Mommies’ Dearest

Sign of the times: Kalan Porter dispenses autographs at the 2005 Juno Awards in Winnipeg. Getty Images/Donald Weber.

A curious thing happened after Air Canada flight 1155 Toronto-to-Calgary disembarked at 15:10 MDT, and the passengers waited bleary-eyed for their bags to slide down onto the carousel. Since noon, women in their 30s, 40s and 50s had arrived from places like Newmarket, Ont., Comox, B.C. and Winnipeg. Most wore their hair short, and you could tell that many had it done especially for the weekend. They were, in their own words, a “huggy bunch.” If “huggy” can mean a combination of bubbly, jumpy, dancey, giddy, touchy, squeaky, shrieky, vaguely raunchy and that thing that happens when everyone talks at once — then, yes, they were “huggy.” And as they waited for the next in their group to materialize — a lady with the handle “Kimbo” — their swell of hugginess surged deeper through the airport. The inaugural convention of Kalan Porter’s Boomers and Hens fan club had begun.

Everything that had led them to Calgary that Saturday afternoon, every moment that would unfold over the weekend, then through the rest of their lives, they believed they owed to the 19-year-old farm boy from Medicine Hat, whom many admitted was young enough to be their son. He played violin and sang lukewarm rock songs with a gilded voice. He possessed what the ladies kept calling “it.” In September last year, he was voted Canada’s second Idol. (In no small part because these ladies spent the maximum two hours following each broadcast compulsively dialing and redialing to vote; some dialed using three phones at once.)

As we waited at the carousel, I referred to him as “The Idol.” This was a mistake. “Kalan is our little rooster,” said one woman. “Or K-Man,” said another. A third said: “The little prince crowned king.” Two ladies explained at once: “We don’t think of him as ‘The Idol.’ He’s transcended that.” The women had come to Kalgary to hammer out a kreed. Drink tekila. Watch video klips. Sing karaoke. And at the end of it all, katch Kalan’s koncert. Kodify their raison d’être. (So strong is the raison, they have developed a tendency to substitute “k” for “c” in their written communication.) During a lull between arrivals, they joined five tables together in one of the airport bars. “Ladies,” Sheila L, the group’s most prolific online contributor, said to shush everyone. “Are we a cult?”

“No!” the ladies shouted back. A transvestite seated in a booth nearby looked at the ladies, eyes wide with what seemed like admiration.

“Why do they call us a cult?”

“I don’t know!” they shouted again.

Singing through a confetti storm: Kalan Porter performs after winning the 2004 Canadian Idol competition. CP Photo/Frank Gunn.

Under the larger aegis of Kalanadians — Porter’s coast-to-coast nation of devotees — there are factions. These factions exist on the CTV message boards, BMG’s board, and now the family’s own forum, where a section has been cordoned off especially for the “Boomers and Hens” (as they officially call themselves). The Boomers and Hens gained a small measure of acclaim when the young rooster proffered them a “shout-out” at a concert following an appearance on The Vicki Gabereau Show in Vancouver, which several had journeyed across the country to attend. “If he sees a green glowstick in the crowd, he knows it’s us,” said Leah, who has a Wal-Mart greeter’s sweetness and doesn’t look old enough to be either a Boomer or a Hen, despite being a mother.

The now-infamous post-Gabereau shout-out stoked resentment among barely teenage “fan girlies” of Kalanada. “They don’t understand,” said Sheila L, who is currently averaging 75.67 posts per day on the family forum. “They think we get special attention.” Special attention being: admittance to sound checks, personal meetings, photos – shout-outs. “We win those fair and square.”

“Because we’re old ladies and aren’t supposed to like a 19-year-old, they also think we shouldn’t be here at all,” said Leah. “They don’t understand the appeal he has to older people.” Kalan Porter is beautiful. Above other teen idols, he is the epitome of the humble hard-working boy a mother wants her son to grow into and, at the same time, the unspoiled promise that a grown man never quite fulfills. Perhaps the most complex of all human relationships is that upturned Oedipal singe of adoration — lust tempered with doting— that women such as these are obliged to heap on the young talent. They must shepherd the potential. It must be realized. Susan Sarandon’s minor-league baseball groupie Annie Savoy comes to mind. “There’s a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys,” she says at the beginning of Bull Durham. “I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. ’Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games.”

It’s a rotten trade. The Hens rack up enormous phone bills trying to get Kalan’s video played on MuchMusic’s Combat Zone. Ceaselessly pester local DJs. Write letters to magazine editors after his CD’s panned. They wear bracelets with his photo, but not those of their own children. They stay up late, worrying if he will crack under the pressure. A friend of mine who shares the Hens’ demographic, but not their adoration, tried to put their mania in perspective for me: “Can you imagine a group of middle-aged men forming a fan club for Hilary Duff, just you know, ’cause they love her music and want to make sure she doesn’t get exploited or on the wrong track, and that she gets enough sleep at night?”

And for what? A shout-out?

There has to be more than that.

So, slowly, in the adoration’s margins, something else bloomed: the Boomers and Hens. “I can stop anywhere in Canada now and have someone to stay with or have someone to go out to dinner with,” said OBG (short for “oldie-but-goodie”). Another added: “Sometimes the Hens are more supportive than our families.” On Saturday, they worried about a Hen named TV Free, who couldn’t make it down from Red Deer because she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. They’ve taught each other to use email, edit DVDs and write poetry. Kalan has been retrograded to the mechanism out of which has sprung their own plot: the cultivation of their own personas. Judy Sahaydak is the “moshpit queen,” and also the “stander in liner.” Laura Derenioski (LD4KP), who brought a blender to the convention, is the group’s bartender. (“Tarbender!” she corrects.) There’s Medicine Hat Wendy, a.k.a. “The Picture Queen,” who broke her arm at an Edmonton concert, but wouldn’t go to the emergency room until Kalan was finished performing. Leah designs the group’s T-shirts and dolls. “I don’t want to say artist,” she said, “because I’m not an —”

“LEAH!” the others interrupted crossly. “What did we talk about?”

She blushed. “OK, I’m an artist.”

Leah’s become the subject of adoration in her own right. Strangers will approach her at shows. “You’re Leah from the family board! I know all about you!” She scrunched up her face in discomfort at this thought. “It’s weird.”

The Hens are painfully awkward discussing their own celebrity, and quickly shift back to retelling road adventures. All shouting at once, yet somehow they still seem to hear and react to every word the others say.

“Remember Kyle the fork guy in Red Deer!”

“Imagine a cucumber.”

“Fifty bucks on eBay.”

“Imagine a pair of jeans.”

“I wouldn’t pay anything for a dirty fork.”

“Imagine a vegetable stuffed in those jeans.”

“Gross!”

“Here’s to friendships.”

“HENSHIPS!”

“Kimbo’s plane lands in five minutes!”

Until then, the Hens’ tide, which now numbered 40, had been gathering a sense of huggy invincibility. But now as a buzzer rang and the baggage carousel spun, something had halted the momentum. Wasn’t that Kalan’s drummer Charlie? And Mike, lead guitar. “That’s Dennis,” Marlynx2 whispered, pointing between the drummer and guitarist. Carol nudged me, then gestured faintly to a kid with a baseball cap pulled down over his face, a grey hood pulled over the cap. A third Hen, Zoe, patted her chest to indicate a racing heart. She mouthed the words: “He knows we’re here.”

I studied Porter, the young rooster. His clothes seemed too small for his body, which was already too small for a body. So fragile. So vulnerable. Suddenly there was a terrifying roar. He tensed a little, leaning towards the baggage carousel, then looked back for a moment. He had conjured a look of amusement, but now that turned to bafflement. The Hens had all spun in a different direction so that nobody but me was looking back at him. The other passengers, crowded around the carousel, the porters and rental car attendants, a half-dozen Japanese tour leaders, everyone jumped on their toes, and strained to see who was approaching. A woman with long dark hair scampered towards us, into the huggy wave of hens: Kimbo had arrived.

Chris Koentges is a Calgary writer.