Posted on 05/01/2004 8:54:18 AM PDT by Clive
The end of Don Cherry on the CBC -- if the sources who spoke to my colleague Gayle MacDonald this week are correct and this is, indeed, the end -- fills me with sorrow.
I would miss pretty much everything about Mr. Cherry.
I would miss his trademark liberties with the English language; his easy-to-mock delivery (my nephew does a spectacular imitation that consists of much unintelligible staccato barking, the only understandable bit being a "Good Kingston boys!" exclamation); his occasionally ghastly but always admirably confident fashion sense and, in particular, his ability to wear a hat with élan; his cursory nod to modernity (the little goatee); the frequent glimpses of his big sappy heart (invariably involving shout-outs to sick or dying children); his fierce loyalties and equally ferocious biases; his stern lectures to young hockey players (always beginning with, "You kids out there") and the delighted snorts when he likes one of sidekick Ron MacLean's puns.
So my sadness, were the worst to happen and Mr. Cherry's contract not be renewed when it expires at the end of the season, is of course bound up with the prospect of losing the man himself.
But there's more to it, too.
I can't help but see the prospect of Mr. Cherry's demise at the public broadcaster as just another nail in the Canadian coffin. Increasingly, we are becoming an oversensitive and sissified bunch who are reluctant to speak plainly ourselves and are even aghast at the sound of anyone else doing it in our presence.
The evidence is everywhere -- the nature of the complaints launched about commentary that is in the public domain (at such bodies as the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council and the Ontario Press Council, where I myself am the subject of a beef -- the allegation being that because I recently criticized official Ottawa's big-M version of multiculturalism, I'm a racist); the rising number of civil suits alleging various cruel victimizations; the plethora of admonitions in various forms against, but not limited to, such egregious behaviour as drinking, drinking and driving, drinking while pregnant, smoking and schoolyard bullying, and the generally preachy nature of so much of the civil discourse.
A fine illustration of the sort of spirit I mean was a recent press release that came across my desk from the York Regional Police, a force north of Toronto.
It was titled, What Were They Thinking?, and proceeded to describe the conduct of two men who had "displayed a blatant lack of good judgment directly in front of officers" (No! Not that!).
One was a fellow who caused a collision while leaving a parking lot and who admitted he had been drinking, the other a man who had cleverly entered a police-station parking lot to drunkenly practise three-point turns.
Both were arrested and charged with driving over the legal limit, which, I would have thought, was what should have happened and was quite sufficient. But no, in the Canada of 2004, one must also hector, and so the press release with its smarmy question, the answer to which is, of course: "They weren't thinking, officer. They were drunk. So shoot them."
Drinking and driving is the crime of the moment. A little while ago, it was stalking, or criminal harassment. Before that, it was battered women. Funny how it's never, you know, just regular murder. You can kill without fear of denunciation, just don't do it because you've had a few pops and don't, for heaven's sake, show a lack of good judgment.
I bemoan the loss of characters and character both, and I think they are linked. The fewer rascals and curmudgeons about, the less tolerance for the few there are, and the higher and prissier the bar becomes, the more effete and precious the national temperament. It is all a far cry from the reputation Canadians richly deserved and enjoyed (and I do mean enjoyed) during the Second World War, when our lot was deemed a little too rough and ready.
It was like that even when I started out in newspapers, as a journalism school student about 30 years ago. I was just out of my teens, and despite my general stupidity and inability to write headlines, somehow lucked into a part-time copy editing job here at The Globe and Mail on what was then called the universal rim -- it meant that all the copy, whatever its destination in the paper, went through this central edit desk.
Once over my nerves, I realized I had struck gold.
I was surrounded by a collection of fabulous, over-the-top lunatics -- most of whom, sadly, are no longer around.
One was the legendary Martin Lynch, a tall drink of brilliance who darted about the place like a hummingbird on steroids; another was Ron Glover, who shortly after I started, confided that he called his manhood "Argus," and was listed in the phone book as Argus Glover so his many female admirers could easily distinguish him from other, lesser Glovers; another was Mac Keilor, a gentle, funny sweetie pie I liked so much I used to drive him home to Hamilton when he'd had a few too many.
We'd go out for a beer between editions, occasionally to the little strip joint that was then behind The Globe, where a peeler might pop a quarter in the juke box, clamber onto a chair and yawningly disrobe. No one ever suggested there was anything wrong with any of it, nor was there.
The most notorious headline my friends on the universal rim ever showed me was one written during the historic visit in 1972 of U.S. president Richard Nixon to China. Due to my failure to sufficiently grill my elders, I was never able to ascertain if it was a product of mischief or accident, and I can't, now, even remember where it appeared, or if it ever actually was published, or was caught in time. But I sure remember what it said: "Nixon Finds Chink in Mao's Armour."
Then, it was cause for a few sly chuckles. Now, it would unleash howls of outrage, injured feelings, complaints and rounds of national hand-wringing. I'm damned if I can consider that, or the demise of Don Cherry, one of the last Canadian characters, as progress.
;^)
Last night, Don's red velvet double-breasted jacket was blinding!
What a character.
It's a mistake if CBC boots him out.
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