February 17, 2000
Throw a bed pan and get attention - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - It’s that time again. A month ago I did a piece that was chock full of answers to questions posed by you, the dear readers of Mr. Planta’s hobby. Well, I’m trying to think of stuff to write about, so I said what the hell, why screw up a good thing?
Someone wrote in asking about the Charlize Theron piece’s I wrote in January. I’d call her Charlize if I knew her, is starring in Frankenheimer’s latest movie, Raindeer Games. That movie, stars Ben (damn him) Affleck, who’s making too many magazine covers this week, and it was actually shot in this fair town last spring. The exact comment lobbed my way was that I had a sick mind. Well, it’s called humour. Poking fun and making a couple of jokes at the expense of the fair Farsi speaking people. Take a pill, doll.
The other comment that was being sent my way was about the contest I had running on The Commentary two weeks ago. While I was at The Georgia Straight a person in sales admiring my hard work, gave me a pass to this new alien movie, Pitch Black. The film doesn’t interest me so I decided to give it away. I decided to give it away in the old way of giving people stuff so I ran the contest the way Frosty does it on CKNW. The third person to e-mail me with regards to the contest won. Olivia Cube got the passes last week and I’m trying to think of another contest to run.
A month ago, a reader asked if I was going to do a column about the on-going health crisis in our nation. I never got around to writing a tome on that subject, but now that I think of it, it deserves some sort of comment. I think things like these, HRDC, the bulk sign-ups in the NDP and the hockey bail-outs are simply being concocted by legitimately concerned citizens. But those concerns are simply being exploited by the media. It seems that very lately the media is over stepping in their welcome’s by being a huge nuisance to governance in all jurisdictions across this country. Sometimes the media can involve themselves positively, but with this health-care thing they’re simply blowing stuff out of proportion.
I was sent to emergency about four and a half months ago, for a bad headache, which I subsequently found out was a migraine attack (a really bad one), and was treated splendidly and quite promptly at VGH. Sure throwing a bed pan helped, but still they were quite receptive.
The Oscar nods came out last Tuesday and I got up at 5:30 to watch the damned things get announced on television. Somebody at school asked me why I would wake up? and how the heck I managed to get up that hour myself. That’s right, myself. I went to bed, a couple moments past midnight and magically (I swear) opened my eyes to 5:30 as the time my alarm clock was showing. I actually got up at 5:31, so I missed the pre-announcement glitter on CNN. The actual announcements were revealed at 5:38, so I didn’t miss the thing after all.
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