Category: politics

the yankees are still a thing?

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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)

return from blue mountain

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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)

caught up, okay

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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

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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

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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

/end rant

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I guess I should apologize. I hate to rant like yesterday, that shit needed to get off my chest.

Not only for the release, but because we know, ultimately, we can’t do anything about it.

What are the options? Fight back, get fired? Lose our second income? Go to court for probably years in order to either lose or get less than we deserve, and not enough to pay the bills?

Quite frankly, any system that allows this is not just.

One should never silenced solely because the other person, the clearly guilty other person, has more money than you.

A system that doesn’t protect its least powerful can never be a just system. A system that allows the threat of having to engage in the system as a means to silence dissent can never be a just system.

Our system is broken.

Target: 800 words
Written: 144 words

Read: It's Just A Thought, Thomas Sterner
Comics: Ain't No Grave 1-2, I Hate Fairyland v2 14-15
Music: Uno, Muse

what’s not to love

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Other than Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and all their little minions, the villionaires (thank you, Skottie Young for that phrase) ruining the planet and demonstrably making worse the lives of billions of people?

Other than them?

Other than those assholes?

Villainaires? It’s such a good term. We just have to decide on one. It screams [title of book], doesn’t it?

I’ll just go ahead and trademark that right now, then?

Target: 800 words
Written: 583 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Grimm's Fairy Tales, by This Shit Is Taking Forever
Comics: Image! 11, I Hate Fairyland v2 5, Untold Tales Of I Hate Fairyland 1-2
Music: Oh, Fuck, Even More Bootleg Rolling Stones Live Shit, The Rolling Stones

ask forgiveness, fuck you

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I mean, that’s the gist of that phrase, right?

Its origins are obviously in the idea that certain people or organizations act as gatekeepers and therefore, the way to be successful in that field without these fucking creation cops is to just do it anyway and ask forgiveness after it works out.

The problem, like most other platitudes, is that it’s been co-opted (sort of) to become something worse.

Allow me to explain.

Not bothering to ask for permission has been adopted by the extortionists masquerading as capitalists and fascists masquerading as politicians – do whatever the fuck you want and if someone complains, well, then, they must be a whiner or a gatekeeper.

We’ve forgotten the ask forgiveness part.

We’re just doing whatever, fuck permission, and fuck you.

There’s more, much more to be said on that, but I went full marathon today and my brain is D-E-A-D.

Tomorrow, maybe.

Target: 800 words
Written: 2814 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King (so classic, but I'm a little irritated my Kindle copy updated and all the extras somehow disappeared - not what I fucking paid for, Amazon)
Comics: Middlewest 11-14
Music: Live Shit, Local FUCKING H (talk about bands that bring it live)

anyway, back at work

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Perhaps we could just do away with the whole work thing and just kind of live?

I know that’s not really practical if we want, you know, stuff and food and shit.

But maybe we could make it less horrible, so it’s, you know, less horrible.

Less life stealing.

More enjoyable.

Better.

Please make it better.

Perhaps if we remove the profit incentive and just focus on making cool stuff that’s actually useful and providing for our needs?

Target: 800 words
Written: 654 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh (finally, a bit of progress - it should never have taken this long for a 250 page book)
Comics: Bully Wars 1-4
Music: Random Covers, L7, Mudhoney

morning walks

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There’s something glorious about the Canadian Shield.

It seems almost immovable, grand on a scale that begs one to try and change it, but change it one cannot. Only in the most meager of ways.

It feels like a piece of me. It feels like home. Hard, but teeming with life. Gentle, but dangerous.

Unexpected depths. Untapped resources.

Like a good Canadian should be.

Target: 800 words
Written: 614 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, C.J. Cherryh
Comics: The Crow v2 2-5
Music: The Universal (I and II), Blur