey Stein, Esq.
Goldsmith, Stein & Associates LLC

Mack grabbed the toilet paper from me, turned on his heel, and barged back through the double doors to disappear for the night. The hostess just looked at me. Blank with a hint of pity.

”May I order a quintuple Kentucky whiskey on the rocks, hold the rocks? Please?”

I was in Grade 8 and had experience with that already, but in this case, I was a new kid in town. I was now in a hamlet in the prairies, whereas I grew up in the city next to a 355-hectare rabbit warren and flower garden. The city park was full of towering cedars, Douglas firs and one Monkey Puzzle Tree. I climbed them all. Well, I only attempted to climb the Monkey Puzzle Tree once. I may have been simple, but I learned quickly.

But where I grew up, I knew everyone, and a fight was a fight; it was typically done in anger.

This was odd.

I was 13 and looked, smelled and talked like a city boy. Here, there were Polish, Ukrainian and German farm boys. They all looked like they had been assembled from leftover tractor parts. At thirteen, most of them already had forearms that could change a tire by gripping it grimly.

None had the graceful touch to stroke a typewriter key — not even with a mallet held over their heads.

And then there was Barb Teows. She couldn’t date me in the presence of her community of big brothers. I didn’t know if she liked me, but there were moments when the boys weren’t around, when she was different. She may have been attracted to my outrageous repartee.

When we crossed paths without an audience, she was funny. She’d ask about the city or laugh at one of my stupid observations. Then another farm kid would appear over the horizon, and she’d immediately remember I was socially radioactive.

I aimed to get my arms around her somehow. Even if it was the final thing I did before my end.

“So, Mike, you want me to take 6’2 225-pound Rolly Urbaniak to the back of the school and fight him?”

“Yes.”

“Can you see?”

“What?”

“Mike, if I inhale deeply, stand perfectly straight and think tall thoughts, I am 5-foot-9 and maybe 130 pounds. Rolly could use me as a canoe paddle.”

“Not if you throw some hard haymakers right at his face, as fast and as hard as you can. Don’t back down under any circumstances. If he keeps coming at you, slip to the side like this and throw left and rights so hard, you feel like you are going for a home run.”

“Okay. Now I feel like it. Good pep talk.”

I was simple too.

Mike never seemed to distinguish between hunting, practical jokes and attempted manslaughter.

The first time he took me hunting, he got me to shoot a beehive the size of a large medicine ball with a shotgun. We dove into the cold Pembina River to avoid being stung about 5000 times.

We shot a few grouse, and his black Labrador Retriever, named Geizer, brought them back gamefully. Mike ripped the dead grouse open, reefed out the gizzards, shoved them down my shirt, and laughed in my face with the biggest, toothiest, mustachioed gob imaginable.

Mike had me sit on the hood of his truck while he drove down the cut line, honking. I was holding a 303 British rifle. As soon as an elk buck emerged, I would pull the trigger. A dozen bullets, six into the ass, three into the trees and three into the dirt as we went up and down.

Fortunately, the elk bled profusely, which made tracking him almost professional. My aunt and uncle were tow truck drivers, so they came out to the bush to load the elk up on the apron at the end of the winch and drive back through town, with the elk dangling there.

As I learned quickly, life in Cribdeath, Alberta, was very different from the paradise on Vancouver Island.

I was toughening up during my adventures with Mike, but Rolly was a beast.

And Barb was a babe.

The problem with Rolly is that he was just finishing up haying.

Haying is CrossFit designed by Satan.

Two weeks of lifting eighty-pound bales in forty-degree heat while blackflies remove whatever blood remains in your body. By the end of haying, a farm kid could throw an eighty-pound bale onto the fourth tier of a truck, eat ten cabbage rolls, drink a litre of milk, belch loudly enough to redirect migrating geese, and ask what was next.

Now, I was going to go to school on Monday and just let this peckerhead know I am present, so my plan was simple.

Walk up to the largest human being in the municipality and politely invite him to rearrange my skeleton.

Fuck.

On the other hand, it was torture dealing with Rolly. He was a pest, a bully and had a very simple sense of humour. A sledgehammer sense of humour. No grace, no nuance, no implied word play. Talking to him was like having a battle of wits with an unarmed man. Metaphor would have been wasted on him. Irony would have required diagrams.

Every time I managed to say something halfway clever, I’d catch Barb suppressing a smile. It wasn’t much, but at thirteen that’s practically an engagement. Sure, ZZ Top sang, “Every girl’s crazy for a sharp-dressed man,” but some girls appreciated a man with wit.

But I was constantly looking over my shoulder for him. It was no way to live. So, Monday came, and I listened to the advice of Mike, who was also about 5’9” but 160 pounds and as wiry as a reptile in the bayou. Mike had a reputation as a wild beast in the bars and on the roads in his ‘74 Dodge Charger; he was a true madman.

So, I arrived at school, and there was the usual gang of farm boys and, well, farm girls too, bussed in. Barb was standing there.

Rolly started right away, “Hey, Chris, see that highway over there? Why don’t you go play on it for a while?”

The crowd of gormless knuckle draggers laughed. Barb laughed too. That killed me.

Typically, I would either walk by and ignore or say something rude and head into the school. This time, I walked right up to Rolly and said, “You and me and no one else, behind the school right now.”

It occurred to me that I had confused courage with catastrophic miscalculation, but by then I was too close to reverse course without looking ridiculous.

Barb finally expressed a little femininity; she put her hand over her mouth.

My request set off a cacophony of “whoas” and “wooos” from all the other kids.

“Right now?”

“Yup.”

“You want to fight right now, around the back of the school?”

“Right now.”

Rolly was lost. He looked at all his friends and then down at me. “Seriously?”

I stepped in closer, almost nose to nose, “Right now.”

Rolly looked left and right at all the other kids and said, “Okay, everyone, stay here, I will be right back with some blood on my hands.”

But Rolly wasn’t as confident as he was attempting to be. There was a little pitch in his voice and an extra blink in his eye. He felt awkward; no one had ever challenged him with confidence.

I had no idea what I was going to do, but I was prepared to begin swinging. To end the daily torture of his pestering, teasing and ridiculing me in front of everyone. Especially Barb.

So, we went around to the back of the school and faced each other. The other kids came around the far end to watch, from 50 metres away. Barb was standing there with the other girls. She had a toughness about her, and I always felt it was half farm tough and half bravado to fit in.

She still had a hand over her mouth.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I should just start swinging or push first—something. I was a little confused as he just stood there looking at me like the buffoon he was. After a moment or so, one of his farm friends yelled, “Hit him, Rolly.”

Rolly let go a wild haymaker that was so obviously coming around that I ducked and started swinging for the fences. That was all I needed to release the anger. I was not even sure I could see or if I was hitting anything or had any power, but I was swinging hard and fast and putting so much speed into the punches.

The first few punches were planned. The next twenty weren’t. Somewhere between survival and blind panic, my brain resigned. After that, I was just an angry collection of elbows travelling at high speed through the universe.

Then something remarkable did happen.

I discovered that terror burns at approximately the same temperature as rage.

I had almost no memory of the next minute or so except elbows, fists, grass, blood and the vague impression that my right arm had reverted to little league pitching mechanics; throwing hard balls, with a clenched fist.

Before moving out there, to that prairie town, I had some fights at school, but they were not frantic like this.

Feeling a massive release from the past year, I jumped on him and swung harder until two teachers and a few students pulled me off.

Rolly’s face was a mess.

I was suspended for two weeks, and when I returned, I had detention for two months. It was worth every line that I wrote on the chalkboard: “I will never again fight at school,” 100 times, every day.

It was ironic that no one ever wanted to fight me again.

After the fight, I went home, and there was cousin Mike. “Well, how did it go?”

I told him, “I beat the living daylights out of him. He needed first aid. But I am suspended.”

Just like the time Mike threw the grouse gizzard down my shirt, he bent forward, looked me dead in the eye, with a gleam of pride and did that open-mouth barking laugh. He was one proud cousin.

If Mike ever wrote a parenting book, it would have contained two chapters.

Fight him.

If that failed, Chapter Two was Fight him harder.

Barb pretended to ignore me for the autumn. That was better than her insulting me just to fit in.

Mike had been right. Rolly never bothered me again. We were never friends, but from that day forward, we understood each other.

Months later, on a ski trip, I went into my dorm room at a nearby building, and Barb was hiding behind my door.

I walked in, surprised to see her, closed the door and locked it. We put our arms around each other and conducted a wonderful teenage rite of passage. In the morning, while on the ski lift, I asked: “Why isn’t Rolly here?”

“He’s afraid of you.”

Which struck me as unfortunate.

We’d spent an entire year being terrified of each other. We simply hadn’t coordinated who was supposed to be doing it.

One afternoon, I was walking with a friend to kill time while waiting for our ship to come in. He asked if I practiced religion.

“I do not. But I was raised Protestant,” I said. “Plus, I don’t like what happened to Freddie Mercury.”

“What happened to Freddie Mercury?”

“He died of AIDS. And he was sure Beelzebub had a devil put aside for him.”

“I mean, what does that even mean?”

“You’re reading too much into the lyrics,” he said. “It was probably a metaphor. At that time, people thought AIDS came from being promiscuous.”

“Before he sang about Beelzebub, he sang ‘easy come, easy go.’ He was a man about town.”

I replied, “It almost sounds like you are victim‑blaming.”

“He is not a victim.”

I pressed on. “Do you think Freddie believed he was a product of his mother? Like she influenced him so much that when he killed a man, she metaphorically pulled the trigger? Therefore, SHE killed a man?”

“I think you are reading too much into the lyrics. Freddie was rogue anyway. Successful, despite the superficial music industry.”

“The song supersedes the singer,” I said.

I asked, “Do you think ‘shivers down my spine’ was just to magnify the melody?”

“Yes. And the drop into ‘Goodbye everybody’ is dramatic. The listener wonders, ‘Where is he taking me now?’”

“I guess with being cryptic, we never know what he meant by ‘Mama, oooh.’ Maybe he was emotionally dependent.”

“Don’t all young men yearn for leaving?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“But he predicted his demise: ‘I don’t wanna die.’”

“Maybe. But you are the one who said he was singing in the third person.”

Later, I asked, “Do you think ‘a little silhouetto of a man’ suggests emotional insecurity?”

“No.”

“Short stature?”

“No.”

“Poor self‑esteem?”

“No.”

“A difficult relationship with his mother?”

“Possibly.”

“Then why is he little?”

“Perspective.”

“Perspective?”

“He’s in the distance.”

“But he’s frightened.”

“Thunderbolt and lightning will do that.”

“I think you are reading too much into the lyrics. He’s just a poor boy from a poor family.”

“Yes, but because he was poor, he had few means and became a scaramouche to compensate.”

“Is that the way you hear it?”

“Well, ‘Spare him his life from this monstrosity’ sounds like someone begging for his life.”

“Or a court finding him guilty.”

I asked, “So the devil made him do it?”

“Better the devil than owning up to it.”

“So, Beelzebub DID have a devil put aside for him?”

“I don’t know,” he answered solemnly.

“You’re a Christian.”

“Yes.”

“Surely you’ve communed with Beelzebub.”

“No.”

“Not even professionally?”

“No.”

So, I assumed it wasn’t a court of law but a deity who found him guilty. Guilty of some sort of sin.

By this time, our ship that we had been waiting for had come in, and we no longer needed to walk around wasting time.

Later, while driving, I asked, “Are you religious?”

“Yes.”

“Which religion?”

“Christianity, we already discussed this.”

We drove in silence for several kilometres.

“If I ever become religious,” I said, “I’d probably choose Buddhism.”

“Why?”

“Existential affirmation.”

There was a momentary silence between us, like fresh sea air.

He broke the silence with, “That conversation felt like Socratic interrogation disguised as banter.”

I blurted, “The afterlife appears to have fewer administrative requirements.”

“I don’t think that’s one of the selling points.”

“Okay, how about no eternal Beelzebub administration either.”

“You’re still reading too much into the lyrics.”

The drive was, as always, pastoral. Western Red Cedars, Arbutus and Douglas-firs dotted the landscape. A blue heron, as a taradactyl, gracefully crossed our path. Cows lounged like lazy rock stars, and glimpses of the ocean appeared now and then. The fresh air always welcomed one’s return.

Rocky Raccoon came on the radio. We let the lyrics wash over us, neither willing to interpret a single line.

Her speech will be refreshing.

“Tonight Americans chose competence over spectacle,” she will say. “Evidence over conspiracy and service over blame.”

The crowd of nearly 20,000 in Madison Square Garden will erupt in enthusiastic celebration.

Donald J. Trump will not go quietly into the good night

He will instead speak at Barney’s Smoke ’n Bones Roadhouse in Deathgrip, Alabama, a location chosen for its acoustics and its proximity to discounted yam fries. Attendees will be coerced to attend by the lure of pulled pork sandwiches, which double as an incentive and infrastructure.

“My Americans,” Trump will begin. “This election was rigged. I have now been cheated out of four consecutive victories, including the one that you know I won in 2020.”

Fact-checkers around the world will quietly close their laptops, resign en masse, and begin researching the comparative profitability of alpaca farming.

He will then announce that the time has come to “storm the White House,” a suggestion met with the same enthusiasm typically reserved for extended warranty returns.

Over the previous decade, Trump promised greatness. Instead, he will have demonstrated that a constitutional republic can indeed survive prolonged exposure to grievance, provided its institutions mistake fatigue for stability.

His ideology will defy classification. Scholars will eventually characterize it as “the slow public unravelling of a man who confused applause with evidence and anger with intellect.”

He will also propose relocating all American server farms to Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts “because that is where they hate me the most.”

Wall Street will respond calmly by losing two trillion dollars before lunch. Analysts will reassure viewers that markets often react this way when economic policy appears to have been drafted during a conniption blizzard.

Traders will briefly attempt optimism before remembering who is speaking.

Trump will then clarify his tech industry expertise. “I know everything,” he will say. “I am basically a Tier 3 technician. I can code like nobody else. The greatest htmj coder of all time. Like you have never seen.”

Americans will be buoyed by the summer’s Los Angeles Olympic Games, which will have gone well enough that Californians will remain in a celebratory mood despite the emerging hurricane‑bombing doctrine.

“Climate change is fake,” Trump will explain. “Hurricanes are our enemy. We will bomb them.”

Trump will then announce Laura Loomer as his cultural advisor to silence.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise will later lament that Americans have embraced “the dangerous culture of competence,” which he will list alongside public health as evidence of national decline.

Post‑speech polling will show 1.1 percent domestic approval and 0.01 percent global approval, a number so small it will be mistaken for dust.

Ocasio-Cortez with grace…

Ocasio-Cortez’s transition remarks will focus on repairing the social safety net and narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor. She will emphasize unity, equality, and competence. These concepts will feel new and relevant.

“History will not remember the Trump years kindly,” she will say. “Democracies seldom celebrate the seasons in which they misplace their better judgment.”

Applause in Madison Square Garden will continue long after the speech ends.

At Barney’s Smoke ’n Bones Roadhouse, the final pulled pork sandwich will be consumed without ceremony.

Fox News will wax and lament for seventy‑two hours. No minds will change.

Meanwhile, CNN will convene a bipartisan panel consisting of two constitutional scholars, a retired NASCAR driver, and a golden retriever named Liberty in the interest of balanced coverage.

Trump will conclude his speech by mixing metaphors.

“I will pull my Japanese sword from my quiver and fall on it if I have to, to make America great again,” he will say, demonstrating continued confidence in his ability to combine incompatible objects.

Historians will eventually agree on one point: the republic will not have been saved by certainty, but by the inconvenient persistence of elections.

Trump’s Reign of Error will die peacefully tonight, and the ordinary toil and turning of the cogs of democracy will return.

Before moving to rural Alberta for a couple of years, I grew up next to Beacon Hill Park in Victoria. By age five, I could imitate the resident peacocks well, but peacocks are not the point.

Goats are.

Beacon Hill Park had goats, too. But I was headed to rural Alberta because I was turning into a wild teenager. My father felt it was his turn to send one of his offspring back after receiving three of his sisters’ teenagers, my crazy cousins.

Goats are the greatest because they eat the grass off your roof, baby goats jump on your shoulders and play with your hair, and the bleating is out of this world fun.

Nester the goat was a friend of mine. He knew me by my bleat, recognized my face, and would canter over to me with tongue out and his short six-inch tail flicking about.

His brown and white fur always contained bits of hay, the occasional spider web, or another goat’s dried poo.

Nester could burp like a human at volumes that should have put him into the Guinness Book of World Records. I taught him to burp on command, but he always needed food to have the world-record-level belches. Apples. He did apples.

I liked seeing Nester after school, because school could be torture, especially with Mr. Parkinson teaching. I was an okay student, but easily distracted, and Parkinson was a monotone metronome clicking at 50 beats a minute. A cadence that could put the Tasmanian Devil to sleep.

Anyway, Nester considered every day the greatest day in the history of goats.

His giant green eyes measured me with the vacant, nobody-is-home stare, much like a llama or a distant Bovidae relative.

I would hold out a handful of Granny Smith apple slices, and Nester would gobble them right up, turn and kick several times in the air and trot off bleating and burping.

Over the course of the summer, I prompted Nester with good behaviour by giving him watermelon or apples. He loved apples so much, he would easily take instruction and follow through on whatever trick I wanted him to perform, like jumping in circles, rolling over quite awkwardly, kicking another goat or just bleating really loud. I soon discovered that Nester loved burping after appletime. Loud. Almost violent, like he forced it and blew the burp through a cranked-up PA system.

Mr. Parkinson was my Grade 8 science teacher. He was the most uninspiring presenter in the history of man. He was so relentlessly boring that he was practically provoking a classroom uprising. Mr. Parkinson’s hair was parted with such geometric precision that it looked like Highway 1 crossing Saskatchewan.

Anyway, Nester would stare at me blankly, like he was expecting something.

Unlike my cousin’s turkeys, one of which smoked cigarettes, drank beer and fell off hay bales, Nester didn’t need vices. He ran entirely on apples and enthusiasm.

The trigger was the same as making the sound to get a horse to go, “come on, boy, click click.”

Off Nester would trot, sneak up behind someone, get on his hind legs and bleat 110 decibels into the unsuspecting person’s ear. He might as well have been a Central American Howler Monkey.

We would fall about laughing, it was so much fun.

“BAAAA,” right into the ear hole.

One time, Mr. Parkinson showed up to speak to the family about my behaviour in class. He intended to be kind, thoughtful and provide advice, but he was still going to out me as a teenager who was disruptive and fought too often.

Parkinson began talking to my guardian in gentle tones about how I was instigating trouble, speaking out of turn, and fighting.

Sensing trouble from Parkinson, I gathered a bucket of apples and cut them up. I clambered through the fencing to the goat corral and cleared my throat. Nester trotted out as exuberant as ever and tried to headbutt me a couple of times; he was so excited.

He would headbutt me, then stand there looking up. I think he was a surveillance goat in disguise. If so, I was in big trouble. I was about to make trouble anyway.

I put the bucket down and let Nester begin eating the giant cache of apples that I had cut up. While he ate, I massaged his stomach, the one that produces burps of epic proportions. The further Nester got into the bucket of apples, the more bloated and harder his stomach became. Soon, my arms were burning.

This whole time, Parkinson was making small talk to ease into the conversation about my behaviour. “Yes, and the council voted in favour of painting the water fountain grey and blue. It will be genuinely nice, yes.”

Blah blah blah.

Nester looked up and surveilled Parkinson, looked at me and looked back at Parkinson. He knew something was up. I gave him the click click sound, and Nester trotted over to Parkinson and just as the old science teacher was about to say, “...he fights…” Nester reared up, stuck his moistened lips to Parkinson’s ear hole. His right ear went back, left nostril flared, then he arched his back and let out a trombone blast of a belch, so loud, it hurt my ears twenty feet away.

Parkinson stood there, held onto the fence, and raised his shoulders as if he were being hit by falling debris.

The burp seemed to last twenty seconds. Long enough for wet apple shrapnel and a fine mist to begin coating Parkinson’s ear.

Soon, he was as wet as a spring frog and covered in sauce.

Nester turned around, lifted his tail, and spewed enough brown gravy at Parkinson to cover him from the knee down to his Doc Martens. Nester trotted off as if in a dancing mood and began to kick about in circles, which I swear was him laughing aloud.

Parkinson escaped, short one Doc Marten.

On Monday, at school, I enjoyed the easiest science class I had ever had.

When I arrived home, I gathered the bucket, tossed in a few apples and watermelon and summoned Nester with a couple of click-clicks. Nester trots over, spies the bucket and gets the zoomies. He kicked up in circles, bleated spastically and headbutted everyone in sight.

I walked away to allow Nester to eat the apples and watermelon, and then allow him to enjoy the food without the tasks afterward. Nester, buried deep in the bucket, heard me walking away. I turned around, he looked up, measured me, then let out a thank-you belch of epic proportions.

Nowadays, on long runs, I pass a sheep farm. The sheep’s bleat is softer. Sheep could lose an argument with a fence post, like Parkinson could lose an argument with a coat rack.

Neither could catch my attention, never mind hold it.

When I hear the sheep bleat, mid-run, where I am daydreaming, it is a soothing sound. Lately, when I pass the goat farm, the silent morning air is often broken by the staccato burst of a loud goat bleat. Every time, I am startled out of my stupor and look up to see a goat perched on a wooden block, staring back at me, bleating like an old man emerging from the bar, “Baaaaaaa.”

I laugh. I can’t help myself. I bleat back.

It’s my way of saying hello to my old friend, Nester. Saying hello to his blank stare, dancing kicks, his loyalty, all of it. I miss that damned goat.

And if there’s any justice in the universe, I’ll come back as a carefree, apple‑powered barnyard lunatic, specked in cedar chips and cow dung, living exactly the way Nester did: loud, happy, and utterly unbothered.

While Alto warmed a seat on council, Lisa Helps heated the mayor’s chair, and together they burned down the era that produced today’s fights over housing, street disorder and public safety. Helps is remembered for suggesting residents billet the unhoused while she kept renting out her own place on Airbnb. This is the kind of contradiction that doesn’t need embellishing, only repeating.

Alto campaigned on experience. Victoria got a municipal remake of the E&N Railway instead: expensive, endlessly discussed, barely moving, and always one feasibility study away from actually happening.

Start with the Dowler Place Access Hub. City Hall managed to turn a harm-reduction drop-in centre into a full-blown communications catastrophe, bad enough that Alto had to publicly apologize for how poorly the neighbourhood was consulted before the doors ever opened. The hub is operated by SOLID, the Society of Living Illicit Drug Users, a peer-run harm reduction organization.

Then came the dumpster fire backlash, the bylaw disputes over unpermitted outdoor structures, and the inevitable smouldering retreat. What started as a casual walk-in daytime shelter got rebuilt, brick by bureaucratic brick, into a strictly managed, 24/7 transitional facility with vetting, intake criteria and enough paperwork to drown a Briggs Orca visiting the Inner Harbour. A grassroots harm-reduction idea went in one end of City Hall and came out the other end wearing a lanyard.

Residents say they found out too late. Rumours that the hub would double as a supervised consumption site spread faster than the city could hold a meeting to deny it, and whatever trust existed between City Hall and North Park went up like a vape pen on dry grass in August.

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now, we can only lose
And our love becomes a funeral pyre
Come on, Alto, light my fire

— Jim Morrison, The Doors, Light My Fire

Meanwhile, encampments grew, open drug use became part of the streetscape, and the same faces cycled through the same blocks. Council’s answer, consistently, was another meeting about another strategy; motion carried, nothing moved.

Eventually, public safety climbed high enough on the polling to matter, and City Hall discovered it had a chequebook after all. Roughly $10 million later, taxpayers are still waiting for anyone to show them the receipts, not the invoices, but the results.

Councillor Stephen Andrew has pointed out that Alto has spent 16 years helping author the policies that produced this exact crisis. Promising a fix with less than a year left on the mandate isn’t leadership so much as timing.

At council presentations, residents looking for hard numbers came away empty-handed. No benchmarks, no performance indicators, nothing to measure against — just the same open question taxpayers keep asking without an answer: is any of this actually working, or are we just paying to watch it happen?

And the taxpayers declare their love for Super Save Fencing.

Property taxes, at least, have been unambiguous. They have climbed with the steady confidence of something that has never once had to justify itself. Residents are told that inflation, policing costs, infrastructure and provincial downloading left no alternative. Maybe. But when the budget grows faster than the city funding it, eventually people notice they’re bankrolling an orchestra that keeps hiring trombones and forgets to show up in the Inner Harbour on BC Day.

Alto herself communicates with the warmth of an insurance adjuster reading you the exclusions on a claim you already know is denied. Nothing is ever quite broken, and nothing is ever quite fixed; every answer arrives pre-wrapped in enough qualifiers to survive a fact-check. She avoids confrontation the way a raccoon avoids daylight, instinctively, and with the practiced calm of something that knows the trash isn’t going anywhere.

The result is a governing style built entirely out of stalling technique: consensus as delay, caution as strategy, and a mayor who can explain city priorities only in the passive voice.

Then there’s housing, where Alto’s enthusiasm for density is matched only by her reluctance to say what it actually costs. Every planning meeting produces another tower and another promise that infrastructure will catch up eventually. Details to follow, as always. Density used as a philosophy instead of a tool starts to look less like planning and more like a hammer that’s decided every neighbourhood is a nail. Ask Fernwood, Harris Green or James Bay how that’s going.

Empire Donuts should name a doughnut after her, Marianne Brûlée Victoria.

Alto will run again on stability, experience and collaboration, which can be construed as a tidy slogan for four years that already happened. Victoria doesn’t need to imagine what those qualities produce anymore; she’s been living in it. The only real question left for voters is whether they mistake more of the same for progress a second time, you know, to pass through fire again.

Come on baby, light my fire.

The documentary poster leans into that mythology: Peterec at 66, hood up, lit like a confession booth. His arms still look carved from Alberni Valley lumber, and the damage to his nose blooms beneath the shadows. For a while, pound for pound, he may have been the toughest man alive.

Watching a fighter become a force

I was the kick judge—kick counter—for Peterec’s first professional world title fight. Before that, I watched him evolve from within the club from a Canadian titleholder staying sharp into a world-class fighter climbing toward his peak. I sparred with him occasionally—until he started getting intense as fight night approached. That’s when I quietly vacated the ring until his fight was over, at least while he was in it.

Watching Peterec fight was like watching Wayne Gretzky step onto the ice.

Something was going to happen.

When Peterec climbed between the ropes—after vomiting from nerves in the change room—he became dead calm. Hyped, sure, but calm in a way that made everyone else anticipatory. You could see it in how he moved, how he looked at his opponent.

Dead. Fucking. Calm.

He’d dump opponents onto their heads with a perfectly timed counter left or whip a kick into the jaw. Ringside doctors, judges, fans, media, vendors—we all waited for the knockout punch. Sometimes, instead, he’d fold someone into a lawn chair.

And I’d think: I was sparring with him two weeks ago. What exactly was I afraid of?

The answer was that he possessed extraordinary control. I would have been fine. But when that opening bell rang, whoever stood across from him was going to pay for it. They were going to eat a leather lunch.

I became so absorbed in the action that I dropped the kick cards in staccato bursts. Whether I dropped them correctly, I still couldn’t tell you.

I’d make a terrible judge.

“Judge Smith scores the fight 110–109. Judge Rankin scores it 109–110. Judge Kelsall scores it 1000–2.”

Well...

The documentary isn’t polished. It doesn’t matter.

Stack this documentary against When We Were Kings or a polished Keith Richards biopic, and it won’t hold up technically. It wasn’t meant to.

Co-produced by Sean Vaillancourt of Valliant Films and Jeremy Hawks, the documentary was filmed largely with a single camera. Before the screening, Vaillancourt’s wife joked with the audience about the minimalist production. Archival footage supplies the fight scenes, while Peterec himself carries the story through interviews, along with former opponents, training partners, coaches and friends.

The result feels intimate rather than cinematic.

The viewer should ask why they’re in the theatre. To admire filmmaking, or to hear a compelling story?

This film chooses the latter.

I knew Peterec had struggled after his world-title years, but I didn’t know how deeply.

Outside the ring, he was down for the count.

Inside his own mind.

Where the demons live.

“Men never talked about these things,” Peterec told me recently at his downtown Victoria gym. “This isn’t just a long video of all my fights. It’s a story about struggle.”

“The sport often attracts people who don’t necessarily come from great situations.”

Peterec grew up bullied in the tough logging and fishing town of Port Alberni. Then a karate club opened.

Perfect timing.

He walked through the door and discovered he had a gift.

Kickboxers come from everywhere. Former boxers. Karate practitioners. Taekwondo stylists. Street fighters. Every style reveals itself eventually. One fighter looked like a boxer who had learned to kick. Another had beautiful taekwondo technique but no rhythm. Another relied almost entirely on chaos.

I loved figuring them out.

I was a mixture myself—a little boxing, a little karate, plenty of bad habits acquired elsewhere.

The final fight

The film builds toward Peterec’s remarkable return to the ring at age 66 in 2025, making him the first professional fighter to compete across six decades—a Guinness World Record.

That achievement wasn’t straightforward.

The kickboxing commission did everything it could to prevent the bout from happening, throwing obstacle after obstacle in his path.

Metaphorically, Peterec knocked them out, too.

When the fight finally happened, he wasn’t moving like someone collecting senior discounts. He was throwing head kicks, combinations, slipping punches and moving with startling fluidity. His opponent—a respected karate sensei young enough to be his son—never looked outclassed because of effort. He looked outclassed because Peterec still possessed timing, composure and technique that age hadn’t managed to steal. During the fight, his smile suggested he could inflict collateral damage.

The documentary won’t be studied in film schools, and it won’t replace When We Were Kings on lists of the greatest sports documentaries ever made.

But it accomplishes something just as worthwhile.

It tells the truth.

The truth about a man who lived at the intersection of violence, discipline, control and depression. A man who dismantled opponents with frightening calm, then spent years trying to dismantle the parts of himself that fighting couldn’t fix.

The film received a standing ovation.

More accurately, Stan “The Steamer” Peterec did.

Maybe The 4th Toughest Man on Planet Earth was always the right title after all. Not because of where Black Belt magazine ranked him, but because the hardest fights of his life happened after the championships were over.

Anyway, dating is theatre. Not the good kind with Shakespeare and decent lighting. It is more like community theatre, where everyone has memorized the script incorrectly but refuses to admit it. We spend the first month pretending to be polished prototypes of ourselves, when the real person is backstage waiting to burp, snore, overshare, and accidentally kill a houseplant.

I have been married for 36 years (to the same woman), and we courted for another five or six years, off and on, before that.

That is 41 or 42 years of my life. So, as it is, I have no idea how to date, and I am not going to learn. Not ever. Being that it has been a lifetime since I last dated, I feel compelled to provide advice to the youngsters out there who want to enter into the maelstrom.

And to those who have convinced themselves that they are good at it.

Anyway, dating is a theatrical production, a veritable farce. For example, people meet wearing costumes they have assembled from viewing fashion websites. While on a date, the man may laugh too loudly. The woman pretends she does not notice. He orders the salad because she ordered the salad, when in reality, he has dreamt about ribs all afternoon. She claims she is “not really hungry,” despite mentally consuming an elk, hooves and all.

I often leave discussions with kids about dating (people under 40, mostly), horrified. I cannot imagine navigating the contemporary dating hellhole. Being age 60, I do not need to date (never mind the fact that I am married). It is all over, baby blue, and thank gawd it is.

It is terrifying to think about.

For example, some people eat with their mouths open, suck their fingertips with gratuitous slurping sounds and talk open-mouthed while chewing. Good lord, what has happened to our society? What happened to decorum?

The machinations of the gob working and mashing food, tongue and teeth, and all gnarling about in a washing machine twister view is nearly vomitous.

There used to be a mysterious secret as to why women would eat so little while on an early courtship date. Men believed that the reason why women do this is to appear not to be gluttonous.

Let me be clear: men are inspired by women who eat terrific mounds of mashed potatoes, and steak, or the fusion Indian culinary exquisiteness of pamandanjeet curried-turkey flambe, lovingly tossed in a spicy Szechuan-Swazi sauté.

In fact, it can be somewhat sexy to witness a woman fighting a meal like a lioness (with her mouth closed).

My advice? Fart.

In case of emergency: FART.

Who knows, maybe the date will fart right back at you.

She should let flatulence fly upon first shaking the man’s hand. Pause, look him dead in the eye and let it break any potential awkward silence; long, loud, and proud. Let it whistle.

Then eat terrific amounts of buttery spanakopita.

After all, it is a rude moment to confront a hippopotamus-like exhalation of protein particles into the ether, suddenly AFTER THE 10th DATE.

Let it all out early and often, and with a smile. Do not furrow the brow; it will appear there is effort. Pushing for the explosion on purpose is a signpost, one too far.

This gets the date off to a warm start.

On the first few dates, no one ever mentions that they snore like a Husqvarna two-stroke gas-powered chainsaw. No one mentions that they fear indecisive squirrels or that they talk to their plants in plant language.

“Hibbet snaw gibnob hoobly goodbly.”

Translation: “I know the hibiscus pisses you off, just ignore, they only flower for one or two days. Dormancy will return soon.”

No one openly farts on the first date.

For the sake of openness and honesty, my advice is to pull the one cheek sneak, step on that duck, feed that barking spider, stimulate that couch frog, CUT THAT CHEESE, BREAK THAT WIND.

That’s why my advice to young people is simple: stop pretending to be Version 1.0 of yourself. Order the ribs, admit you snore, and mention your irrational fear of squirrels.

Tell your date you occasionally salute cows.

And yes, if nature insists...

Let one rip.

Because if someone is going to spend forty-two years with you, they are not marrying the polished audition.

They are marrying the goblin who talks to garlic shoots, sleeps like industrial logging equipment, and occasionally scrambles a flock of pigeons with an explosive air biscuit.

Better to meet that person right away, not in 2048.

Regardless of whether I am walking by a mirror in a hallway or a lounge, or spy the mirror in the washroom, I imitate someone or indulge in a mirthful visage.

Sometimes it will be a Jim Carrey-Ace Ventura Pet Detective character invasion (of the third kind). You know, being Lloyd Christmas.

Sometimes it is me doing Jim Carrey, doing Clint Eastwood, doing Jack Nicholson.

I am not saying I am good at it, but I do laugh.

The clinicians have identified the condition as echopraxia, and I enjoy every moment of it. They also refer to it as the “chameleon effect” and other Latin phrases like imitatus blizzardoushead maximus, whatever, they need to secure the next grant application.

My goodness, I have a condition.

I am self-diagnosed, which is a looking-in-the-mirror moment for me.

Glass, like the human condition, is a metaphor that distorts over time.

Mirror, mirror
On the wall,
Who is the fairest
Of them all?

To quote Khalil Gibran, “Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.”

Khalil meant to say that human beings simultaneously embody the beauty of the universe and are the vessels through which that beauty is observed.

That is so much better than what I was thinking, which was “The mirror reflects the horrors of the human parasite and only humans see beauty in themselves, those arrogant assholes.”

It is refreshing to know I was wrong on that.

Anyway, I may have caught myself waving my hand at my reflection and declaring, “Oh, you, you silly nincompoop, stop that.” Or, I may not have. At any rate, I am not disclosing that information here.

I also imitate people to their face. Or reflexively do it and catch myself before I let it roll; being on the other side of that must be horrific. On occasion, I let it happen; I let the ghost out. A few times, the other person has flinched, knowing that they just saw their behaviour, poltergeisted back at them. It is highly flammable behaviour.

Sometimes I will have a Michael Palin or Michael J. Fox glint in my eye when I do it. That is when I am asking to be punched right in the face.

For example, “Christopher, do you ever go up to a dog and smile at it? Showing your teeth may freak the dog out, you know.”

In a dullard impression, I uncannily respond with “Hey, Jim-Bob, do you ever pass by a flock of sheep and hear them bleat, “da-a-a-a-a-de-e-e-e?”

…and then I laugh myself silly.

Or sometimes I do it subtly, just mimicking mannerisms with nuanced and delicate echopraxia. Perhaps it is creepy. Some people are in denial, as I have borne witness to them looking away, then gathering themselves to block out the incident altogether.

That’s when I go again; let us face our worst fears.

Apparently, there is some scientific territory where this behaviour overlaps with people on the spectrum.

I once told a doctor friend of mine I was on the spectrum. He laughed (poo-pooing the notion), so I qualified the statement with, “No, no, I mean, I am on the stupid side of the spectrum, I am one of the unlucky ones who doesn’t know.”

He just looked at me, as if it were he who was on the spectrum (the smart side, of course).

So, that conversation ended as quickly as it escalated. I mean, I was not trying to brag or anything like that.

I do not linger; I am there for the quick laugh. If it gets old, I have to source a new audience. We cannot have THAT potential soul-crushing search happen.

Humility in the presence of the universe keeps karma at bay.

Living in the home I grew up in (redundancy is delicious fodder for sarcasm), when my brother or a friend would say something useless and stupid, my father and I would exchange one of those Michael Palin-inspired glances at each other, lock eyes, then laugh until the food came back out.

The third wheel would often wonder what that was all about.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and pull that knowing glance.

Then I laugh.

Somewhere inside my head lives an inspired 13-year-old who thinks every mirror holds an audience.

So far: standing ovations.

It is an enviable task if I do say so myself.

One day, I will catch my reflection for the last time.

If I have any say in the matter, the old nut peering back at me will still make me laugh, even when I no longer know him.

Jake wanted to become a hero.

The epic journey

One day, Jake began his long-planned travel to his girlfriend Imogen’s burrow, across Donald’s property, one kilometre to the north. Donald owned a lot of property. In fact, he owned a ton of property. So much property. Like you have never seen. The greatest property ever.

In the unlikely scenario that a common garden snail like Jake travelled continuously in a straight line, it would take the little beast nearly a month to cover a single kilometre. That is under the strict proviso that Jake was not picked off en route by an eagle or a beaver. Given his true top speed of around 0.05 kph (0.03 mph), the slimy gastropod would need roughly 700 hours of nonstop trekking to finish the journey.

How he manages his time will greatly influence how long it takes to travel the km. Resting under the shade of a maple leaf or in the snuggly confines of a pile of horse manure are terrific places to shelter. The gastropod, as one is wont to do, can feast on derivatives of other animals’ kills, DNA.

Meanwhile, Jake is typically slower than Garth THE SLUG. While speed varies by species and temperature, Jake’s shell adds weight and friction, therefore impeding his ability to sprint. Garth travels at around 0.064 kph (0.04 mph) or 52 metres per hour.

The problem is not to do with pure sprinting speed or marathon-like endurance. Gastropods are directionally illiterate and only travel in damp conditions. Jake and Garth often pass roadways; therefore, their brethren’s mortality rate, once they manage to hit the road, is basically 100 percent, especially if there is a Frenchman about.

But so far, Jake and Garth have gone this far in life, mostly unscathed.

To a slug or a snail, a road is equivalent to the front lines of the First World War for the Germans.

Another issue is predators. Just about every variety of animal on earth eats slugs and snails, like rodents, birds, amphibians and Frenchmen, Escargot frappe le route.

But, for those gastropods who avoid getting run over, eaten or baked into bedrock or asphalt by the sun, they can live up to five years, while the Giant African Land Snail can live for 50 years because it lives simply and its lifestyle is devoid of stress.

They can learn 100 human commands, including “glisse-toi là-bas et plonge dans cette casserole de beurre frémissant.” They can learn glisse-toi là-bas et plonge dans cette casserole de beurre frémissant in seven languages.

Due to the barriers to avoiding death, gastropods develop dementia within three weeks.

It is very much a dishonour to the gastropod when a Frenchman prepares a feast while serving the animal as an apéritif. He must be at all times respected and therefore served only as an entrée.

The gastropod is first cleansed by being fed a diet of flour, water, and aromatic herbs. Then, he or she is parboiled to remove the gastropod from its shell (if he has one).

The most common way to prepare escargot is by using free-range snails, which are raised without the use of steroids or antibiotics. The preparation time is 15–20 minutes. The French chef softens and whips the compound butter with garlic, parsley, shallots, and seasonings with loving care. Cooking time is 10–12 minutes, while baking the stuffed shells at 190 °C (375° F) to 220 °C (425° F) until the butter is foamy and sizzling.

Jake’s epic arrival

Jake eventually arrived at Imogen’s burrow, fatigued and ready for some burrow comforts. As he slithered toward the opening, he could hear laughter. During his final hour of travel over the remaining 10 metres, Jake figured out who was talking and laughing. It was Imogen, but the other voice was Garth’s.

Shocked and enraged, Jake sped up to 0.06 kph, turned a sharp left and allowed himself to log roll downhill into the burrow. It was a dizzying pace. Once in the burrow, he rolled right into Garth and Imogen, entangled in what could only be described as romantic gastropod slime business.

“Jake!” Imogen gasped, her eye stalks twitching in guilt. “It’s not what it looks like!”

But Jake’s rage was absolute. He did not care about the three weeks it had taken to get here, or that his dementia was about to set in. He wanted vengeance. He lunged at Garth in a slow-motion collision that took four minutes to connect.

They were halfway through the impact when a shadow darkened the burrow entrance.

Donald had company.

A Frenchman.

As the three of them were tossed into a bucket, Jake took solace in only one thing: given their plump, stress-induced weight, they would certainly not be degraded as an apéritif. They were heading straight for the entrée pan, free-range, and swimming in lovingly prepared garlic butter.

A hero’s serving.

Leadership depends on trust. Once that trust is squandered, the title becomes little more than a formality. Infantino has crossed that line.

His insistence that FIFA acted independently in reviewing US striker Folarin Balogun’s red card has become increasingly difficult to accept because of his own actions. Over the past several years, Infantino has cultivated an unusually public and increasingly political relationship with US President Donald Trump. Whether that relationship influenced FIFA’s decision is almost beside the point. It has destroyed the appearance of independence that sports governing bodies depend upon.

Perception matters

Trump’s own public comments only deepened the controversy. He first declared, “I’m the one who got them to do it,” suggesting he personally persuaded FIFA to review Balogun’s suspension. Later, he walked that statement back, saying he merely requested a review and did not ask Infantino to overturn the ban.

Trump, too, could use a good holy thrashing about in a pool of barracudas.

Anyway, the contradiction surprised a few. Trump has built an entire political career on saying one thing before later denying it, revising it or claiming the opposite. During his first presidency, he proudly negotiated and signed the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). During his second term, he publicly criticized the agreement and questioned the judgment of those responsible for creating it.

How about a single Grizzly Bear, gawd? We would just need one.

This is the same president who has repeatedly challenged birthright citizenship, even though Balogun — born in Brooklyn to Nigerian parents before being raised in England — is an American citizen because of that very constitutional principle.

Trump’s habit of disregarding institutional boundaries is well established. Protocol rarely restrains him.

The more troubling question is why Infantino allowed FIFA to become vulnerable to precisely this perception.

He has hardly helped himself

When FIFA offered Trump its Peace Prize after the US president failed to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, it blurred the line between global sport and partisan politics. FIFA is supposed to govern football, not participate in political image-making.

The optics are gauche beyond the pale.

That decision alone raised eyebrows. The Balogun affair threatens something much larger.

UEFA responded with extraordinary bluntness, calling FIFA’s decision “an unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision.”

Those words were not chosen lightly.

Despite Balogun being sent off, FIFA made him eligible to face Belgium, even though the World Cup regulations provide no avenue for appealing a straight red card. More than 24 hours later, FIFA released an 871-word statement that managed to explain almost nothing.

Infantino continued to deny political interference, insisting the review process was entirely independent.

Others were unconvinced. Well, the world is unconvinced.

Former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp distilled the issue succinctly.

“This is our sport, not theirs.”

“If Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino really sorted this out between themselves, it is madness; it calls everything into question.”

Exactly.

Digging a hole

Whether Trump directly influenced FIFA may never be conclusively established. It almost no longer matters. Institutions derive legitimacy not only from acting independently, but from being seen to act independently. Infantino has allowed that credibility to erode.

World Cup ticket pricing has generated criticism. Tournament expansion remains contentious. Yet neither issue strikes at FIFA’s institutional integrity the way the Balogun controversy does. This episode may ultimately define Infantino’s presidency.

He has dug himself into a hole of his own making.

It may go as far as global football, vacating FIFA and creating a different worldwide governing body.

Delegates heading into the 2027 FIFA presidential election should ask themselves a simple question: if supporters, players, coaches and confederations no longer believe FIFA’s disciplinary decisions are insulated from political influence, what exactly remains of its credibility?

The answer should also determine Infantino’s future; FIFA’s future.

World football deserves leadership that no longer leaves such questions hanging in the air.

But, you have to admit, it would be entertaining to stream video of Trump and Infantino slathered in pico de gallo while fighting off Grizzly bears in a cage.

Good times.

CNM reporter Marc Hurtlick, embedded at the scene, described the crowd as controlled, civil and very angry.

Hurtlick spoke with Saffron Shirazi, who identified herself as a cleric, a claim nobody within earshot appeared willing to dispute. Shirazi, pulling a food cart loaded with sumac, turmeric and other traditional Iranian spices, vowed to skewer Donald J. Trump on a chelow kebab.

“If Trump wants to be an orange man, we will make him an orange man, and we will eat him,” she said, in what Hurtlick characterized as broken English, despite the complete sentences. Shirazi said she had spent many hours preparing her finest and spiciest zeytoon parvardeh sauce for the occasion, for a dish she is calling Orange Trump Parvardeh.

“We have also prepared joojeh kabab, because Trump represents the chicken. He is a coward. We Iranians revere the chicken, especially the rooster. Americans laugh at the chicken. Fools.

“He could not come here to this demonstration. We would tear him apart, as the French did to Marie Antoinette. But the difference is, we would eat him.”

Khamenei’s son and presumed successor has not been seen since his father’s killing. Former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the funeral, a rare appearance after years of estrangement from the slain leader. Hurtlick reported growing concern that if the younger Khamenei failed to appear and sample the Orange Trump Parvardeh, protocol would require Ahmadinejad to judge the dish. Diplomats feared this could spark yet another constitutional crisis.

The crowd chanted: “We will take revenge for the blood of our leader. Give us our Orange Trump Parvardeh.”

Late in the day, Hurtlick informed Shirazi that the Antoinette story is a myth, and that the queen was not torn apart after her execution.

Shirazi considered this for a moment, twirling an empty skewer.

“Then history has deprived us of a perfectly good recipe,” she said. “We shall write our own cookbook.”

Held just days before Canada Day, the event was as much a community festival as a concert. Food trucks and local vendors occupied the western edge of the grounds while thousands of fans filtered between the marketplace and the stage as temperatures eased into a cooling summer evening.

Victoria-area singer Darrian Gerard opened the festivities on a smaller side stage near the food court before local band Cold Fame delivered an energetic set that included Jawbreaker, a song currently receiving airplay on The Zone 91.3.

“She’s a great addition to the band,” singer Jodi Pederson said of the group’s new bass player, who has only recently joined the lineup. She is so new that she has yet to appear on the band’s website, which still presents Cold Fame as a duo — Pederson and guitarist Damian Anthony.

As daylight faded, the evening evolved into a celebration of Canadian rock spanning three decades.

Whether The Tea Party or Our Lady Peace should occupy the headline position was almost irrelevant. Either band could have comfortably closed the evening. Ultimately, Our Lady Peace performed last, but both acts delivered headline-worthy performances.

Some of the loudest reactions came during tributes to the Canadian legends The Tragically Hip. The Tea Party offered a stylized interpretation of Bobcaygeon, while Our Lady Peace led the crowd through Locked in the Trunk of a Car, producing one of the evening’s most memorable sing-alongs.

The gestures felt especially appropriate with Canada Day approaching and served as reminders of The Hip’s enduring place within the country’s musical identity. It was a nice touch.

Our Lady Peace demonstrated the breadth of a catalogue that now spans more than 30 years. Early material, such as Naveed and Starseed, sat comfortably alongside later hits, including Somewhere Out There and Innocent.

Singer Raine Maida introduced one of the band’s newer songs with characteristic humour.

“No one wants to hear a new fu**ing tune, but we’ll play one anyway,” he told the audience.

The crowd quickly proved him wrong, singing along before the song had ended.

Mindful of local noise restrictions, the band returned quickly for an encore. An acoustic version of In Repair preceded Automatic Flowers before Starseed closed the evening.

Earlier, the Tea Party delivered the atmospheric, Eastern-influenced sound that has defined the trio since the early 1990s. Jeff Martin, Stuart Chatwood, and Jeff Burrows constructed what Martin once described as “Moroccan roll,” blending hard rock, world music influences, and extended improvisation.

Songs such as The Bazaar, Heaven Coming Down, and Temptation drew strong responses from longtime fans, while the band’s extended instrumental passages incorporated familiar references to artists including Daniel Lanois, Tool, Nine Inch Nails and The Rolling Stones.

Their closing performance of Sister Awake, which flowed into Paint It Black, provided one final reminder that some Canadian bands age not by becoming nostalgia acts, but by continuing to reinterpret the music that influenced them.

For one evening in Langford, two of Canada’s most important rock bands shared the same stage and, in doing so, reminded their audience that the country’s soundtrack remains very much alive.

The Tea Party setlist:

Venue: Starlight Stadium | Date: June 27, 2026

1. Writing's on the Wall — The Edges of Twilight
Opener: Heavy, driving, Eastern-tinged riffing to grab the stadium's attention immediately.

2. The Bazaar — The Edges of Twilight
Followed up with their signature atmospheric anthem.

3. Psychopomp — Transmission
Introduces a heavy industrial/electronic-tinged groove from the late-90s era.

4. The Messenger — Splendor Solis
Includes tributes to Daniel Lanois and The Tragically Hip’s “Bobcaygeon”.

5. The River — Splendor Solis
Slow-burning jam with a dark medley snippet of Tool’s “Sober”.

6. Save Me — Splendor Solis
Features violin-bow guitar solo.

7. Heaven Coming Down — Triptych
Stadium singalong section with INXS “Never Tear Us Apart”.

8. Temptation — Transmission
Industrial-rock crescendo.

9. Winter Solstice — The Edges of Twilight
Acoustic/instrumental breather.

10. Sister Awake — The Edges of Twilight
Finale blended with the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black.”

Our Lady Peace setlist:

1. Superman's Last Stand — *Spiritual Machines (2000)*
Opener: A high-energy, sci-fi rock start to set the tone.

2. Naveed — *Naveed (1994)*
Early classic dropped right at the top of the night.

3. Is Anybody Home? — *Happiness... (1999)*
Late-90s melodic nostalgia locked in early.

4. Clumsy — *Clumsy (1997)*
Huge stadium singalong moment.

5. Innocent — *Gravity (2002)*
Mid-tempo emotional anchor filling the stadium.

6. The Men Who Rule the World — *Spiritual Machines II (2022)*
Newest track: modern and experimental edge.

7. 4 AM — *Clumsy (1997)*
Stripped-back, deeply personal mid-set highlight.

8. Superman’s Dead — *Clumsy (1997)*
Peak energy with Raine Maida’s signature falsetto.

9. Somewhere Out There — *Gravity (2002)*
Massive soaring radio hit moment.

10. Locked in the Trunk of a Car — *The Tragically Hip cover*
High-octane tribute to Gord Downie.

11. Drop Me in the Water — *Somethingness (2018)*
Gritty rhythm section workout.

12. Stealing Babies — *Naveed (1994)*
Deep-cut throwback for die-hard fans.

13. One Man Army — *Happiness... (1999)*
Heavy builder toward the finale.

14. All You Did Was Save My Life — *Burn Burn (2009)*
Main set closer: big anthemic finish.

15. In Repair (Acoustic) — *Spiritual Machines (2000)*
Encore opener: raw, intimate reset.

16. Automatic Flowers — *Clumsy (1997)*
Fast, quirky fan favourite.

17. Starseed — *Naveed (1994)*
Finale: cosmic, heavy closer.

Rarely does American culture favour the lawyer. Think of Jurassic Park, where the first joke is when the Tyrannosaurus Rex rips the roof off the john and eats the lawyer.

One might assume that a man capable of posting at 3:17 a.m. from the Executive Porcelain Annex would have encountered at least one monologue on television. There are, after all, roughly five. But no: the late‑night realm remained for him a distant kingdom populated by jesters, desk‑bound prophets, and at least one host who appears to be made entirely of cheeky cheekbones and sports an existential beard dread.

His Highness’s radar was not wrong, however. He did not merely become a target of satire; he became a gravitational anomaly that bent satire around him. Exaggeration collapsed. Irony buckled. Hyperbole fled the country disguised as a Norwegian fisherman in a storm, pining for the fjord.

Late‑night writers discovered that Trump often resembled an impersonation of himself. It was as though a wax figure had wandered off its plinth, declared itself sovereign, and begun improvising policy in the style of a man reading fortune cookies with absolute conviction.

Many presidents have demonstrated the ability to laugh at themselves. Reagan used humour like political aikido. Obama wielded it like a scalpel. George W. Bush deployed it with the cheerful bewilderment of a man who has just discovered a new button on the remote, with a sideways grin. Whether these were strategic or sincere hardly matters; the effect was the same. They understood the ritual.

Satire depends on exaggeration, irony, and a certain level of self‑awareness and the ability to recognize one’s own reflection without attempting to subpoena it. Without that, the whole mechanism sputters like a lawnmower trying to digest a philosophy textbook. One would not be surprised if Trump sued his mirror for defamation.

Conservative critics argued that late‑night comedy had become biased. But the deeper problem for satirists was structural: when the subject behaves like a parody of himself, embellishment becomes counterproductive. Writers found themselves quoting him directly, terrified that any attempt to add flourish would make the material less believable. At one point, a monologue consisted entirely of a transcript, and the audience laughed anyway, unsure whether they were witnessing comedy or anthropology.

Impersonators multiplied. Alec Baldwin, James Austin Johnson, and a small army of stand‑ups discovered that the only way to impersonate Trump was to reproduce him with documentary precision. At one point, there were so many Trumps on television that metaphysicians briefly considered whether the universe had entered a recursion loop and whether the FCC should regulate the number of identical personalities allowed on air at once.

Even Canada was not immune. Mark Carney, a man so composed he could negotiate peace between two thermostats, occasionally drifted into a cadence suspiciously reminiscent of Trump, as though the phenomenon were airborne and transmissible through international finance. Epidemiologists took notes.

The Trump era produced a strange double irony: irony piled upon irony until the structure resembled a Jenga tower built by a committee of sleep‑deprived owls. Satirists were not lampooning a politician; they were chronicling a weather system, complete with unpredictable gusts, sudden pressure drops, and the occasional advisory from the National Comedy Service. Farts away, men!

Jon Stewart, ever the ring technician, adapted. He would begin with familiar liberal observations, pivot sharply, and deliver a line aimed directly at conservatives who might be watching. The effect was pugilistic: a jab, a feint, a sudden hook. Stewart became a boxer who had studied both Ali’s footwork and the kinetic enthusiasm of a 21‑year‑old Tyson, all while narrating the match in the tone of a disappointed librarian.

As the political saga stretches on, the task for comedians grows more strange. How do you parody a figure who already speaks in mythic self‑narration? How do you exaggerate someone who arrives pre‑exaggerated? How do you satirize a man who has already blurred the line between performance and persona?

The answer, ultimately, was imitation, not because it was the funniest option, but because it was the only one left standing, waving a tiny white flag made of monologue cue cards.

And as the era enters its next act, one can expect the satire to grow even more surreal, more layered, more baroque. Not because comedians are becoming more extreme. No. Because reality keeps handing them scripts. They read like first drafts from a writer’s room that has lost its grip on linear time and is now operating entirely on instinct, caffeine, and the faint hope that the universe is still taking notes and or making sense of itself.

Has the apocalypse arrived, but rather than catastrophic floods, fires and cannibal zombies, it is the death of the reality we have been used to since 1949?