I’ve decided to get a few things off my mind/chest in this posting. And don’t worry. I’ve not gone too far of the deep end. I’ll try not to be too polarizing. “Try” is the important word in that last sentence. Going through life harbouring things that piss one off can be debilitating and give rise to a cynicism that’s hard to control at times. Divesting oneself of such feelings (in other words, ranting) can also be very hard to control but feels mighty good once you’ve done it.

So, just to warn you, there are some rants ahead but nothing too serious … or, at least, nothing to get too bent out of shape about. Let me be your guide for a few minutes and I’ll expose all that crappy stuff you’ve been secretly thinking about for a long time. ‘Kay?

Number Six: BABY DIVAS

Jesus!  WHEN did this start? I guess it was with the talent shows. A seven-year-old girl comes on and sings “O Mio Babbino Caro” in an “operatic” voice and everyone goes nuts. In fact, a couple of them even became “stars” (for a while) doing it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for kids singing, but what we’re dealing with here is nothing more than mimicry, aping sounds heard on a recording. Ask a two-year-old what a cow “says”. “Moo”, comes the answer. It’s not the real sound, but an imitation of a cow and gets applause and laughter from Friends and Family. It’s an early form of acceptance and approval for a) understanding the question and b) giving the “right” answer. Let’s get down to brass tacks here. As Glen Winters put it, “opera is to singing as neurosurgery is to medicine”. There’s a Mama Rose standing in the wings watching little Gloria impress folks with her “wonderful sound”! Have them try “Casta Diva” or “Sempre Libera” if you want to test a kid. Sorry, it doesn’t work. But what gets me more than anything else are the faces of the “judges” registering awe and disbelief as this “sound” comes out of the kid’s mouth and the rushing to gush about what a great voice she has. This admiration and flattery just validates a parent’s encouragement and propels the child into a downward spiral in the real musical world and, worse, only serves to confirm how musically ignorant the people sitting behind the table are. (Strangely, why don’t we see young boys doing the same thing? Simply put … they can’t!). Put the kid into a school choir or into some basic voice lessons and let them develop normally. I’ve found myself in trouble at some Kiwanis Musical Festivals for saying all of the above to music teachers and competitors (God, I hate that word when it comes to young singers) and have even been forced by the Festival Committee on one occasion to apologize to the audience for my comments. But I stand by my view. “Don’t put your daughter on (that) stage, Mrs. Worthington”!

Number Five: SO HELP ME GOSH!

It would seem that the Christian Right continues to subtly dictate the content on some television stations. Well, actually, that’s nothing new. Ricky and Lucy never did sleep in the same bed. The requirements for registering disbelief (think renovation shows or antique appraisal shows) must not include the “name of the deity”, so the exclamation of surprise must now be “Oh my gosh!” OH! MY! GOD! There! Get over it! It seems the. Smith Family sitting in their plaid recliners in middle-somewhere doesn’t hear or utter that phrase themselves daily in real life! The word “gosh” has its origin in the 18th century and was used as a euphemism for “God” because, of course, at that point in time, the Church was in everyone’s nooks and crannies. Is that really still the case? I understand some folk’s aversion to “taking the deity’s name in vain”, so would “Holy Shit” be better? The spontaneous language we use to express the range of our emotions is being gagged by a return to the two-bed-syndrome. We are dictated to by corporations fearful of offense and its affect on their bottom line! There is nothing wrong with maintaining a sense of decorum and civility in our discourse (to wit: the American Election!) but to pretend that saying “Oh My God!” as an emotional response to something is going to signal the decline of civilization (that’s already happened) is disingenuous at least and hypocritical at best. Gosh help us all!

Number Four: APATHY, PEOPLE!

You’ve seen them on Facebook. Those arithmetic memes with a snowflake, a candy cane and Santa Claus adding up to “30” with a caption proclaiming that “98% of you will get this wrong”. An eight year old could figure it out!! Good Dog! (See what I did there?) And then there are the requests to name a fish that doesn’t have an “a” in it. Only one is sixty thousand can figure out a right answer to that one! I think there’s a Grade Three teacher sitting in a cubbyhole somewhere coming up with these ridiculous “challenges”. And the baffling thing is that thousands of people respond in the “comments” section!! I wonder how many have to use a calculator to figure out the “math” question! There was a time when there were no calculators and problems had to be figured out with paper and pencil. Anybody remember those days? The dumbing-down of our society is just plain sad. When the lowest common denominator is our highest standard, what does that bode for the future? A rationale that gives us permission to quit is very easy to come up with and grants us a justification for not questioning or challenging our own motives (and anyone else’s, for that matter). It’s called “apathy”. So, here’s a real question: If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take two chickens to lay 32 eggs? Don’t even want to try, huh? Come on. Work it! Use your brain! How much mental energy do you actually have to exert before giving up? The answer is 28 days. But then, really, who cares? And that’s where we are!

Number Three: REALLY?

I was doing a television interview for a show I was directing. The videographer wanted some footage to insert during a voice-over in the interview and asked me to come outside and he’d film me walking down the street toward the theatre. I said “No. Can we come up with something more original? Everyone does that and it looks phony and staged”. The camera guy was confused, but they ended up using some footage from the rehearsal. Have you ever noticed that? Watch. When someone is being interviewed, invariable, you see them walking down a street toward their place of work trying their best to look natural and normal while the announcer is saying something over the “visual”. We buy into things so easily (as per the above). While directing a production of “The Sound of Music” I was being interviewed by a nice young lady with a notebook and pen. “Okay, Richard, tell us what the play is about?” She put her head down to write. Silence. She looked up. I tilted my head and said “Seriously??” She looked baffled. (The wonks always look baffled and confused when you don’t follow their script.) Perhaps it was rather pompous of me but I said “Are you really asking me that question?”  We get cowed by the Media, especially television. We unquestioningly accept what is presented to us, both as consumers and suppliers. (And how relevant has that become of late!) Have you ever noticed, in answer to an interview question, a person will respond with another question, a vocal lift at the end of a sentence, as in “So why are you here today?” (yet another inane interviewer question with a backdrop of the hundreds of people walking around carrying signs declaring “Save Our Forests”). “I’ve come to protest the destruction our forests?” as if some kind of validation is required of the interviewer. People don’t talk to each other like that in real life, do they? Why does a camera or a microphone alter our reality to the point that we are no longer ourselves, where we are manipulated by our own perception of what others want to hear or see? Alternate Facts? Fake news? (Those phrases have only come into common use in the past MONTH!!) I guess one gets to a point in life when you can say “Fuck it, I’m not going to buy into that fabricated reality, neither as a spectator nor a participant”. I’m at that point!

Number Two: WORDS

If you Google “Mariam Margolyes like” you’ll be presented with a video segment from The Graham Norton Show in which the great British character actress schools Will I Am on the use of the word “like”. It’s just the first few minutes of the video clip (the rest is very funny by not pertinent to my thoughts here) and challenges the weird interjection of that word into everyday speech. Our ears like have like become very like conditioned to like hearing  the word “like” in like normal conver-like-sation.  (Say that last sentence out loud!) When, and more to the point, HOW did this happen? I think maybe the advent of the “Surfer Dude/Valley Girl” in late eighties movies had something to do with it, using a vernacular that has been normalized by millennials over time and now actually sounds normal. But that’s really no justification for its persistent use. Just like the word (and I use the term very loosely) “nother”, as in “that’s a whole nother story”. There is no such word!!! It is either “another” or “other”. But I hear broadcasters and commentators using it all the time, people who should know better and who I thought were, like, better educated. I think it’s just laziness. We (they) have simply accepted the wrong word and moved on with no thought given as to what the right word might be. “Nuclear” is now pronounced “nucular”. “February” is now pronounced “Febuary”. And it’s not much better in the written word. “Their”, “there” and “they’re” are interchangeable it seems. I feel so old pointing out these errors to my younger friends, but they don’t seem to care. Being aware is a step toward correction and I persist, perhaps to no immediate avail, but like maybe someday it will like sink in that like one can be like clearer if like one takes the time to like think about what they’re like saying … like.

Number One: POLARIZATION!

Okay. I said I wasn’t going to go there, but I lied. I had this in mind all the time. I knew it was going to end here and I make no apologies! So here goes.

Over the past while, all of us have come to respond to one name that has provoked (to put it very mildly) outrage on one side and praise on the other. It has divided friends and family and split us into walled camps. The shouting and hurled insults have caused incredible personal pain and utter dismay. There are no shades of gray. It is either one side or the other and never shall the twain meet! I’m referring, of course, to Cilantro! It is the most polarizing spice/herb/condiment (whatever you want to call it) in the world. It used to be called Coriander (and in some places still is) or Chinese parsley, but in North America it is now known by its Spanish name, “seel-aahn-troh”. Ugh!!! Cilantro smells and tastes like soap!! At least to me. The name itself makes my skin crawl and I’m not alone. The great Italian American chef, Fabio Viviani, will not have it in his kitchen, grown on his property or be anywhere physically near it. This extreme response is simply due to a gene that many of us carry. That gene is called OR6A2 and lies within a cluster of olfactory-receptor genes involved in sensing smells. (Yeah, I’ve done a bit of research on this and, as a sidebar, did you know there’s a biological enzyme that allows some people to detect a distinctive odor in their, ahem, urine after eating asparagus? I’m one of them.) So it’s all biological and I can’t be held responsible for my aversion. I simply hate it and will send back any plate of food that has cilantro in or on it. That’s why restaurants should include ingredient lists in their menu offerings. Why would I order or should I pay for something that is so distasteful to me but hasn’t been disclosed? But, as the old saying goes, “Chaqu’un a son gout”, right?

Whew! And that’s about it … for now. I’ve run out of steam (and I’m sure you have too). My friend, Chris Sigurdson, once referred to me as “old nippy cheese” and as time goes on, my curmudgeonly-ness only serves to provoke people and satisfy me. And that’s just the way I like it. Till next time … keep up the good work!