Gord Downer

I am about to topple a contemporary Canadian sacred cow.  It's name is the Tragically Hip, a band whose dark, morose and depressing chords and (the little I know of them) lyrics have never done anything for me but to make me yearn for the sounds of Salsa.  Now that their lead singer, Gord Downie, is on his way out with incurable brain cancer we are suddenly all being force-fed their music whether we want to hear it or not.  I am sorry for what he has to go through, but not sorry enough to want to endure his band's horrible music.

I only decided to blog about this after two things happened on the weekend.  On the CBC it was said "In Gord We Trust."  Later in the Globe and Mail I saw the headline "One Nation Under Gord" and off came the gloves.  I emailed the managing editor of the Globe and said that as a Christian I found that headline very offensive, as I am sure would other Christians as well as Muslims and Jews.  The CBC has also received a few calls from me.  I really don't know if it was the right thing to do since I don't always think clearly when indignation is filling my grey matter.

Of course, it is old hat that rock stars are deified by their dumbass fans and other groupies.  Most people live out their lives as unthinking consumers, people of little imagination.  Of course they are going to lick the snakeskin boots and designer derrieres of rock stars.  We live in a culture that is ethically bankrupt.  It is all about competition, consumption and diversion.  No one thinks originally any more and any brighter than average performer with an inflated sense of celebrity, with the right alchemy of sex-appeal and dazzle and imagination will be having a field day.

Rock stars are mortal.  Gord Downie will soon be dead.  The God in whom no one seems to believe anymore will never die and should we put our gaze on him, in a way, neither will we.

But for me, an alleged Christian, surely there must be kinder, more loving and more intelligent ways of getting the message across.