Category: culture

vincent

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This is the third time I’ve written this post, and for whatever reason, WordPress refuses to save the draft and when I come back to it later, it’s MIA. It’s the bronze medal post, I guess.

Speaking of bronze medals, how good were Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier in their final performance? Vincent is one of my favourite songs (mostly through the NOFX version, but the Don McLean version is also great, which is what they used).

I’m not a figure skating expert by any means, but I always question the subject nature of the judging.

I mean, France was good, and the Americans technically sound, but Piper and Paul brought actual tears to my eyes. The story, the skill, the moment – I legitimately cried. How the fuck that rated a bronze is beyond me. The Kazakhs were brilliant as well, their high energy performance was head and tails above the eventually top two finishers.

The Americans shouldn’t even have rated. Sure, they were technically perfect, but there was nothing eventually remotely connective about the performance. Nothing about it touched me in any way. Nothing even seemed to be connected to the source material, in which they were were the fourth team to do Romeo and Juliet. The only part that actually seemed to be connected to the story was the ending, in which I’m pretty sure one of them stabbed themselves?

I thought they died by poison?

Anyway, Vincent was the performance of the games, better than any other performance we saw, and we’re very proud. Fuck the judges. Fuck America.

Paul and Piper, you were fucking brilliant – one of the all-time great performances ever at an Olympics.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1419 words, short story: Ultra Mundane

Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Fables 156-159
Music: 50 Cent Essentials, 50 Cent

olhao

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One street further on. Always go one street further than you think you should.

That’s the lesson I learned today, on a rainy day when I thought I’d brought us on a wild goose chase and we were stuck at a bird sanctuary with no birds (there were supposed to be flamingos).

What we found, one street further down was this beautiful waterfront, and the most amazing bakery I’ve ever seen.

Usually, in the displays, there are a few things I don’t care for, that don’t appeal to me. I’m not big on fruit or honey.

But this?

Jesus, works of art. I wanted it all.

And I would have had it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1264 words, short story: Never Worked That Hard

Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Everafter: From The Pages Of Fables 8-11
Music: 40 Oz To Freedom, Sublime

have you consider shooting yourself today?

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Because I have.

I won’t (and you shouldn’t either).

I don’t own a gun, and never will. Personally, I don’t think we should shoot anyone. I think guns should disappear into quaint relics of a dark past.

But I’ve still thought about it.

Anyway, don’t.

Release the Epstein files instead.

I’ve been thinking too much about loss and dead people.

Thank Tao my dog is going to be okay.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1476 words, short story: Skeleton Park

Read: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Comics: Fables 150, Fables: The Wolf Among Us 33-35
Music: 3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days..., Arrested Development

sick to my stomach

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At first, it was stress for my baby girl, but it turns out, she’s going to be okay. She’ll have to learn balance all over again, and she still walks like a drunk on black ice, but she’s going to live.

It sucks for her, but we were so not ready to lose another one.

What really made me sick was making the mistake of reading some of the Epstein emails.

America, either you’ve got incredible self-control, unbelievable cowardice or unmitigated depravity, but how you have picked up the torches and pitchforks and marched on the homes and offices of every single billionaire or politician named in those files is beyond me.

I suspect it’s a matter of all three, but holy hell. If you haven’t read these things, you should know it’s so much worse than you could ever imagine. Fiction isn’t that inhuman and sadistic.

An anger came up from somewhere absolutely primal reading some of these excerpts. I’m absolutely abhorred. It makes me ill.

These monsters aren’t human.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 898 words, short story: Skeleton Park

Read: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Comics: Fables: The Wolf Among Us 29-32
Music: 3, Violent Femmes

anyways

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I’m thinking a lot about dead people today. Mostly, I think about how many people have come before me, and how many will come after, and how every single one of them will die, and maybe people remember them and maybe they don’t, for good reasons and bad, and there’s tragedy in that.

There’s tragedy in loss, but there’s also tragedy living a life in mourning.

It can feel like a whirlwind, like a pit, like a maelstrom rising out of the earth below your feet.

And yet, we still must live. It’s a wonder anything survives, for any length of time. The only joy is in childhood.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1504 words, short story: Skeleton Park

Read: The Shooting Party, Anton Chekhov
Comics: Fables: The Wolf Among Us 21-24
Music: 23 Live Sex Acts, Against Me!

work done

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You know what?

I guess it’s for them to decide, but why do people go so far with the plastic surgery and injectables that they no longer look human?

Do they think they look good still?

Dude, you look like Jack Nicholson as the joker, when he painted his face pink.

That shit is weird, bro.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1300 words, short story: Skeleton Park

Read: The Shooting Party, Anton Chekhov
Comics: Fables: The Wolf Among Us 17-20
Music: 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day (been a green few days)

so yesterday was weird, eh?

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I’m not religious by any means, but I do believe in a realistic spirituality.

There’s more in heaven and earth and all that. Of all of the religions I’ve studied, Taoism seems the most logical and least formal, as well as the most in line with my beliefs.

Buddhism is, as well, but there are formalities and sexism and dogma with that, which are all things I try and stay away from.

Meditation is something I do; not a formal belief system that requires me to behave a certain way.

Ursula Leguin inspired me to study more into the Tao; that last contained notes I made on the opening passage.

I thought I might share them over time. People can bite back, discuss, suggest, casually realign my thought process by pointing out where I’m mistaken, what I’ve missed, or perspectives I haven’t discovered yet.

Personally, I love that.

Perspective and presence are what it’s all about, really.

All that is good – empathy, compassion, the enjoyment of life – stems from such things.

And who knows what’s beyond it?

Target: 1500 words
Written: 817 words, comic: The Stuff 5

Read: The Broom Of The System, David Foster Wallace
Comics: Fables 141-143, Fairest 27
Music: Veni, Vidi, Vicious, The Hives (FUCK.  YEAH.)

you still have to write stuff

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And read.

And write.

And submit.

And follow up.

And debate whether it’s worth putting up stories on literary sites for critique when idiot admins are only going to fail to recognize that the misogynist is the BAD GUY. Seriously, I’ve two other stories I’d like to put up on Wattpad, one about a woman who gets revenge on a guy who kills a girl for rejecting him and another about a man who rants on how terrible his wife is, only to realize his neglect, infidelity and emotional abuse has caused her to commit suicide.

These are not ambiguous stories, in terms of who the bad guy is.

But I’m afraid, since Get Back Again was pulled, because whoever complained and whoever was responsible for reviewing the claim saw the story and missed the fucking point.

THE BAD GUY IS THE POV.

HE’S THE FUCKING BAD GUY.

It’s not a manifesto; it’s a bad dude who’s perspective is that he’s a good guy.

We’re all the heroes of our own stories, isn’t that the platitude?

Apparently, no one told them.

If it’s not a werewolf or vampire bad boy romance, they don’t care.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 3687 words, comic: The Stuff #3

Read: Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn
Comics: Fables 130-131, Fairest 16, The Unwritten 50
Music: 2+2=5, Radiohead

why are some things so bad?

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Like this insanely bad commercial for Tim Hortons (which admittedly, is awful at basically everything).

How does something get that bad?

We talk about the human condition, and human potential, which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately because of The Stuff, and I think…

How is that someone’s potential? To make a fucking TERRIBLE commercial with an AWFUL jingle for BAD food? That’s what you chose for your life?

Fuck, man. I know I’m no great shakes, but shit. I’m not I-make-ads-that-the-MOST-mediocre-can-look-down-on bad.

Right?

Target: 1400 words
Written: 495 words, comic: The Stuff 3

Read: Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn
Comics: Fables 128-129, Fairest 14-15
Music: June 26, 1999, Metro/Smart Bar, Local H

sellin’

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I was reading old posts (Christ, 2024 Empty, what the fuck were you thinking?) and I still haven’t figured it out.

How the fuck do I get people to buy my stuff without having to go full social media whore or pretend to be something I’m not?

People both love and hate preachy; see Tolle, Eckhart.

But I hate it. I’d rather be honest (even if I’m not always) and show warts and say, here, I did something cool!

Or better yet, take myself fully out of the equation.

Here’s a cool thing. Enjoy!

Don’t worry about the man behind the mask. We never used to.

Now, it’s up to us to be paragons, or be cancelled.

Unfortunately, only one of those things is ever actually possible. Anything else is a fucking act.

PR to stave off the betrayal when we find out we aren’t actually perfect.

Flawed in private, public perfection. Fuck that. I’m perfectly imperfect, and proud of it.

It’s the only way we ever could be. It’s only how we feel about that fact that makes a difference.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1267 words, comic: The Stuff #2

Read: Secrets And Lies: Digital Security In A Networked World, Bruce Schneier (we're into the weeds now)
Comics: Fables 122-123, Fairest 8-9
Music: November 1994, Astoria Theatre, London, Beck (bet you thought it was going to be Nirvana)