fire

a funny thing happened on saturday night that i can't get out of my head. we (i'm finally up on the personnel list) played an xmas party for these folks at the chateau laurier, ooh la la. it went well: energetic crowd (thanks largely to the spectacular open bar), the horn section was smoking, the sound system was great, we sounded good, the dance floor was consistently packed. lots of good energy. so anyways, about the funny thing: when i began to sing "fire", the dance floor cleared. almost instantly. and no one ever trickled back. one might think, ok, it's a medium tempo song, not easy to dance to ... but those temp agency drunkards found a way to shake booty to pretty much every rhythm that night, let me tell you. during that number, however, people just watched and listened. motionless. i felt appreciated and all, but it was a bit weird.

can't help but think of all the times it feels like i'm calling 'fire' to a bunch of attentive but paralyzed gawkers. so-called strategy sessions, work situations, or god help us those dreaded ndp meetings - it so often feels like the dance floor empties out and i'm left staring into an assembly of stillness. you hear me, dontcha you fuckers? we need a vision! we need a plan! there's a FIRE raging here people. let's do something cohesive and strategic for chrissakes!

speaking of which, it would seem that we may have to literally set ourselves ablaze in order to garner any media attention whatsoever for women's issues. shocker, i know. spent many a sleepless night in 2004 when working with these gals trying to come up with ways to get someone to say anything about something. late last week, i was asked to do some consulting with fafia on strategy for their electoral campaign, advising them on media and political tactics. one of them had been spooked when she innocently contacted a senior journalist at a major daily and was told rather sharply "we can't cover what we're not covering." i think this might be one of the best lines of my life, however confusing for a non-media type. anyways, we're going to see how far we can push the non-partisan envelope to somehow penetrate the discourse by way of a party leader. i'm suggesting we shouldn't care which one. i'm suggesting aggression. i'm suggesting we play the games of the big boys instead of downgrading women's issues yet again to the level of corny getups and cheap stunts. it just sickens me when feminists have to degrade ourselves, begging for any shred of attention for credible issues.