Ends and Odds; The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Seven Part One.My Religious Odyssey.

       My Religious Odyssey. Part One.




       A few weeks ago one man asked me in a place of worship what my religious background was. When I explained it to him, he said, "You're still in transition." I agreed and told him that I still hadn't reached my final destination "either in my life or in religion." In my life I've moved from one religion to another to yet a third. And there's still another worship place I'm attracted to.
    Now as the American sociologist  Randall Collins points out either you believe in religion or you don't. "In one case," he says talking about religion, "it's a Supreme Reality that transcends everything sociology is concerned with. Or it's an irrational superstition about things that don't exist."
    Most social thinkers seem to support the second view:Religious belief is plainly irrational. I belong to the first camp. I believe in god and I'm not alone. In Canada close to one in five people still worship somewhere every week. So when Canada's latest governor general Julie Payette put down religious believers she faced a lot of flack.
     In any case back to my beginnings. I was born into a Jewish household in the early 1940's in war torn England. My father Monty Jaffe was a short intense believer in orthodox Judaism. He believed every word of the Old testament and kept most of the religious and dietary laws of Judaism. He went to synagogue every Saturday and often pressured his three growing children to go there also. He found solace in Judaism even though this religion had already scarred his life. When he was 11 and when he was 12, his father a stern Victorian-style of patriarch refused both times to let my dad write important exams on a Saturday. He applied the same rule to my father's younger brother Ted.
    "I never write a word on Shabbas," he told both his sons. "And you won't either." So both his sons who were quite clever didn't write exams that could have taken them further up the English educational ladder. As a result both boys left school at the age of 13. My grandfather's Judaism hurt both his sons.
    Growing up in my dad's households in Montreal was full of weird rules and restrictions. In my teens, I broke them all. I ate pork which was a supposed unclean or "unkosher" meat. The pork came in Chinese food which I adored. I rode on buses and smoked cigarettes on Saturday or what on Hebrew is called "Shabbas". My father thought this was breaking God's rules. I read books by the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell and told my dad that the Jewish religion was derived from other religions.
    My father would plunge into towering rages when I'd argue over religion with him. At the age of 18 or 19 I gave up clashing with him- at least  on religious issues . "Your father's crazy on religion," a friend of mine said at the time. Or did he say, "Your father's crazy"? Maybe he said both.

Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe: Chapter Five, part two.

Statistics and Politics: Or Why I Left the N.D.P. by Dave Jaffe. Part Two.




     I spent about 25 years in the New Democratic Party of British Columbia. I was just one of tens of thousands of anonymous envelope stuffers, envelope licker and telephone canvassers. (The first two tasks are now done by machines.) In the 1990's I finally realized how the percentages I've mentioned remain fixed  for long periods of time. So no matter how hard I and other low ranked canvassers worked or toiled for the N.D.P., the N.D.P. would rarely win an election. Still ,the B.C. N.D.P. did win some elections in 1972 and afterwards. Of course they won no federal elections.
   In fact in t he early 1990's the really right wing Reform Party came on the scene and decimated the federal N.D.P. and the Conservative party. So Canadian politics did change as did the voting percentages for the various political parties. Yet for me this was a bad change since the rise of the Reform Party just swung Canadian politics even further to the right.
     "This politics is so boring,"  a woman said who went to an N.D.P. convention in the mid-1970's. About 20 years later I came around to her way of thinking and left the N.D.P. By this time the various voting percentages had become fixed in my mind. Also I was now in mid-fifties and realized that I had left in my life only 25 years or so. I didn't want to spend the last third of my life worrying  about or working in the political scene. Lastly, with greater self-understanding I also grasped that I had caused many problems in my journey through the N.D.P. I talked too much, asked too many questions and panicked on key occasions.
    "It's time to leave the political scene," I told myself in about 1995. Six months or so later I had left not only the N.D.P. but also the anti-poverty work I had been in and my involvement in the housing co-op I live in. "You left the N.D.P.," one N.D.P.'er commented when he saw me in the street in 1997. "It's not for me anymore," I replied. "I've left politics and it's all good."
    Statistics, advancing age and self understanding pushed me out of  politics. Yet statistics played the biggest role. They gave me the way to understanding Canadian and B.C. politics. I shall always be grateful to them.
    


     

Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Six. Part One

    Statistics and Politics by Dave Jaffe. Part One




    "There's lies, damn lies and statistics," I heard one person say a few years ago. Maybe this is true but statistics or more accurately percentages unlocked the key for me to Canadian politics. They also pushed me out of any involvement in politics. In the long run this too was a good thing.
     In Canadian federal elections the centrist Liberal party usually wins a little over 40 per cent of the total vote. The right wing Conservative party comes in second with about 35 per cent of the total vote. And somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent of the voters cast their ballots for the left leaning New Democratic Party or "the N.D.P.' as it's referred to. Then there's the Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois who pick up the rest of the vote. To-day these two parties are distinctly minor parties. Elizabeth May, for instance is the sole elected Green Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The Bloc Quebecois which once formed the official opposition now only wins a handful of seats.
      So with a first past the vote system of voting, the Liberals usually win a majority of seats in the House of Commons and forms the federal government. The Conservatives most of the time sit in the parliament as the official opposition. Once in a while they beat the Liberals and form the government. Then the N.D.P. win 25 seats or less of the 338 seats in the House of Commons. They're usually squeezed into a corner of the House.
     In British Columbian politics there's also an underlying pattern to voting that rarely changes. The N.D.P. in B.C. usually gets 40 per cent of the vote in a provincial election. Yet they rarely win more than this two-fifths of the vote. Three out of five voters will never put an X or a tick besides an N.D.P. candidate. "I'm a free enterpriser," says Frank a big chunky 50's something bus driver. "I'm against socialism and won't ever vote for the N.D.P."
     Frank's not alone. 60 percent of the voters agree with him. So since about 1933 most voters on the right vote for a right wing party. At one time between 1933 and 1940 that party was the Liberals.  From 1940 to 1952 a Liberal-Conservative government ruled the roost. After it collapsed, the Social Credit party became to  the choice of most conservative voters. Now these voters once again prefer the Liberals.
   Every forty years or so, the conservative voters switch to a new or old right wing party. A  new
or old time political party comes along and takes votes from the incumbent conservatives. Once again the N.D.P. stay in opposition as the conservative group wins one election after another. "Forget the hoopla," one N.D.P. organizer once pointed out to me " and just study the percentages. That' all that counts.." Once I did this, I realized what federal and provincial politics were all about. Yet once I did this I also realized how little I could change B.C. or Canadian politics and swing them to the left.

Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Elvis the Pelvis - Part Four.

    Elvis the Pelvis - Part Four: The Fall of Elvis by Dave Jaffe




        In the late 1960's, Elvis Presley emerge from hibernation. He went on a publicized tour of the United States. He packed in the crowds, proving that he was still popular. His song 'Suspicious Minds' rose to near the top of the charts. Yet though Elvis was still a legend, he was a sick one. He was still taking many drugs and may have descended into paranoia. He turned out one more hit, namely 'Kentucky Rain' written by a New Jersey native, namely Eddie Rabbit.
     Then suddenly he died on August 16, 1977. He was only in his early 40's. It seemed that he may have died from a drug overdose. He surely was taking many drugs though most of them were legal ones. In any case thousands of Americans took to the streets to mourn this legend.
     "Elvis is dead," one Vancouver, B.C. woman said at the time when she heard the news. Then she burst into tears. "How could he die?"she said. Others asked the same question. Here was a man who seemed to have it all: Good looks, massive fame and hordes of cash. Now he was gone. Elvis Presley had touched the lives of tens of millions of people around the world. Yet his great fame and privileged position could not shield him from a short life. He died a relatively young man who was totally addicted to so many drugs.
     Like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe before him, fame did not make him immune to an early death.
   

Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Five, part three. Elvis the Pelvis. Part Three

   Elvis the Pelvis. Part Three.




    In 1958 Elvis Presley joined the U.S. Army. In those days of the Cold War the U.S. draft was in full swing. Millions of young American males joined the armed forces without a protest. Only some male members of a few religious groups were exempt from the draft. All others had to go.
    Presley willingly joined the army. He served two years mostly in West Germany where he was promoted to sergeant. He came home in 1960 and a huge t.v. pageant was put on to welcome him back. Yet the decade of the 1960's proved to be very different from that of the previous decade. Soon the U.S. was embroiled in an unwinnable war in Indochina. African Americans took to the streets to win equal rights. New groups from Great Britain like the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones poured out new music. Then Bob Dylan sang songs that were very challenging to conventional tastes. The new music was way different than Elvis's.
    As musical tastes changed, so did Elvis. His mother died and that hurt him. He appeared in very forgettable films like 'Blue Hawaii' and sang songs that were saccharine sweet. Presley now lived in a huge home in Memphis called Graceland. Here, Presley partied, did legal and maybe illegal drugs and probably had many women. His fame was still legendary yet he had changed. The Beatles found him somewhat strange when they visited him in the mid-1960's.
    In May 1967 he married Priscilla Ann Wagner whom he'd met in Germany. Yet Presley married or single wasn't well. The couple were divorced in 1973. They had a daughter named Lisa Marie who later married another famous and disturbed rock star namely Michael Jackson. In the late 1960's, a cultural revolution was in full swing across the western world. Presley loathed the cultural revolutionaries and the Black Power advocates who praised armed struggle. "Kill your parents," Yippie leader Jerry Rubin told the young people of America. Nor did Elvis have any time for those who burned their draft cards.
    "Hell no" young people chanted outside draft office and while taking part in anti-Vietnam war marches. "We won't go (to Vietnam)." Tens of thousands of young men fled to Canada to avoid the draft. Others went to prison. All  of this appalled Elvis. "Elvis Presley gave money to George Wallace," yippie journalist Paul Krasner said in effect in 1968. Still, Krasner couldn't prove this. Wallace was a pro-segregationist anti-protestor governor of Alabama. He ran third in the 1968 U.S. presidential election with 16 per cent of the vote.
     Republican candidate Richard Nixon won the election just squeaking past Democrat Hubert Humphrey. Presley may not only have supported George Wallace. In the early 1970's he visited president Nixon in the White House carrying to Nixon  an anti-drug message. Nixon welcomed the king of rock'n roll for he was under attack from the left. Nixon praised Presley who by this time may have been addicted to a number of drugs. In any case, the support of Presley didn't hurt Nixon's political fortunes.
     
    

Ends and Odds: The Ravings of An Old Man By Dave Jaffe Elvis the Pelvis; Chapter Five. Part Two

    Elvis the Pelvis. Part Two.




      No one in the U.S. of A. needed to worry about Elvis Presley's politics. He was as clean as they come. he loved America, didn't do drugs, at first anyway, was polite to nearly everybody and posed no danger at all. He even paved the way for African American singers to appear. Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Fats Domino started to make real money after Elvis became famous. They were just as wild on stage as Elvis was.
    White imitators soon popped up in England like Cliff Richards and Johnny Halliday became a famous French rock'n roller. Yet neither of these two or more watered down American imitators like Fabian or Ricky Nelson could match Elvis's raw sex appeal. The British group of Bill Hailey and his Comets made an impact but still weren't in Presley's league.
   Millions of young men now grew their hair long, just like Elvis and combed it backwards into what was called 'a duck's tail', exactly like Elvis did. Others set up quartets to copy or sing Presley type songs. Rock and roll now started to sweep the world, outside that is of communist countries where the youth longed to hear it but couldn't.
     What Elvis Aaron Presley did was in some ways incredible.He had helped create a new music and a new industry based on rock music. Neither he nor his very clever manager had asked for government subsidies like the energy industry or some NGO's do to-day. Presley just sang music, like rock'n roll but also gospel music, Christian hymns, country music and even operatic arias. His music helped push the recording industry to new heights.
   Of course Presley couldn't have done this alone. The aforementioned record industry was part of the 1950's infrastructure that helped him. Also out there in 1950's America was radio, television. the phonograph, newspapers and magazines. Nearly all these parts of the mass media were thriving. Without these building blocks, Presley's career would never have taken off as it did. With  their help, Presley became a super star who sent rock'n roll all over the non-communist world.
    "He was a genius," one Vancouver musician said about Presley many years later. "He was 'The King' who sold over 20 million records." In fact Presley may have sold over a billion records. Even to-day fifty years after his death, Presley remains an American icon and deservedly so.

Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man. Chapter Five Part One.. Elvis the Pelvis.

   Elvis the Pelvis - Part One.


  Before the Beatles, before Dylan, before the Boss, namely Bruce Springsteen, before the Clash, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Smoky Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé or Adele, there was Elvis Aaron Presley. He created rock music, or rock'n roll, as it was first called. "If I could find a white man who had a Negro sound," said the Memphis-based record producer Sam Phillips in the early 1950"s, "and this man had a Negro feel, I could make a million dollars."
    Lo and behold in August 1953 a tall 19 year old man showed up in Phillips's small recording studio in Memphis. His name was Elvis Aaron Presley and he revolutionized popular music.  First off, he recorded a song in the studio and it went nowhere. Then in January 1954 he cut another record in Phillips's studio and it too turned nobody on. Yet then times changed. Presley came back in July 1954. He sang a few nondescript songs. Yet then near night time he sang a song first recorded by a black or African American singer called Arthur Crudup. It was called 'That's All Right'.
    Phillips suddenly realized that this young man was the person he'd been looking for. He recorded Elvis singing Crudup's song.  On the record's other side - the 'B' side as it was then called-  he put Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky'. In both of these songs Elvis Presley fused  together rhythm and blues which was an African American music with country and western music, which was a white person's music. Presley had invented a new music. At first it was called rock'n roll. He was only 19 years old.
     Phillips soon sold his right to Presley's music to a slick agent called Tom Parker for $35,000. Parker also became Elvis's manager. Parker turned Presley into a super star. In 1956 Presley appeared on three top t.v..shows, including the Ed Sullivan show. Presley's songs now soared to the top of the music charts. 'Heartbreak Hotel', 'Don't Be Cruel', 'Hound Dog' and other of his songs added up to one half of all the records that the giant record company RCA sold in 1956.
    Yet Presley wasn't only selling music. He was also selling sexual excitement. His gyrations and twists onstage, threw young girls into ecstasy and heart throbs. They screamed, cried and yelled as Presley performed.  "I think they were having orgasms," one 20's something male said about Elvis's female fans years later. Ed Sullivan, or some other t.v. emcee stopped t.v. cameras from showing
Elvis below the waist. Soon Elvis was called 'Elvis the Pelvis'.
      The authorities were alarmed. In the mid-1950's, the United States was a totally segregated society. yet here was a white  man, barely out of his teens who sang like a black man and could literally move millions of young people especially young girls. J. Edgar Hoover, the then head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sounded off about the Elvis phenomenon. "Presley," he said, " is a definite danger to the security of the United States." In the mid-1950's, the U.S. and the communist-ruled Soviet Union  were locked in a titanic struggle for control of the world. Hoover and many other figures of the establishment were terrified of communism. Suppose Presley was a communist primed to subvert the U.S. What would happen then?