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OPEN LETTER TO THE CURRENT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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Dear Editor-in-Chief:

 

A horrible dream woke me up this morning. Sweaty sort of dream. One of those threating dreams which jolted me awake like I’d been struck by a bolt of lightening.

     I take that back.

     I’m a liar.

     It wasn’t really a horrible dream.

     Nothing like it.

     It was just an attempt to seriously catch your attention.

     Did it?

     Didn’t it?

     Who the hell cares!

     Listen …. my legal name is Mat(thew) Brownfield and not Matthieu-Philippe Brownfield.

     That’s right, Matthieu-Philippe Brownfield never existed.

     Well, it did but didn’t.

     Allow me to quote The Medium’s entry in Wikipedia: ‘A student named Matthew Brownfield, enrolled under the pseudonym Matthieu-Philippe Brownfield ….’

     That’s right, the Matthew Brownfield who magically became Matthieu-Philippe Brownfield and with a snap of your fingers I once again became Matthew Brownfield.

     Like I said, magical.

     But thinking it over it wasn’t so magical.

     In fact, nothing magical at all.

     Catastrophe, I should call it.

     My dad (to put it bluntly, even though my parents were legally my parents in most ways my parents weren’t my parents at all) was transferred to Montréal.

     I loved Montréal.

     Except their school system.

     It sucks.

     More than just sucks.

     Sh***y is getting closer.

     Stupidly, my parents (who I mention were but weren’t my parents) enrolled me in an English-speaking school who surprisingly advanced me a year and a half.

     That’s right, a year & a half.

     So, there I was existing in a creepy Catholic school where the students flawlessly spoke Latin, French and what I referred to as guttural English.

     I wont even go into that school forced me to take advanced algebra, chemistry, geometry, physics and calculus,

     To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know what calculus meant back then and in order to look busy I’d draw cartoon characters on the examination paper.

     I was pretty good at drawing Popeye but Wimpy was a bit of a challenge.

     Still, I loved Montréal.

     Not as beautiful as Vancouver or driving through the Canadian Rockies though.

     Sheer paradisio, I’d say.

     One thing that impressed me in Québec culture was the way French parents often double-hyphenate their male first name such as Jean-Christophe, Paul-Henri or Félix-Antoine.

     Had chutzpah, I would say.

     That summer my dad got me a job (I wont go into that job horror) working at the Monkland Theatre and since I was sixteen, I had to apply for a Social Insurance card.

     Now as I see it (or not), and given I was in love of de prénom masculin français, I deliberately changed (or not) my English name from Matthew Brownfield to Matthieu-Philippe Brownfield.

     How could that come about?

     Easy.

     A high percentage of Federal and Provincial bureaucrats are totally (or not) incompetent.

     And that’s no joke.

     In fact, if there is a joke then the joke was really me.

     I would soon discover that I couldn’t take a car drivers course as my birth name and social insurance name were not the same.

     It just got worse.

     And worse.

     Even worser than worse.

     And for the next thousand years (or not) I would have to identify myself as Matthieu-Philippe Brownfield and why you would see that same name on Medium II’s masthead and I’m the guy who got elected as president of SAGE and quickly renamed same as Erindale College Student Union (ECSU).

     Now let’s get back to my nightmare; the one that wasn’t.

     The day before I happened to be rummaging through UTM’s Archive & Special Collections and came across Teenie Chan (once Editor-in-Chief of The Medium) article, which was titled Fo(u)rty years of The Medium.

     Allow me to quote Chan interviewing Bob Pudolph: The Medium rose from the fall of Erindale’s first printed medium, The Erindalian - Erindale’s sole form of student communication at the time, The Erindalian was a concept brought to life in 1969 by undergraduate students Bob Rudolph and Doug Leeies. “It all started on a shoestring budget upstairs at Colman House,” recalls Leeies. “Erindale was a blank canvas for us. Nobody else was doing what we were doing. We were cutting our own trail.” The Erindalian lasted four years. When it ceased publication Matthieu-Philippe Brownfieldd [sic] formed Medium II, placing the paper under the jurisdiction of the Erindale College Student Union (ECSU). .…”

     Huh?

     Double huh?

     I’m the one (plus some seriously talented staff) who created MEDIUM II and our undergraduate newspaper had nothing – I repeat nothing – to do with The Erindalian. 

     I mean Ø.

     What I (we) wanted to accomplish was very simple.

     Permit me to quote Jean Goldstrom, ‘The best newspapers are dedicated to finding the whole truth and reporting it to their readers. .…’

     That’s right: finding the whole truth and reporting it.

     And that’s exactly what we did.

     Here’s an example of what I mean: A group of Medium II staff borrow a U of T van and drive our way to Montréal where I interviewed (and a top-notch interview, or so my humongous-sized vanity informs me) of René Lévesque.

     Did that interview mean anything?

     Even an idiot dévoué would say yes.

     A few years later René Lévesque was elected premier ministre du Québec and soon the first referendum on Québec sovereignty would take place.

     And I think this is a good illustration of a student newspaper searching for the truth and reporting it.

     Chan also irked me when she wrote: ‘Both MEDIUM II and Radio Erindale were owned by ECSU (SAGE) ….’

     Third huh?

     Gee’zus, I didn’t know much about Radio Erindale’s politics, but I do know I (or not) told SAGE (I would later rename SAGE’s name to ECSU) to f**k off.

     It was SAGE’s arrogance and spendthrift nature (there were hundreds of unstacked dollars in their business safe) which is why I removed myself as editor-in-chief of Medium II (and I was extremely lucky Harry Vredenberg to take over my responsibilities) to run as president of SAGE.

     I was elected.

     The first thing I did was to obliterate SAGE as a student government identity and created Erindale College Student Union (ECSU).

     My main responsibility, and as I promised to the students, was to create a workable union system that would honestly meet their needs.

     I’ve always found it funny though.

     And perhaps you might too.

     But a number of years after we established a student union, St. George campus students rename their undergraduate government (s) to University of Toronto Students' Union.

     Hey, who follows whom?

     As for why I left early as the head honcho of ECSU?

     Simple.

     The huge amount of time I spent creating MEDIUM II cost me much time to attend classes.

     I think you know the consequences.

     More importantly, my mother suddenly died from an intra-cerebral hemorrhage (genetic in my family) and while standing at the end of her post-ops bed I quietly said to myself, ‘That’s going to me me.’

     It was.

     When I was fourty-two a very large aneurism (left side of my brain) started to bleed.

     I knew perfectly well what was happening which is why I quickly pushed that intense fear back into my subconsciousness.

     This is when reality stretched into a fantasy and yet that same fantasy was the real reality.

     Medical statistics prove that 50% of those who are experiencing a cerebral hemorrhage will die within 3 weeks.

     Now the fantasy intensifies.

     Over the next three summer months I would allow (unconscious defense mechanism) my very large aneurysm to bleed.

     That is: Bleed. Clot. Bleed. Clot. Bleed ….

     It was the third bleed that had me staggering down Bloor St. W. and in search of the St. Joseph’s Health Centre.

     Do you think anyone would help me?

     Nope.

     Not one soul.

     Most of those who saw me broke out laughing as they thought I was inebriated.

     And I was extremely lucky that the Toronto Police Service constables did not see me as, inevitably, they would place me under arrest and deposit me in the nearest drunk tank where I would soon die.

     I really mean that.

     I mean, the fantasy had always been the reality.

     When I awoke the following morning, I found myself checked into St. Michael’s Trauma Centre.

     It was looking in the room’s bathroom mirror I could see my head wrapped in bandage (I always liked to call it my treasured turban) and I later learned the neurosurgeon(s) had removed (drill/sawed) a sizeable amount of the left side of my skull.

     Why?

     My brain was starving for oxygen, you see.

     But it really was the double clipping of the once bleeding artery that literary saved my life; a life that shouldn’t have existed at all.

     I also quickly learned that I couldn’t speak with coherence.

     That’s right, whenever I responded to a question someone asked me, the only words coming out of my mouth was gibberish.

     Meaningless, really.

     Worse, at least for me, and given that I was a screenplay writer, my reading and writing skills had diminished considerably ….

     …. Interruption happens.

                                                                  Justified  

     It just occurred to me the only reason why I’m writing this open letter to you is to set straight that I’m the guy who created MEDIUM II, Laomedon Review & ECSU, and here I am wrangling on about the horrors of my life.

     And I suspect you’re getting a little (kiddies have the attention span of beaver sh*t) bored.

     What I do ask from you, though, is to forward this letter to Teenie Chan and I can only thank you for your time.

 

With respect,

Matthew Brownfield

 

PS No, the II of MEDIUM II’s title had nothing to do with the campus radio station.

     Nothing!

     In fact, I always felt CFRE was absurd in nature and who wouldn’t think CFRE was totally absurd when their broadcast was limited to thirty-seven PA boxes?

     Obviously, things are much different now.

     As for adding II to the undergraduate newspaper is only my business.

     No one else.

     Not even God.

PPS Sorry. I forgot one thing. The most important of them all. The real reason why I was so determined to create ....  

/page , "Endgame" Poof! Goes Rodney the Rat - BOOK VI

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