(December 15, 2015)

aka another volume of "missing JT"

Ok, now Maclean's is asking me to do "Justin Trudeau in 60 seconds", so we're gotta give it a shot.

Here we go.

• sunrise or sunset: definitely sunrise

• first line of poetry that comes to mind: Chanter, rêver, rire, passer, être seul, être libre, Avoir l’œil qui regarde clair, la voix qui vibre... — and Cyrano goes on

(from: Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, translation: to sing, to dream, to laugh, to move on, to be free, on my own To have a keen eye and a voice of strong tone)

• best gift I've ever given: I gave Xavier the Millennium Falcon Lego when he was too young, so I got to build it.

• language I wish I could speak: Sophie speaks great Spanish, I do not. I wish I could keep up with her.

• Nova Scotia or British Columbia: yeah, not a chance I'm answering that

• second favorite Justin: Justin Timberlake, he's a real JT

• favorite Baltic nation: that's not a thing

• last thing I cooked on the stove: scrambled eggs

• first question I'd ask Wilfrid Laurier: how does he like the Canada he helped create?

• favorite French word: topinambour

• name of my first pet: Smokey — and we lived on Sussex

• Mercedes Benz 300 SL* or Toyota Prius: I like to walk whenever I can

• and my Achilles heel: I geek out way too easily

*porn star name meme* aka as always, J knows *exactly* what he's doing.

* the Mercedes Benz 300 SL in question: a roadster from 1960, used to be PET's car, worth ~ $ 1,25 million these days, ~ € 1,09 million, CAD ~ 1,72 million

MACLEAN'S magazine,December first 1920-1929.

Top to bottom,left to right

1956 DeSoto Fireflite

Q: This month you're a poster boy for pot, in a tuxedo smoking a joint on the cover of High Times magazine. Did that feel risky?

A: No. They've been after me for a long time to do something and this seemed to be appropriate subject matter. My gosh, when I did Platoon in 1986, I was saying very openly that marijuana helped me survive the war. It helped me keep my humanity in a situation that was dehumanizing.

Q: Is America getting more pot-positive?

A: So many people smoke it in this country. No matter how moralistic you want to get, Americans like their drugs and they're going to get 'em. Since 1971 drugs are cheaper and better and more. So it's not going to change. The more you say no, and the higher the costs go, there's always a Mexican business interest that will move it to the street at a cheap price, ungroomed.

Q: So there's no winning the war on drugs?

A: It's not a war on drugs, it's a war for money. There's too much money in it to back out now. Even if they taxed it, and they'd love to, there's so much money on the criminal investigation side with the DEA and the prison system. There are so many people in jail for drugs. They spend billions annually keeping non-violent criminals in jail, many of them drug users. How do you go back after 40 years of tactics that haven't worked? And they've spent over a trillion dollars fighting it with no success other than militarizing certain countries, angering countries like Bolivia and using the drug war to intervene in Mexico. Don't forget Asia. We've ruffled a lot of feathers. [...]

Q: Will pot be legalized in your lifetime?

A: (sigh) In some enlightened places. But it seems my life has been witness to a war between enlightenment and repression and it seems that repression is winning out.

Q: For your creative process, how useful are drugs such as marijuana?

A: I've used it both ways. But when I work on a set I'm sober. You don't know how crew members would react, so I do keep it quiet and private. You don't see alcohol on the set either, except in off hours.

Q: The marijuana in the movie looks convincing, but is it all fake?

A: None of it is real, by law. We were very careful about that. [...]

Q: Drugs and violence: does it all go back to Vietnam?

A: No. It sounds like you're on this quest to bring out the dark, vicious side of me.

Q: I find the contradictions interesting. You are a Buddhist. You filled Natural Born Killers with Leonard Cohen songs. Yet you don't shy away from brutality.

A: I never did. It was in Platoon and Salvador too. Salvador was rough because I was trying to bring the Central American war here. I tried to do enough cartel violence to give you a taste of it, but I didn't want to make a horror film. I don't go to horror films.

Q: I raise the issue because other people will.

A: Which is why the right wing keeps winning. We keep talking to these people as if they make sense and we can appease them.