Is Lowell Green a Prostitute?

Yesterday, Andrew and I were sitting in Bridgehead, when he suddenly asked, "Is today the 8th?"

It was the 8th. Andrew pulled a small rectangle of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was a notice. Lowell Green would be appearing at the Chapters on Rideau to promote his new book. The event was taking place in less than an hour. I groaned in pain. Andrew wanted to go talk to Lowell Green.

Lowell is a right-wing radio call-in host with CFRA. His typical solution to the world's problems are summed up in the title of the book he just wrote: "How the granola crunching, tree-hugging, thug-huggers are wrecking our country!" With a title like that, it's clear he's trying to tap into the Ann Coulter book market.


Lowell's new book.
"I don't have my camera!" I complained. "I don't have a tape recorder! I don't even have a pad of paper to take notes."

"Great," Andrew said. "Maybe you'll be forced to participate instead of being an observer."

We walked towards the bookshop. As we approached it, Andrew suggested we go under the bridge near Rideau and Sussex. This bridge has become famous for several reasons. For starters, many street kids sleep there. One of them -- nicknamed Cactus -- was murdered there -- supposedly by a drug-dealer from Toronto. Several politicians have stood up and said something needs to be done about this situation. They don't want to help the street kids, of course. They want to close off the area under the bridge and force the kids to go somewhere else.

So we went down there. And there was a large gathering of street kids there, listening to music. Andrew announced that we were headed to see Lowell Green and asked if anyone would like to join us.

Two kids started speculating about what they could do if they went.

"Throw drugs at him!"

"Go up to him and breathe pot smoke into his face!"

And they cackled to themselves. Although it seemed that none of them knew who Lowell Green was in the first place.

One guy said he'd like to go, but that he had to leave just then.

In the end, a single person went with us -- a young woman. Like everyone else, she had no idea who Lowell Green was, but seemed to find the idea of confronting him an interesting distraction. As we walked across Sussex, the young woman looked at me and said:

"You look familiar. Do I know you?"

"I don't think so," I replied.

"Do you speak French?"

"Not very well," I said. "I look like a lot of people. I work for the government. We all look the same."

When we arrived, we quickly found a table set up for Lowell, where he would sign books. A Chapters employee explained Lowell was running late, and probably wouldn't arrive until 7 PM. So Andrew sat down at the table where Lowell would be sitting. One Chapters employee asked Andrew to move.

"Oh sure, I'll move when Lowell arrives," Andrew said pleasantly.

A few minutes later, a manager came by and asked Andrew to move with a little more force, but still being polite. Andrew agreed to it, stood up and waited.

It was at this point that the young woman from under the bridge said she was going to sit at a distance from the table and wait there. She wandered off, and never came back.

Store security kept circling, keeping an eye on Andrew. The manager stood nearby, watching us with a nervous smile. We just stood there, polite and smiling.

We had let a few people go in front of us. As expected, most of the people who came to see Lowell were seniors. However, there were some younger folk. One middle-aged blonde woman, not unattractive, had four books in her arms. It seemed people were buying multiple copies of the books and getting them signed as Christmas presents. The woman gushed that she loved Lowell.>

"He makes me laugh," she said.

Me too, lady -- but for different reasons, I'm sure.

Lowell arrived at around 6:30. He was much fatter than I expected, with an enormous belly. He also had extremely bad teeth -- but he's a radio "celebrity" after all. He walked off to the bathroom, then came back and sat at the table, where someone had put a coffee for him. Lowell explained to the "crowd" -- there were maybe ten people -- that he had been delayed coming in from Vancouver. It was foggy, he said.

At the last minute, Andrew decided to ask Lowell to sign a copy of his book with the words "Smash the state!" Would Green agree to do this? I offered to buy the book if Lowell signed it that way.

When we got to the front of the line, Andrew introduced himself.

"I'm an organizer for The Ottawa Panhandler's Union," Andrew said. "You called me a drug dealer."

"I think you're in this book!" Lowell said gleefully.

Andrew had called Lowell once, and talked about the union he was helping to organize. During the conversation, Lowell accused Andrew of being a drug dealer and demanded Andrew send in a copy of his income tax return to prove he wasn't a drug dealer. Which is nuts. But being nuts is pretty much Lowell's job.

Apparently, as the show went on, people said Lowell had gone too far, implying Andrew was a drug-dealer. He seemed to get apologetic near the end of the show. Or so Andrew tells me.

"We should talk some time," Andrew said to Lowell. "I suspect that we have a lot more in common than you'd suspect."

"You're very loquacious," Lowell said. "You should call my show. We could talk there."

Which was obviously code for, "We can't talk now."

When Andrew asked Lowell to sign the book with the words "Smash the state!" Lowell agreed to it immediately. "At my age I don't care what they quote me as saying."

But just to make sure, he turned to the people in line and asked them if it was okay for him to do it. Should he sign the book with the words smash the state? The elderly couple at the front of the line smiled and said, yes.

"You're witnesses," Lowell said, playing to the "crowd". "I'm being coerced by two large guys."

"Coerced? I'm not doing anything," I protested jokingly. "I'm just standing here!"

Lowell signed it.

"And could you circle the 'A' in 'smash'?" Andrew asked.

Lowell looked confused, obviously unaware that a circle-a is the symbol for anarchy. But he went along with Andrew's request.


Lowell Green wants you to smash the state.
"Call my show," Lowell said. "Just say you're the guy who asked me to write "Smash the state"."

"When should I call?" Andrew asked.

"What year is it?" Lowell asked jokingly. But then said that he was back on the air soon, and to call then.

As we left, you could see the look of relief on the store manager's face.

"You see?" Andrew said. "You didn't even have to wrestle me off of him and throw me out of the store."

"Oh, we would never do that," the manager said, sounding sincere.

Which left me wondering if Andrew could wrestle Lowell to the ground, and Chapters staff would just stand around, watching gleefully.

We went to the Second Cup on Rideau and drank tea. Andrew and I chatted about what had happened. I had to admit that I was impressed with the way Lowell had totally defused the situation. Through verbal judo, Lowell made it into a strangely pleasant little conversation, instead of a confrontation.

"He was just stroking my ego, wasn't he?" Andrew realized.

I flipped through the book, to see if I could find Andrew in there. I didn't see anything. It's doubtful he is there, and I really don't want to read the book to find out. Several chapters attempt to debunk global warming. I have no desire to read that kind of garbage once again. It's depressing how conservative pundits find 5 scientists who doubt global warming, and try to use this to debunk it. Meanwhile, the thousands of scientists who say it's a fact go ignored.>

"What wouldn't Lowell have written to sell a book?" Andrew wondered. "Would he have written 'Kill whitey' if I'd asked him?"

I was sort of surprised at Andrew's surprise. Lowell wants to sell books. What's the harm in his writing "Smash the state!"? Who does it hurt? I doubted if the words even meant anything to Lowell Green, or even most people on the street. Anarchy, to most people, means chaos. To them, it has nothing to do with politics.

Andrew seemed to think Lowell was an ideologue -- that Lowell genuinely believes in what he says on the radio. That he could just casually, mockingly write what he did... it struck Andrew as bizarre. Did Lowell really believe the things he said?

"I feel like I've lost a villain," Andrew complained, "and that's far worse than just losing a friend."