lost in space

I’m back to it – the non-Molly Parker, plus-Marta Kristen version, in which I don’t understand the infatuation with the latter.

I mean, she’s beautiful and all, but she’s window dressing most of the time in the show, like her mother. Nice to look at, but ultimately, boring.

In the Netflix version, Judy and Maureen were anything but (and I would be lying if I didn’t have an unnatural attraction to Molly Parker’s Maureen). Strong women are wonderful.

Flirty and light can be fun, but when the chips are down, I prefer a woman who engages, not one who demures.

Long term, superficial is unsustainable. But the depths of a strong woman?

They can feel so big, you get lost in them.

(In a good way, an endless exploration way, not a strong woman subsumes a weak man, though certainly, in any gender context, strong personalities do have a tendency to swallow the meeker, and that’s something to explore as well, but not in this particular instance. Men who wish their women are weaker are, well, sad and pathetic).

Anyway, so be it. I am married to a strong woman, of that there is no double. I’ll be the John to her Maureen any day.

Target: 900 words
Written: 992 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Wishsong Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Once And Future 20-22, Die 20
Music: Nearly Lost You, Screaming Trees (Mark Lanegan, historically, so underrated)

the yankees are still a thing?

I didn’t think they were any good anymore. Like not terribly, but comfortably mediocre, like most teams.

I like baseball, but do people actually care anymore?

It requires a patience and attention that doesn’t really exist in our Instagram/Snapchat/TikTok world.

After all, why have a long-lasting memory when it can just disappear in twenty-four hours. I wonder if this generation’s instances of Alzheimer’s is going to spike because of the lack of long-term memory-making abilities.

Everything has to be a filter; nothing real, nothing dirty.

Unless they want to cancel you, then even the hint of an accusation can destroy a person’s entire world. That’s something I struggle with; where’s the line between believing victims and voiding one’s own ability to determine bullshit.

Because let’s face it, in this era, everyone can make themselves a victim in a heartbeat, by referencing feelings. I hear it all of the time, and while in many cases, there’s legitimacy, in a lot of cases, it’s herd mentality, jumping on a trend to abdicate one’s own responsibility in one’s own life.

Framing is everything, and I think it behooves us to be both harsh in the judgment of those who would exploit others and open-minded to the possibility that maybe not all accusations are legit (intentionally or otherwise – sometimes people just can’t see that their hurt or spite isn’t the whole picture).

Anyway, how we got to me treading the line on cancel culture from baseball, I don’t know.

Target: 900 words
Written: 192 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Wishsong Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Once And Future 8-10, Die 12
Music: Natural History: The Very Best Of Talk Talk, Talk Talk (talktalktalktalktlkatlkatalktaltkaltkallfuck)

irritating radio hosts

We know a guy who runs the morning radio show on the local radio station. He sounds like a nice guy on the radio, sort of, but in reality, he’s kind of an idiot.

First, he’s a Doug Ford guy, so I think one must immediately call his intelligence and integrity into question (as one would anyone who supports these hard right wingers). Secondly, he continues to play the same dozen songs from the late Eighties to early Two Thousands (to the point where I’m fairly certain his life’s dream was to be in a boy band). When he’s not in, more modern music (on the contemporary pop station, surprise!) gets played.

He domineers his cohosts, to the point where when he’s not there, they have difficulty establishing themselves as a primary.

Personally, he’s never been anything but rude and dismissive to us, despite us being friends with his long time girlfriend (that he refused to marry or have kids with, despite that being kind of the whole thing with her). He’s definitely a bit sexist, and possibly, you know, one of those “not that there’s anything wrong with that” homophobes.

So, yeah, his voice annoys the fuck out of me.

See? It’s not only bad pop that irritates me.

Target: 900 words
Written: 848 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Gregor And The Curse Of The Warmbloods, Suzanne Collins
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 32-33, The Wicked + The Divine: Christmas Annual 1, The Wicked + The Divine: 1923 1
Music: Us Against The Crown, State Radio

return from blue mountain

Sounds like a cheesy Eighties find yourself adventure or maybe even a horror movie, where the kind of geeky lost soul goes somewhere, has an adventure, realizes it was all bullshit, and then comes back to sweep the girl of his dreams off her feet.

You know, the girl he’s only ever really known in passing, and who, in reality, would never date this guy who comes out of nowhere with his newfound perspective on life, all based around love (love he has for her, but she’s never really thought about him; she’s too busy diddling over the football star).

He’d have had some partying fun, met a girl who was maybe manipulative, but who would have taken him through his first real sexual experiences, but then betrayed him unexpectedly, making him realize he didn’t actually want what he thought he wanted, and so, he comes down the mountain, proposes to the girl, who is (because this is all about him and not her) expected to swoon and drop everything to be with this brand new bodhisattva/reformed bad boy, because love, and we all jump onboard and presume happily ever after, but really, what do these people even know about each other?

There’s likely some gratuitous nudity, because in this world, women are objects, not people, so making lewd jokes at their expense and paying some struggling actress to doff her top (and probably threaten that she’ll never work again if she doesn’t, or promise that the big studios will come running, and other big stars did it, and also, other stuff, behind the scenes, you know how it works, wink wink nudge nudge), and we’re all just fine with it because we love sexual freedom (which we do), but we also love the exploitation of women as a secondary class, and if we can combine the two… Hollywood!

Anyway, we’re back from Collingwood, and let’s hope that movie never gets made.

It sounds positively horrid.

Target: 900 words
Written: 247 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Gregor And The Curse Of The Warmbloods
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine: 455 AD 1, The Wicked + The Divine 29-31
Music: Urban Hymns, The Verve (one of my all-time favourite albums... simply one of the best)

not-so-new beds

So, our new beds were a no show. I took the day off to completely dismantle and remove two beds, and the fuckers didn’t even have the courtesy to show the fuck up.

How the fuck does a company, where one of the absolutely key components is delivery, not have any kind of contingency plan if one of their movers calls in sick?

That’s bad fucking management right there, made worse by the asshole who called and said, “well, what do you want me to do about it?”, as though this were somehow our fault. What a fucking asshole.

Of course, we asked for some kind of compensation, for time taken off and aggravation. Her response: “It’s not my fault someone called in sick.”

Like… really? She offered to have the manager call back, but like a coward, he did not.

If we didn’t want to have to go back out mattress shopping again, I’d demand all my money back right now. That’s some poor goddamned management right there.

We were thinking of getting a new kitchen table and TV there, but fuck that shit now. Assholes.

Fuck the muthafuckin’ Brick. You wish there was some way to tell someone up higher, but their website doesn’t even allow for proper feedback, so you know this company doesn’t actually give a shit.

Man, I’m tired of exploitive, incompetent, uncaring assholes.

Target: 900 words
Written: 870 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Happiness Of Pursuit, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl 4-6, The Wicked + The Divine 17
Music: Uprising, Muse

caught up, okay

I’m okay. I’m probably okay.

I mean, nobody’s really okay, but I’m okay-ish. All my idols are being destroyed one by one, which probably means one shouldn’t have idols. The lovely men and women of the world never seem to be the ones at the forefront, the darlings; it’s always the guy nobody really realized until they were gone.

Also, again, no correlation between talent and being a good person.

(See Spacey, Kevin)

It’s easy to go off the rails, and I think we underestimate how much fame can affect a person. How when people start throwing themselves at you and it’s no longer an effort to earn things, one can become entitled to the point of criminality.

For the most part, we let them get away with it, which is why it’s such a goddamned shame when the public image is ripped away.

Fuck ’em, for the most part.

But still. The Usual Suspects, Neverwhere, The Belgeriad… still good, or even great, even if the ones that created them are monsters.

It’s a conflict that never ends; is great art made less great by bad behaviour, or is bad behaviour just one facet of an artist, to be divorced or overlooked when evaluating the content of the work?

No one is perfect; some men are far less so.

There is no answer here, only acknowledgement.

Perhaps we’re just fooling ourselves, because we want to believe. We want to enjoy. We want to love.

But humanity is complex; there are ever demons with which to be dealt.

Target: 900 words
Written: 949 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Happiest Days Of Our Lives, Wil Wheaton
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 12-13, Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl 1-2
Music: Up To Here, The Tragically Hip (fucking seminal, man - if Gord Downie is ever outed as a rapist or racist or whatever, I will lose all faith in humanity.)

crowfest

I feel like it’s such a cool idea that needs better execution. Vendors, buskers, but like what about the other public stuff? I’m sure the gala was cool, but that’s limited to whoever can afford tickets.

Beyond that, there should be dark movies in the park, dark dances, dark whatever.

Like early Hallowe’en, but crow themed.

Anyway, I had a couple of nice glasses of wine while people watching, and the dogs were happy, even when our waitress tripped over her.

On a side note: that boss clearly has a type and one must ask in this day and age, is it still okay only to hire nothing but attractive girls and put them in the shortest miniskirts possible? Like, I understand the need for uniforms in a customer service business, and she was great, knew what she was doing and seemed very nice and all that, but yeah. I hope her and her fellow waitresses don’t have to put up with a lecherous owner or manager. With all the stories that have come out over the last few years, one has to wonder.

Anyway, all in all, Crowfest, in its third year (and finally having realized that if you’re going to have people outside, you don’t want it in late October/November) remains a nugget of untapped potential, going who knows where.

Sounds familiar.

Target: 900 words
Written: 2923 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Unholy Night, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: Phonogram: The Singles Club 7, The Wicked + The Divine 1-3
Music: Up, R.E.M.

friday the 13th

Thank the universe, finally a day I can get behind.

I’ve always had luck with this number, probably being born on it (and its opposite, seven), so I feel like my entire life is a good luck, bad luck story, but with most of the luck actually being supplied by my own decision making and the unfortunate decision making of others.

Plus, you know, random fate.

We control our response, our decisions, our behaviour.

When we talk of freedom, this is what we mean.

Total freedom isn’t freedom from responsibility or consequence.

It’s giving in absolutely to the knowledge that total freedom means total responsibility.

We are responsible for the consequences of our choices, our actions, our words, our behaviour.

Sure, we can have neuroses and trauma and all that informing it, but we are not helpless.

Don’t believe anyone who says you are, or that you just have to snap your fingers and you can move past it.

It’s not easy; but not impossible. Total freedom means total acceptance of what is, and making the decisions and taking the actions that you want to take, and understanding that if you make poor decisions or demonstrate shitty behaviour, there will be consequences for that.

That’s what Republicans and Conservatives don’t seem to understand: freedom is not freedom from consequences. It is not a license to behave as irresponsibly as you want without any fear of retaliation or judgment.

Guess what? You can say whatever your want, and act however you want, but you live within the world; the world can (and probably will) push back.

Target: 800 words
Written: 530 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Hilarity Ensues, Tucker Max (I recognize the irony of this blog post versus this book)
Comics: The Magdalena v3 1-4
Music: The Unraveling, Rise Against

work drama

You’d think a place I left ten years ago wouldn’t have any power over me, but they’re still playing their same games with my wife.

What a fucking joke.

A few years before I left, the owner changed from one brother to another, and unlike the original brother, who was very hands on, and respected work, the new one brought in others to run it for him.

I gather he’s largely absent now, and has left the running of the joint to this incredibly narcissistic piece of shit he brought in who destroyed the whole “work hard, do the right thing” culture in favour of one that emphasizes pettiness and sycophancy.

One thing I am not is a fucking sycophant. Others can lick that brown, but I’m only doing that for a woman I’m trying to get off. Some ego-driven prick can go fuck himself.

Anyway, after a couple of years of busting my ass, doing all the work, the right things and watching as others, who had done nothing but kiss up move on past me and take credit for my work and ideas, of watching friends and co-workers, good people who worked hard, get fucked over and stigmatized because they didn’t lick this man-child’s boots, I left.

Unfortunately, my wife stayed.

She’d dropped into a nice space where everyone left her alone to run her team. Hell, I’m not sure they even know what her team does, despite it being kind of critical. This man, to whom she is a direct report, hasn’t talked to her in four years.

FOUR.

YEARS.

Could you imagine having a boss that didn’t bother to speak to you for four years? Well, in this case, it’s a fucking blessing.

Unfortunately, by law, they were required to create a pay equity chart, ensuring they weren’t paying women less than men for the same job and so on (they were, surprise). Mostly, they used it to reward themselves and their sycophants, but in doing so, they left my wife completely off the list, and the team she runs on the same level as the custodians (a huge slap in the face for a highly specialized group of porting experts).

Well, despite the fact that she didn’t want to make waves, because of the quiet little nook they’d found themselves, she was compelled to ask by her team and her own need for a raise, which everyone else seemed to have gotten.

She didn’t do it rudely or aggressively. She just said: hey, my team has questions about their place on the list, can you explain or re-evaluate? Oh, and also, you’ve left me off the list.

She didn’t ask for money or promotion or anything like that. But all the other leaders of specialized teams were listed explicitly; several bumped in pay. She wasn’t even on the list. Maybe it was an oversight.

Well, guess what?

This motherfucker and the other ass-kissing sycophants and petty pricks who made the list decided “HOW DARE SHE”.

I mean, dude. You fucked up. You forgot her on the list. Just put her on the list. Simple oversight. It doesn’t actually even require the bump in pay (though it probably should). Just add her to the list.

Nope.

Vindictive motherfuckers, for having the temerity to point out that they missed her on the list, they’ve gone on a hellbent drive to destroy her and her team, removing people, automating shit and screwing around her hours.

Oh, and that pay equity list? After six weeks of no answer, they came back stating your team is where it’s supposed to be, and despite you being the leader of the team and having explicitly written out a hundred things you do beyond what your team does, we’ve decided that your duties are not sufficiently different enough to require your own classification. Never mind the fact that as leader, her responsibilities are different, that she’s got more responsibility, more accountability and that EVERY OTHER LEADER HAS THEIR OWN DESIGNATION.

Nope.

Fuck you. You’re not on the list.

Everything that’s happened since she reached out has been a product of the vindictiveness of small, insecure men and their tiny… egos, aghast that someone who wasn’t an asskisser dared to question them.

Keep in mind that she didn’t even want to point it out. Her team begged her to say something. I told her she should, because maybe it was just an oversight, not reckoning on the fact that this piece of shit and his cronies were truly this horrible of people.

And she didn’t ask aggressively. She was as demure as she could be, like a timid little mouse begging for the tiniest little piece of cheese, off a block big as a house. Four years of no contact, and the first time she reaches out, they set out to destroy and punish her and her whole team.

For asking the questions they were supposed to ask about placement in the Pay Equity act. Fuck sakes, they requested feedback, specifically if they missed anyone.

That fucking place is the shits, and that man has absolutely destroyed any culture of doing the right thing or being, you know, good people. I’d love to come back one day as a consultant bent on culling the wheat, because ninety percent of upper management would be gone the first day.

Useless, overpaid, insecure pricks who contribute nothing and make everyone else miserable.

Christ, the PTSD from that place is strong; my blood pressure jumps 10-15 points just thinking about it.

What bothers me most of all is the choice being put to her now, and it’s complete shit. Stay silent, play ball, let them abuse her and punish her and her team, or fight back and probably get canned.

And as she’s said, we don’t have that fight in us anymore.

Sure, we could tie that up in legalities for years, but man, who has that kind of time and money? I know the HR guy there; he sculpts dismissals around the fact that they’ll challenge the company’s garbage behaviour in court. He makes the initial offer big enough that fighting back means losing money, for lesser reward. He’s told me this, to my face, back when I was running their tech support.

Let ’em come, he says. We’ll throw so much money at it, drag it out for years. We’ll bankrupt them before they ever see a dime or a decision, and when they get it, it will probably be less. Take that, minorities and other people we’ve bullied and/or screwed over.

Where’s the justice in that?

Is this what the Pay Equity Act was meant to do, Canadian government? To allow pieces of garbage another outlet to punish those they don’t like, to bully and silence them into subservience, with the threat of ruining their lives consistently hanging over their heads in the petty, tiny hands of a insecure egotist whose narcissism and need for constant validation overruns everything he does?

There is no justice in this world unless pieces of shit like that are held accountable for their godawful behaviour, and can no longer use their positions of power to silence good, hardworking people just trying to get by.

It’s fucking criminal.

Target: 800 words
Written: 2276 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Hail To The Chin: Further Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Ash Williams
Comics: Untold Tales Of I Hate Fairyland v2 5, I Hate Fairyland v2 11-13
Music: The Rolling Stones Rock 'N' Roll Circus, The Stones et al

the first day of school

Not that this matters to me, not having young kids, but it seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest. So many things happening.

I laid the birds fall haiku to rest; the reception has been fairly meager but divine, having garnered more reads than I would have expected (~1600 by my guesstimate), which is crazy.

Secondly, my wife’s work released v2 of their Pay Equity Act chart, which was unchanged from the first one and reiterated the vindictiveness the COO and his cronies have against certain people. I have a lot to say about that, but we’re still figuring out the best path forward.

And then, of course, unreasonable human beings being unreasonable, and catching poor, defenseless creatures who can’t speak for themselves in between. No one’s vanity should come over another being’s life. I’m disgusted by the whole thing, especially when there’s such an easy solution to be had, if only one particular party would stop being entirely unreasonable and give the tiniest little bit (or one would stand up for his damn self for once and realize none of this behaviour is appropriate, normal or healthy). The level of selfishness involved is appalling.

Let’s just say that entitlement and selfishness bother me most of the time in other people, but when it reaches this point, I’m at a loss for words. The whole thing is disgusting.

Yes, the first day of school made me want to scream. To rage. But against what? Injustice? This world gets less just every day. Selfishness? This is a good one, but the selfish don’t feel guilt like the rest of us. Only their own vanity, their own narcissism needs feeding.

Taking responsibility for one’s bad behaviour requires understanding that one has committed bad behaviour in the first place, and I’m sure that none of these people would be willing to admit that.

After all, that wouldn’t get them what they want, no matter the expense to others, and no matter how small and petty the behaviour was.

At the end of the day, I would like to reshape my life to exclude all of it, but circumstances being what they are, we must suffer through the shit; we cannot control the actions of others, only our reactions to them.

The question is: how much shit are we willing to take, to hold onto jobs, onto love, onto relationships with the innocent victims of another’s sociopathy?

How far must we go? How much must we endure?

And is it worth it for the scraps we are thrown from the table?

Anyway, fuck today and most of the people involved.

Maybe reason will rule the days to come, but I doubt it. We aren’t that lucky.

Target: 800 words
Written: 649 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Hail To The Chin: Further Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell
Comics: I Hate Fairyland v2 7-9, Untold Tales Of I Hate Fairyland v2 1
Music: Standup, Bill Hicks (in which he destroys his own comedy recording and issues one of the angriest takedowns of a heckler ever, beautifully.  I'm not sure "I'm a drunk cunt!" wouldn't get him cancelled nowadays, but hey, I laughed)