we are all going to die

I mean, probably. Well, definitely. The question is really when and how.

Is it when Trump starts the end of the world? Is it a pandemic exploding through us because morons think vaccinations are somehow worse than the disease they’re designed to protect against?

Is it climate change?

When I write, I’ve often dreamed of it as being read still hundreds of years hence (I imagine that’s true of many artists). At this point though, hurtling toward climate collapse at least, I’d be happy if we still had books at all in twenty years. Or if anyone was around to read them.

Maybe someday, aliens will settle our barren, self-destroyed plant, and find our written missives and using supercomputers we haven’t dreamed of, translate them and think, Jesus, what a bunch of fucking assholes.

And they blew it all up.

Damn, dirty apes.

(A story, as told by a fatalist, using cultural references aliens probably won’t get, because I don’t think we ever beamed Charlton Heston to space. We are the monkeys, man! The monkeys are us!)

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1071 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Tesla: Man Out Of Time, Margaret Cheney
Comics: Fables 40-43
Music: The White Stripes, The White Stripes

night market

A thoroughly enjoyable evening, after last night’s thoroughly enjoyable oyster bar.

Followed tomorrow, probably, by thoroughly enjoyable heartburn.

My scale is crying.

Why would a man eat an entire buffalo chicken and blue cheese pizza to himself?

What could possess him?

Devil’s work, if you ask me.

But don’t. The shame won’t allow me to answer.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 3020 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Complete Poetical Works, Edgar Allan Poe
Comics: Fables 24-27
Music: White Crosses, Against Me! (one of the best)

the rundown

Multiple meanings for that these days, as you’ll eventually see.

If there’s ever a movie written of my life, it’s going to be a lot of stuttering and masturbation, followed by a slow, tortuous breakdown in front of a computer.

I know it was a shittier time, but past generations had such grand adventures; our life is so regimented now.

You must do this. You must do that.

There’s no time for peace. No time for quiet.

Where’s my goddamned quiet at?

No, I run, and run, and run, it all just runs me down.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1823 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel (I was excited to read this, thinking I might comiserate, but this is far less a description of depression, but rather narcissism using depression as its party mask.  There's a point where she reaches true depression, I think, and there's a perfect description of it, which made me think, okay, finally, she understands, but then she magics it all away with a drug, and spends the rest of the book bemoaning the fact that she did it before it was cool, like some pretentious alt-rock kid pissed off the little indie band they liked signed a deal with a major label.  This book?  Five percent depression, the rest about as real as the proverbial cut my wrist width-wise instead of lengthwise cry for attention.  Disappointing.)
Comics: Fables 20-23
Music: White Chalk, PJ Harvey

well how about that

I’m still writing about feces and doormats.

Steinbeck wrote about the Great Depression. Fitzgerald about the vapidity of the rich.

Shakespeare wrote of love and loss and tragedy, of empire and family.

And I’m writing about feces on a doormat.

Perhaps I’m not really cut out for this whole literary genius thing. I’m the Meatballs of the Great Canadian Novel. This generation’s A Clockwork Orange is actually a rendition of Porky’s, by way of American Pie.

Porky’s did bring us Kim Cattrall, however, and that’s a fucking gift.

Screw Sarah Jessica Parker. I never liked her anyway.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2321 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay (and now I'm crying, damn it)
Comics: Fables 1-4 (finally, something good)
Music: Which Side Are You On?, Anti-Flag (something we all need to decide)

westworld

See, these are reboots that I can get behind, because the movie was whatever. The series though…

The problem is, we don’t need to need to reboot everything. Where’s our new ideas?

Where’s the innovation?

No wonder fascism is on the march.

Everything old is new again, and we’ve apparently run out of ideas.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1392 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Bloodstrike Brutalists 23-24, 0, Bloodstrike Battle Blood 1
Music: Where The Fuck Is The Revolution?, Closet Monster (RIGHT?)

reminders

This book is reminding me of why I love the Hip, and Gord Downie in particular, and why my heroes went from being rebels who gave everyone the finger, to nice people who weren’t afraid of hard truths and dark places.

Loudmouth boors be damned.

Give me a soft-spoken purveyor of real things, dark and light, any day.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1407 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v6 4-7
Music: Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?, Harvey Danger (one of my youthful favourites)

it’s nice to be reminded

Of just how bad you are at art.

How on another plane artists like Gord Downie, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen are.

How other people understand that.

How you’re a fucking peon and a boor, a shitpile no-talent with no future and no gravitas.

But hey, I wrote a book about the monster under the bed, and a guy getting humped by a dog, so there’s that.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 687 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Bloodstrike v2 2, Youngblood v6 1-3
Music: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Billie Eilish (this is a great album, don't care what you say)

remember, remembrance

I’ll be honest. I grew up on tales of World War II. My grandfather was in the army, although he didn’t talk about it a ton.

He did tell me a story I turned into a book for a project in public school; years later, I’d find it and discover he’d related the Great Escape. He was proud of his deployment though; I believe he was a medic. He still had his uniform folded and pressed in the attic, along with a number of commendations, letters from my grandmother and pictures of him in gear.

I should probably look into that.

Anyway, thanks, Grandad, for either punching Nazis or healing the ones that did, whichever it was.

I’m sorry we’ve let them come back into power. I am ashamed for us.

We will do better, I promise.

At least, I will. I can’t make any promises for these other assholes.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2203 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Comics: Youngblood Imperial 1, Youngblood v4 1-3
Music: Wheatus, Wheatus (fuck, earworm - it's going to get me days to get rid of Teenage Dirtbag)

a particularly difficult scene

I don’t like guns. They’re everywhere in movies, television and books, but they have never been a part of my life.

I’ve never fired one. Never even held one.

I haven’t been around one when it went off.

So, it’s hard for me to write about what the effects of such a thing are, how one reacts and all that, when one actually does. Unfortunately, it’s a crucial addition to this book. A late addition, but to really capture the zeitgeist of what it means to be a MAGA archetype, well, you need guns.

Second Amendment bollocks, really.

How fucking dumb are you people? You know if you get rid of the guns, then no one can get shot, right?

Of course, unless you’re an asshole who wants to shoot somebody, which I believe you all are, whether you admit it outwardly or not.

Fuckin’ stupid, man.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2713 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Quiet: The Power Of Introverts, Susan Cain
Comics: Spider-Man/Badrock 2, Chapel v3 1, Judgment Day: Alpha 1, Judgment Day: Omega 1
Music: What Else Could You Want?, Bullet Treatment (well, if that don't beat all)

remember

Now, more than ever.

Remember.

When the masks come off, it will be the face of the hopeful that shine, and the face of the condemned that bleed with fear.

Remember.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1623 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Quiet: The Power Of Introverts, Susan Cain
Comics: Shattered Image 1-2, X-Force/Youngblood 1, Extremely Youngblood 1
Music: A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight, Beck