June 16: The Convention

Memo to: Brad Lavigne

Re: The Convention
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Brad, I am a bit disturbed by that girl Brigitte’s proposed keynote address to the Convention. She sent in a draft and it’s just not up to spec. Here’s her first paragraph:

We have to stop Harper. Like, he’s so much a dictator. I mean, like we need an Arab Spring in Canada. We have to stand up, like really tell him he didn’t get our vote. C’mon Canada, tell Harper he’s so last year. Like don’t even friend him in Facebook. Hash-tag-fail in the extreme!

Not bad, but can someone perhaps clean up her grammar? Let’s sharpen it up - maybe Pat can add some invective. At least she has the big picture. I’m really happy she is using my hash-tag-fail line!

Did you call Suzuki and cancel his keynote? He wants to know where to park his 3 buses, and whether they can plug into the power at the Convention Centre. He’s also asking about his dressing room and whether we brought in 20 cases of his favourite beer from Saltspring Island. He says this is all in the rider that he faxed over this morning. For fuck ‘s sake, it’s 20 pages! He even wants doves to fly from the podium as he ends his speech! Brigitte takes precedence so find out what David wants to keep him happy. We’ve already bought 4,000 of his books, do we now have buy his DVDs?

Libby had her usual tantrum this morning. She says the Canadian Boat to Gaza People have built a scale model they want to roll onto the stage and then put on a small play. She wants me to play the captain of the boat. When I told her I was way too busy, she just went beserk. I mean she was crying that I don’t love her and that I don’t care about Gaza. I had to agree to get Olivia to play the captain which I guess is also good for gender equity. So, can you call Olivia and tell her the fitting for her costume will be tomorrow at CUPW headquarters downtown? Tell her she even gets a sword.

And, that reminds me. Is everything set for Olivia’s big entrance to the Convention? She says we have to pick the right sort of music for her – something regal yet common. And, are the applause signs working? Please check them out -- Olivia will go nuts if people don’t go nuts when she arrives. How do we get everybody to stand? Print signs? Cattle prods? Do we need a rehearsal? Let’s not fuck this up – because if we do, I’m the one who will suffer.

I’ve been getting complaints from the new Quebec MPs about our plans for food at the Convention. It seems that some of them are NOT vegans. I thought we screened these people. They’ve actually circulated a list of the McDonald’s locations near the Convention Centre. Tell Mulcair that if I see just one McDonald’s bag or wrapper at the Convention, I’ll have his fucking MPs spend a week with Libby de-toxing. And, no fries either.

Hans Modlich of the socialist caucus is driving me bonkers. Have you seen their resolutions? Sheesh, they even want proportional representation within the NDP! They also want our policies binding on elected officials, and they want the party to fund local riding associations. Those guys go too far sometimes. I mean building bridges with Cuba and supporting Venezuela are fine, but trying to change the party? C’mon. If only the Canadian Boat to Gaza had left yesterday, we wouldn’t have to put up with this crap.

Jack