THIS Is pretty blatant, but ive just h had a book called On.
The Sky published by McClelland & Stewart. Fanfare! :
Vegetables flying over the stage lights!

Since it's an autobiography,
what's wrong with an auto-review,

anyway? The argument might be “== \:

made that [ would have a hard
time being objective, but fortu-

' nately there’s no problem: I love.
it. It's the best thing t have ever
written.

It is a terrific relief for a guy of
46 to know that he didn’ it peak a
long time ago.

At 21, you know your ‘great
stuff is ahead. But there comes a
point, after you've cranked out 10
books, say, when you begin'to
wonder if you really have anything
new:and worthwhile adding to the

: mountain of books spewed forth
each year. More dead trees.

The only excuse is if you think,
you can paint a picture worth \
_beholding that will help the human,
race along omits journey toa day ©
of awakening. In a nutshell, all =»
kidding aside, that’s about the on-

j-
“.. ly reason. Otherwise, we. are ail

«just wasting cach other's time.
Apart from the inherent para-
noid gratidiosity of dictating your
own legend, any book worth its
printer's ink has got to reycal
nothing less than one’s soul.
Accordingly, J put my’ entire
heast into On The Sky, feporting
about the world as | Teally saw it,
lisa raw, Strange, funny, weird,
dangerous place out there, with a

thousand. temptations grabbing for o
you. / ag

Faithful readers of this column”,
and ol cronies alike will perhaps
recall a few,of my columns. over
the years when I described dif-
ferent exotic\countries, calthough
recently this practice, alas, fell.
from favor, and 1 was discouraged
from paying off my travel Junkets
by writing columns. I had‘ to stick -

, to working for the travel and ,
- ‘airline and f shion and hotel “T

A dress visibility checked

; wésT VANCOUVER District
: Fire Department personne! recently
“checked over 10,000 West Van-
couver homes during - Operation
Address. The goal of the exercise
Was to increase public awareness of

the importance of having a clearly

visible addréss to ensure emergency
services easily focate homes...

Forty-three homes were found to ~
have"no numbers compared to a7 .
the’ previous.” year’s -

found — in

survey. Addresses with a poor

background contrast for. numbers
decreased from 255 to 80.

But. the fire’ department ° ‘found

\. an increase in the number of inci

4 ' dents where’ shrubs hid. address!

mo c STARRING]
"ALICE GHOSTLEY |

: Book, Muzic, and Lyrics by:
sy DAN GOGGIN ..

. ” Choreographed by: :
SUZANNE QUELLETTE ....:

Alno Starring., bs
MARLENE | "ORIEN

"2. DINNER SHOW «
{Gourmet Bullet}

' 3 GRUISE-TO-SHOW PACKAGE

Great for entertuining out of town guents!,

numbers. The numbes was up to

244 from 189. Firefighters are ask-

ing. the’ public to address the pro-
bleri’ by ensuring shrubbery does
not jobscure home address
numbers. cop

azines.
What we find on the pages of
On The Sky is therefore a series of

‘snapshots of a dozen of the coun-

tries Fve visited in the last seven
years ° — the “outer takes,” as it
were:

}

These out-takes are extremely
candid | They ate as deep as I could
make them, and therefore some of
them are extremely crucl, some-
times painfully funny. There's a
lot of love in them lot of dark-
ness. A fair amount.of bipolar
manic- depressive cydles, as the
shrinks would put it.

Above all, except: f a few in-
dividuals being merged\into com- .
posites for reasons of stary- -telling
efficiency, and everyones name
except mine being changed! to pro-

tect the guilty and the innovent
alike, and a few archipelagoes be-
ing moved around and a couple of
dates being jump-cut, these ate
honest, naked stories of life on\the
lonely stratospheric trail: hilarious,

a

T hope
Certainly w with plenty of f bona

/ /T hese out-takes are extremely candid. ;'

“| They are as deep as I could make.them, i
‘and therefore some of them are extremely) pe

liv

/ cruel, sometimes, painfully Sunny.”

The stuff that would never get.

past the censors, including the /
main onc, which is me and my in-
satiable desire for paycheques

’ rather than total artistic selfex-

pression.

DON'T MISS OUR .. ie

fi ide bizarre twists.
Weiting a book like this “s/

what's known in show biz as “take.
4 /always suspected from reading, be-
// tween the lines. It was great fun?

ing a risk."* It’s like doing 4 strip

tease in public, really. The, aut hor /
_ dares to tell the truth abot j

‘ “3
- Don’ t accept cold, plain aluminarn win:

dows: when you can, ‘windowscape with the.
: Natural warmth and’ beauty of wood, Uni

que features like ‘bl

”

he panes of glass: that add warmth and.
“privacy control Without ‘the cldaning |
“hassles, and clad. exteriors that never re.
“quire painting/so you can re ax and enjoy... 7

: Whether you' re buildi gic

“he be has never been
le

/
Thursday, Moy sth
Friday, May 6th /

8 a.m. to 8 p.m. :
8 a.m. to 8 p.m..
9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

"AGEs 1850 ZACOMES AD RICHMOND
270-8777 oF 1-800-972-1029 tree

everything that was going on :

behind the scenes, in the back
alleys, etc., from Pamplona to
Bangkok, from the Rockies to the:
Pyrenees. jo. we

itis the/first, I fantasize, ofa.

_ trilogy of books which are what I

want to feave for posterity, having
survived so many marvellous and

: twisted ‘adventures.

There i is nothing in here about
Greenpeace or the newspaper~
business. It is entirely, as the blurb
says, about me having a great time
‘ton the sky,’* breaking a3 many
tulés as one could possibly hope to
break in one lifetime.

/Asa genre, On The Skyis a bit

‘ ofa hybrid. While

Autobiographical, it moves through
jfococo-brushed landscapes. Maybe
it.can be compared to making art
/ out of Polaroid snaps.
There is nothing in the book: that
can be arrested for, | don’t think,
since the really depraved : stuff
happened in other countries.

Itis a book about morality.
Mainly it concerns one man’s.
search’ for evidence that God in-
deed is still present in’the world,
and can beseen and heard and /’ Ley
touched. ° No

But “mainly-it should be fun. ir

«you're squeamish or uptight, / i.

please don't buy‘it. Otherwise; he
here are the lurid details which you

Forgive me, Mom. Amen@