Willie Handler's Blog, page 13

My Flirtation With Politics Is Over

I rarely use my blog for serious writing. But I feel the need to share my recent experiences and help sort out in my mind a turbulent year in my life that has left me physically and emotional drained yet pleased to have gone through the experience.

My friend Gary Gladstone wanted to take a run at a seat in Parliament. He has been involved in party politics for many years but more behind the scenes. He was very passionate about running and asked if I would help. I had my own interest in politics and decided I needed another big challenge in my life. I said yes.

Although I was offered the job of campaign manager, I turned it down and suggested that we hire someone with campaign experience. We found such a person. In fact, she hadn’t lost a campaign since 2008. I took the role of deputy campaign manager, which included numerous responsibilities – social media, community outreach, accompanying the candidate to events, training volunteers, and prepping for debates and panel discussions.

Why was this such a large challenge?

There are many reasons why I could have said no. The Thornhill electoral district is solid Conservative even tough it is surrounded by Liberal districts. In fact, it was one of only two districts that voted Conservative in 2015 during our last federal election. The Conservative incumbent had won the last three elections and in 2015 his victory was by a margin of 12,000 votes. The district is 37% Jewish (the largest concentration of Jewish voters in the country) and many of them are very observant. The number one issue for this community was support for Israel. A combination of weak support for Israel by previous Liberal governments and strong support by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper drove the community into the Conservative camp many years ago.

Why would we take on such long odds?

In retrospect, it seems foolish, but I thought that it was worth a try. We thought things were different this time:

Gary is Jewish and the incumbent is not.
Gary lives in Thornhill, the incumbent does not.
Gary has deep roots in the community, has done a lot of charity work and has even done fundraising within the Orthodox Jewish community.
The previous Liberal candidate had been acclaimed after the 2015 election had been called and was at a significant disadvantage because of a late start.
We began this process early by signing up new members in case the nomination would be contested. Following the nomination, we immediately began raising money, recruiting volunteers and identifying Liberal voters.
The district has grown since 2015 and many of the new residents are immigrants who generally support the Liberals.
Election Day was on a Jewish holiday and so were some of advance polling dates. We assumed that would reduce turnout for the incumbent.

We believed all these things factors would make us competitive and we did exceed the 2015 campaign in money raised, volunteers attracted, and number of Liberal voters identified. The incumbent lost about 2,000 votes. But we attracted just 500 more voters than the 2015 campaign. I was stunned by the results.

What happened?

We conducted two polls by a major polling firm to see how we were doing. One was in June and the other in September. They showed that were slightly behind the incumbent. In June, I was skeptical and questioned the methodology. I was told there was nothing to be concerned about. In hindsight, that wasn’t the case. Although had the polls been more accurate, it wouldn’t have changed anything we did. Perhaps our polling should have focused more on what issues would determine how the respondents would vote.

The Jewish community totally rejected a Jewish candidate with deep roots in the community solely because he was running for the wrong party. In fact, many voters were nasty. Politics can bring out the worst in people. Some will yell at you and social media allows users to behave badly. When we released an accurate piece of literature to inform the Jewish community about how the Liberal party had supported the community and Israel over the past four years, we were attacked for providing nothing more than factual information.

The Conservative party sent out letters to members of the Jewish community with a distorted perspective of their positions and those of the Liberals. The Liberal party responded with nothing. Absolutely nothing. As the campaign dragged on, I realized the party didn’t care about our district. There was no help provided. We were left on our own. The national campaign was not very strong and lead to a lost of about 30 seats. Canadians were looking for leadership on key issues. What they got was personal attacks from the leaders. This is not leadership.

We had thought that there were many disengaged Liberal voters that had not been coming out to vote in previous elections. So, we knocked on as many doors as we could in neighbourhoods with Liberal supporters. We knocked on almost 50,000 doors and identified nearly 9,000 Liberals. But as it turned out that didn’t have much impact on Election Day. What I now know is that the number of Liberal voters in the district is limited. Thornhill has many affluent neighbourhoods that vote Conservative. It’s not just Jewish voters that support the Conservative party.

Outcome

We lost by approximately 10,000 votes. This is not an electoral district that will be voting Liberal anytime soon. So, building from the current base is pointless. You can’t build much beyond this base.

I abandoned by writing for months and need to get back to it. I have no idea how long it will now take to complete my third novel. Writing is 90% inspiration for me and right now I have none.

Campaigns run 7 days a week and you are constantly operating on half a tank. I don’t know how Gary kept up the pace and had so much energy. He never complained. I had several flare ups of my autoimmune condition during the campaign brought on by the pace and stress. On the day following the election, my doctor informed me that I was also anemic.

The night of the election, our district association treasurer, Sybille Hahn, passed away suddenly. What a horrible news to receive on top of everything else. She was a wonderful woman, passionate about her causes and so willing to contribute to the community. What a tragic loss. A close friend also passed away two weeks ago. These are reminders of what is most important in life. Hug someone you love today.

I loved the experience despite the outcome. I’m very proud of the campaign we ran. We were honest, stuck to the issues and avoided going negative. I met some great people and made now friends and connections. There are no regrets. But I won’t ever being doing this again. Thank you, Gary, for the opportunity and the friendship.

Loved Mars Hated The Food Might Just Be The Funniest Book of 2019 : The Canadian Business Daily

The past summer’s release of Loved Mars Hated The Food by Willie Handler is exactly what the title suggests, a rip-snorting, hilarious romp on Mar Read more…

Source: Loved Mars Hated The Food Might Just Be The Funniest Book of 2019 : The Canadian Business Daily

My Zany Interview With WFOD

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I was back on WFOD, an internet radio program that airs every Tuesday evening. The hosts are pretty much off the wall but it’s a lot fun. We talked about tanning beds, Trudeau’s blackface photos, and hear my imitation of the Amber Alert alarm. We might have even talked about Loved Mars Hated The Food.

My segment begins at the 27:45 minute point.

https://williehandler.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/wfod92419g.mp3

The List

 

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Photo by Fancycrave.com on Pexels.com

My wife hates grocery shopping. Not other types of shopping – clothes, furniture, kitchen gadgets and jewelry. Just groceries. It seems buying sustenance intimates her. So by default, I have been delegated shopping for food.

Grocery shopping is not an issue for me, provided I am given a clear, organized and legible list. There lies my problem. Her enthusiasm for grocery shopping is matched by diligence in constructing a weekly shopping list. It would be nice to know what she was thinking when she wrote out the list. Take for example, carrots. Sounds simple. But there are carrot bunches with the tops, loose carrots, bagged carrots, baby carrots, shredded carrots, frozen carrots, canned carrots. Rice could be on the list. I get to the correct aisle and look at the long shelf with every kind of rice imaginable. Sigh. I could go on and on.

It means that every trip to the supermarket requires ongoing lines of communication with my wife. Now she finds this quite humorous. I might be calling her for the third time in ten minutes asking about what type of lettuce she had in mind. I can hear the people around her snickering. “Is it your husband again?” It seems it’s my competence that’s always in question.

But the worst is the ineligible entries. I might ask. “What is the item between kidney beans and icing sugar?”

“Sorry I don’t remember. What does it look like to you?”

“If I knew what it was I wouldn’t be asking.”

So you are likely thinking why do you agree to do it?  That’s just the way household duties are distributed.  Believe me, it could have been worse.  But things can get pretty dicey if my wife isn’t accessible by phone. That occurred recently. I was pushing my cart past the dairy case looking over the list. Then this one item jumped out at me. I hadn’t noticed it before, nor did I recognize it. It was on the list between white sugar and whole wheat English muffins. I pick up my phone for my first clarification during today’s shopping excursion. But instead of a live voice I got voicemail so I left an urgent message. “I’m at the supermarket and can’t read something on your list.  Call me.”

I’m still staring at the list and a cart pulls up next to me. “Excuse me.” A woman reaches around me for some cottage cheese.

Since we have made visual and verbal contact, I decide to enlist her help. “I was wondering if you can make out this item on my shopping list?”

“Hmm. Looks like lettuce to me.”

“Can’t be lettuce. Lettuce is elsewhere on the list.”

She turns to a shopping companion. “Diane, what does this look like to you?”

“Blueberries”

“I think it’s lettuce.”

“That word does not start with an L.”

Soon another shopper joins in. “Definitely lemons” I’m trying to get my list back so that I continue shopping, but the list is being passed from one shopper to another. A shopping scrum is in the making.

Someone shouts out. “There is the produce manager. Maybe he can figure it out. Hey Marty. Take a look at this and tell us what you think.”

“Let me take a look. Oh yeah that’s broccoli. It’s right over there next to the corn on the cob.”

Not only have I lost sight of my list but I can’t find my cart. Then my phone rings. It’s my wife. I turn to the crowd of shoppers and announce. “Thank you everyone for your help. I just heard from my wife and it’s butter.”

One guy shouts out from the back. “Hey I won! I had butter all the way!”

My Podcast Interview on A Scribe’s Journey

You can watch my recent podcast appearance on A Scribe’s Journey where I talk about my novels.

The Genesis of Loved Mars

[image error]It’s been far too long since I’ve posted on this blog. That’s because sometimes life is a form of inertia that sucks up free time and kills the concept of a regular schedule.

I’m weeks away from releasing Loved Mars Hated The Food and thought I would reveal a little bit about the genesis of this quirky story. I’ve revealed some of the background before but it started in a creative writing class that I took over four years ago.

The course was on humour writing but I claimed to have been a science fiction writer. In each class we would write a short story based on the topic of the week. One week we were asked to write a story containing physical comedy. I decided to write story about the first Starbucks on Mars and the reaction of Martians to caffeine. After reading the story in class, several people asked if that was from the book I was writing. It was then that I admitted I wasn’t a science fiction writer but was working on a political satire. After class, the instructor, Terry Fallis, suggested I should consider making the story into a novel.

The seed was planted.

When I finished The Road Ahead, I had to decide on what my next novel would be. I finally decided I would do a spoof of the book/film The Martians complete with a stranded astronaut and too many potatoes. Instead of the botanist protagonist in the film, my main character, Dix Jenner would be a chef. But I needed more that just that, so I decided the story would also pay tribute to the 1960s TV show, My Favorite Martian but with a twist. Instead of a Martian stranded on Earth trying to adapt, I would have an Earthling stranded on Mars, struggling to fit in.

I decided I needed an antagonist so I came up with an orange-coloured Martian leader, Cheyhto who would be a narcissist, bully and tyrant. The fact that those traits might be similar to a politician here on Earth is pure coincidence [wink wink].

Those were the initial concepts that I used as I began to write. I had no plot outline and only a few other characters that I had decided on. There were Seepa and Bleeker, the Martian couple that discovered Dix and agreed to shelter him, and the nosy next door neighbour, Plinka. Along the way I decided to spoof spectator sports and developed an amusing Martian team sport called Sling.

At first, I was going to introduce a class war on Mars and eventually have Dix campaign to replace Cheyhto as the Martian Grand Leader. As I wrote, I decided this wasn’t going to be another political satire and dropped the idea of running for office. But there remains an underlying tension between Martian classes because it worked so well with the character arc I was thinking about. Of course, my original short story about the first Starbucks on Mars eventually got worked into the second half of the book.

I couldn’t decide how to end the book. As I wrote, I had narrowed it down to three possible endings. It wasn’t until the final several chapters that I finally decided on what would the most appropriate ending to this story.

My favorite character wasn’t included in the book until after I had completed the first draft. I often wake up in the morning with some of my best story ideas. On one such morning, I thought the book needed a bot. So, I went back and added Sementric 3 (Todd), an advanced robot with advanced artificial intelligence who was slightly neurotic, very annoying and extremely sarcastic. He turns out to be my favourite character.

I hope you decide to pick up the book. It was a real treat to write and it should be a fun read.

 

Loved Mars Is Set To Launch August 14

The official book launch has been scheduled for the evening of August 14 in downtown Toronto. Come out and join the celebration.

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An Emoji Translator

Your daughter sends you a WhatsApp message and it’s a series of emojis. You have no clue what it means and realize you can no longer communicate with the younger generation. What do you do?

You know if you admit to not understanding that you will be ridiculed forever and a day.

“Mom, do you still use dial-up internet?”

“Dad, what happened to your cell phone the size of a shoebox?”

I have the solution for you. I’ve created a Emoji-English dictionary with someone common phrases you will find handy.

A Note To a Younger Willie Handler

I’m writing this note to a Willie Handler that no longer exists. As a younger version of me, you had so much potential, but you wasted it.

And wipe that smirk off your face.

You were smart but never applied yourself. Happy to just get by. You must have driven your teachers crazy with your wildly fluctuating grades. Do you remember the dirty look you got from the math teacher when you got a perfect grade on an exam? He looked so pissed.

You were a slacker, smartass, irreverent and bored. At school you were the Chief Instigator, the Master of Mirth and Captain Chaos. Skipping classes was easy when the school office had a forged signature of your mother on file. Maybe you came by this behaviour easily, being a middle child.

Then you got older and matured.

Thank God!

You went from being under achiever to over achiever, discovering that the best way to fight off boredom was to take on challenges, and you took on so many. Why didn’t you figure that out sooner?

I remember you hated English Lit even though you were an avid reader. The complete opposite of most writers. Just think about how many novels you could have written had you discovered your passion for writing earlier? Why didn’t you use that wicked sense of humour in a more constructive way? You cheated me out of what could have been a much more rewarding writing career. I’m not bitter or resentful. You make choices in life and then have to live with the consequences. Besides, you’ve done very well in life. Not that I’m bragging, but it’s true.

It’s just that I have so many stories in my head, and I know I’ll run out of time before I can get them written. And that’s very sad.

My Interview on My Future Business Show

In this interview I talk with Rick Nuske about The Road Ahead and my soon to be released Loved Mars Hated the Food.