Weekend Tune: Bah Humbug

The quality of this 30-year-old video leaves something to be desired – looks like someone uploaded the contents of a worn-out VHS tape to YouTube – but the Kinks’ “Father Christmas” remains a classic holiday tune.

Or anti-holiday tune, telling the tale – as it does – of a gang of kids mugging Santa Claus for his cash.

“We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over. Give all the toys to the little rich boys.”

Creepy chorus?

Well… not half as much as “He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake…”

The PM meets (and greets) the Press

For a Prime Minister with a reputation for disliking – and avoiding – the Ottawa press gallery, Stephen Harper has spent a good chunk of time this past week with its members.

He’s done a whole whack o’ traditional year-end interviews with journalists, answering questions about Afghanistan, the economy, isotopes, etc.

He told a number of interviewers he’s not sure if a public inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair will go forward in the New Year. It all depends on the recommendation of independent advisor David Johnston

Despite his chilly relationship with the press corps, Harper has made a couple of … sociable… gestures toward Ottawa hacks that were never made by his Liberal predecessors.

Almost every June, the Prime Minister – whoever he happens to be – throws a garden party outside his home at 24 Sussex Drive for Parliament Hill journos. Maybe because he’s the first Prime Minister in a couple of decades with young children, Harper was the first resident of 24 Sussex in recent memory to also invite journalists’ families to this event.

He’s also taken the rare step of inviting Press Gallery members as a group inside the residence for a Christmas reception. He did this for the first time last year. When he was told it was the first time many journalists had seen the interior of 24 Sussex Drive, he said:

“If I knew you guys were never invited inside before, I never would have invited you myself.”

But… he was just kidding, it seems. Earlier this week, the Prime Minister welcomed journalists for his second annual Christmas reception, held in the two large rooms on the main floor of the official residence (Mounties guarded the stairs leading up to the Harper family’s living quarters).

In a more casual chat than those that would follow later in the week, Harper talked with a gaggle of press gallery types about the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. He said all you had to do was look at Schreiber to know he was a “bad guy”.

He had nicer things to say about Mulroney, telling a story about the event during the last election campaign when Harper made his now-famous promise to cut the GST by two percentage points to five per cent.

After the event, Harper got back on his campaign bus, sitting next to Senator Marjorie LeBreton, one of Mulroney’s closest confidants. Sure enough, her cellphone rang and it was Mulroney asking to speak to Harper.

“I just want you to know,” the former PM with the slick baritone told the future PM (who does a mean impression of that baritone), “not only did I introduce the GST back when I was in power, but I also made sure to introduce it at seven per cent just so you could promise to cut it many years later.”

An amusing anecdote from the Prime Minister about a guy who isn’t giving him a lot to laugh about these days.

Paul Martin speaks: “goons” is “nuts”

When Jean Chrétien released his memoirs several months back, it was chock full o’ less-than-kind words about his successor, Paul Martin. Most notably, Chrétien described Martin’s supporters as “a gang of self-serving goons”.

It was – as I’ve previously noted – one of the more engaging episodes of this season’s “Battle of the Network Prime Ministers”.

When the memoir was released, Martin declined to comment on Chrétien’s poison-pen attacks.

A few days ago, I produced an interview between Steve Paikin and Paul Martin, in which the former Prime Minister discussed a wide range of topics, from his continuing commitment to First Nations issues to international trade to some very interesting thoughts on post-Prime-Ministerial life.

But he also spoke publicly for the first time about Chrétien’s published critiques. His first words: “That’s just nuts.”

The full interview will air early in the new year, but you can see what Martin had to say about Chrétien in an interview excerpt published on our show’s blog. Click here.

Weekend Tune: Houses of the Hosers

The Holy Trinity of hoser culture would be… what, exactly?

Probably:

 

Rock ’em Sock ’em hockey…

 

…double-doubles…

 

… and two-fours.

 

Are you still with me, hosers? The rest of you may need to look those up.

The High Priest of hoser culture?

Easy…

Mr. Rock ’em Sock ’em himself… Don Cherry

And all the liturgical music in the Hoser House of Worship would certainly be performed by these guys:

 

If you’re a practicing hoser, you are required to worship the Tragically Hip. If you’re a hoser from Kingston, Ontario, you are required – at the very least – to know someone who went to school with someone in the Tragically Hip.

If you’re an American, you are required to have never heard of the Tragically Hip.

I grew up in Montreal, so – unlike my pals who were raised on the hard rock of the Canadian Shield – I will never be able to fully, truly embrace hoser culture. But here’s a token offering… a oldie by the Hip that I’ve always liked:

Approaching the band as a non-believer… from a more distant, anthropological point of view… one is invariably confronted with this important question:

Where did the Tragically Hip’s name come from?

In a recent exchange with me in his blog comments section, this Fifth Columnist claimed the band got its name from a short sketch in 1981’s “Elephant Parts“, former Monkee Mike Nesmith’s pioneering long-form music video. Here’s the sketch:

I maintained the Tragically Hip got their name from “Town Cryer” (short excerpt here), the closing track off Elvis Costello’s brilliant 1982 album, Imperial Bedroom. The song’s lyrics include the line:

Other boys use the splendour of their trembling lip
They’re so teddy bear tender and tragically hip

Yeah, I don’t understand it either, but it does have the phrase “tragically hip”.

So, who is correct, hoseheads? Me? Or Mr. Fifth Column?

According to Wikipedia, he’s right and I’m wrong. The name comes from the Nesmith video. Of course, Wikipedia can be edited, you know…

And until I get around to doing just that…

…take off, eh?

Programming Note: Konfused about Karlheinz?

There is, of course, one big saga gripping Ottawa these days: The ongoing testimony at the House of Commons Ethics Committee, starring Karlheinz Schreiber and soon to feature the 18th Prime Minister of Canada on the witness stand.

If you are trying to follow all the ups and downs of this byzantine tale, and are in need of either a handy primer on the backstory or some trenchant analysis of its meaning, you could do worse than have a look at or listen to a television program I produced on the matter this week.

It is available as an audio or video podcast here. Download it or watch it online and you may be as savvy as Fifth Estate producer Harvey Cashore, who has covered and uncovered this story longer and better than almost every other journalist in the country. He is on the show, along with three other savvy guests.

More info here.