Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Snowy Jack

The Gassy Jack statue in Gastown in Sunday's snowfall. (Photo taken Sun., Dec. 21, 08.)

Up to 20 cm. of snow is forecast for tomorrow.

Merry Christmas.

4 comments:

Rachel Davis said...

Merry Christmas to you R.S., I want to thank you for all your fine reporting on the DTES and beyond.

I ran into Jay Hamburger the other day at the park whilst dog training. He's a good buddy of Bob Sarti, one of the first to accuse Bill Simpson of being The DTESEnquirer Blogger ("Tattle-tale queen of Carnegie! Tattle-tale queen of Carnegie!"). And, he's the director of "Bruce! The Musical" a play which champions free speech and the rights of DTESer's as well as eulogizing people who are still alive, like Jean Swanson and Libby Davies. He's also a employer of people in the DTES through his Theatre in the Raw, and once joined in on a mass email that started "Well, I don't know much about the situation but....." and proceeded to defend Paul Taylor's lying denunciations of William Simpson in the Carnegie Newsletter.
I was upset about this because Mr. Hamburger is an employer, one of the few, in the DTES, and a eloquent writer, and I thought it behooved him to get his facts straight before he chimed in and tried to sway the myriad of people he was writing to.

I emailed him twice, very civilly, offering to have coffee and set the record straight for him if he was interested in being more accurate in his proclamations, but there was no reply.

So anyway, there he was in the park, and I said,
"Hi Jay, do you still think Bill is the Blogger?"
"Huh?" he cleverly replied
"Do you still think William Simpson is the blogger? I just ask because I've heard you do a very good imitation of him, and I wonder how you could know him well enough to do that, and yet still think he writes the DTESenquirer blog"
"Well he is, isn't he, I mean, he blogs....."
I just shook my head at his reply
"Well.....I find it's best just to not get involved"
he continued as he walked away.

Funny, that was the point of my emails to him exactly, don't get involved and try to influence public opinion if you don't really know the facts!
Thought you might be amused by this account. I should write a little play about it! A comic tragedy, considering William and others are still barred for no reason.

I just got an email from Bill asking if I thought there was any good to be gotten from a "Survivors of Carnegie Abuse" meeting. Yes, I think there is. Especially if it is pro-active. We should work together more.

Again, happy holidays, and again, thank you! You lift the spirits of the oppressed.

Rachel Davis said...

What a coincidence! I just finished writing the last post and went then went to Craigslist. Under the Community, General, section I saw an ad for Memorabilia from "Bruce, the Musical" is now for sale!
"Hi Folks...Good News..Bruce the Musical memorabilia now available!"
Amazing. Can't wait to get mine!

reliable sources said...

Rachel,

Thanks for taking the time to comment over the past year.

This last comment is particularly interesting. Now we know that Jay Hamburger is not a man of integrity. I heard that Jay's mother was a writer and moved here from New York when she fell in love with a fisherman. Maybe she should have taught her son to get both sides of a story. Bad parenting.

Merry Christmas!

Dag said...

Merry Christmas, Rachel, R.S., and all others who've graced these pages over the past year. It's always interesting, and I look forward to more in the coming year.

Wishing all of you the best.