Fan-tasy island

ONE thing you'll never see on a Win­nipeg street is an angry dude in a Ford F-150 pull up to an intersection, roll down his window and start screaming at Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra music director Alexander Mickelthwate.

"Yo, Conductor! You have no freaking idea what you're doing! Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 as a season-opener?

With Dvorák and Sibelius? Yeah, nobody could see that coming. Go back to Atlanta, buddy, and take your baton with you."

Likewise, it's also quite unlikely anyone would shuffle their way into a Safeway checkout lane, recognize Siloam Mission CEO John Mohan and begin taunting him between the clicks of the bar-code scan­ner.

"What, the soup kitchen isn't good enough for you? You think you're too good to hang with your... what do you call them, clients? Shouldn't you be out pilfering radio personalities and political advisers instead of buying Sugar Corn Pops and baby carrots? And are you gonna share this stuff with the homeless or eat it all yourself?"

Hurling abuse at public figures is a time-honoured tradition, dating back to the days when medieval peasants might have flung mud or feces at unpopular rulers, or so Monty Python would have me believe.

Modern politicians occasionally get the same treatment. So do certain profes­sional athletes, Hollywood movie stars and reality TV contest­ants too stupid to realize they can't get away with behaving like athletes or movie stars.

But people work for non-profit organiza­tions normally aren't required to put with the insolence of the masses.

It's not that nobody feels passionately about the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra or Siloam Mission. It's just that nobody is so arrogant to assume they know enough to tell Alex Mickelthwate or John Mohan how to do their jobs -- or feel enough of a sense of ownership over these organiza­tions to unleash their opinions anyway.

That's why it's kind of funny to hear the way Winnipeg Blue Bombers fans dumped all over coach Mike Kelly this week be­cause he decided not to pick up their calls on CJOB anymore.

Bomber fans think they own the team.

But that simply isn't true, no matter how many times people trot out the meaning­less phrase "community-owned Canadian Football League franchise."

The Winnipeg Football Club is not owned by the people of Winnipeg. The team is a non-profit organization, just like the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Siloam Mission, the Winnipeg Art Gal­lery, St. Boniface Museum, the Winnipeg Humane Society, the West End Cultural Centre or any other organization whose incorporation papers dictate a non-profit mandate.

Even before the football club's board of directors signed a deal to allow Canwest executive David Asper to buy the team, the ordinary Winnipegger had no more of a legal stake in the Bombers' day-to-day operations than they have in the booking decisions made by Winnipeg Folk Festival director Chris Frayer or the charitable do­nations solicited by CancerCare Manitoba Foundation CEO Annitta Stenning.

Earth to Bomber fans: there is no Tooth Fairy, Megan Fox does not want to date you and you don't own even a smidgeon of a CFL franchise.

Coach Kelly may be hot-headed. He may say idiotic things to back up questionable coaching decisions or not back them up at all. He may not even be in Winnipeg for more than a single season.

Winnipeg football fans, whether they buy tickets or not, have every right to be annoyed with the guy and I'm not going to defend him.

But if you think you have the right to tell the loose cannon when he can or cannot pick up the phone -- based solely upon the erroneous belief you exert some control over his organization -- you might as well email director James Cameron and tell him he's wasted 10 years on his 3­D project Avatar and should have made Ter­minator IV instead. I mean, who the hell is Sam Worthington and how much work does this guy deserve?

But I digress. Community ownership, in the sense that the community actually owns the team, simply does not exist in Winnipeg. You don't own any more of the Blue Bombers than you do of the Dallas Cowboys, Real Madrid or Manchester United.

So feel free to be as rude as you like to Mike Kelly if you recognize him in line at the movies. Feel free to scream at inter­sections and hurl abuse at the Safeway checkout line.

Just don't think for a second this coach has any obligation, legal or otherwise, to jump at your command.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca