Category: politics

alone time

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There’s rumours we’re going back to the office full-time, and I think with all the changes I’ve endured, and how much time that’s cost me (and killed me, as far as getting shit done), I think it’s going to kill me.

Something will have to give, and I’m afraid it will be me and my sanity.

I don’t want to switch jobs again.

Unless it’s full time author.

Fuckin’ hell, Carney. You’re a real piece of shit, you know. First all the globalist bullshit, now this.

I’ll still never vote Con, but damn son. I was already on the fence on the Liberal Party the last few elections and only voted that way to avoid garbage like Scheer and Poilievre.

But if you have another one, I’m going hard left. NDP or Green, the whole fucking way.

Enough half-measures, done from fear of the right. It’s time to dump the centre, if the centre won’t listen either.

And it’s your fault, Carney, for being an unnecessary dick.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1105 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Tesla: Man Out Of Time, Margaret Cheney
Comics: Fables 44-47
Music: White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean, NOFX (hey, I don't name 'em)

we are all going to die

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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

truth telling

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I mean, I know we all think we know the truth, but the reality is that the truth is what it is and we are not always aware of all of the aspects of it. Multiple things can be true at any given time.

I have not lived an exemplary life. I’ve lied, I’ve cheated (my family and all my friends banned me from playing Monopoly) and probably worse, if I’m honest about it.

I am still not entirely honest with myself and the people around me, because I feel rejection. I have issues with insecurity and depression.

None of these things means I’m a horrible person by necessity, but neither do they make me an exemplary one.

Truth and perspective are the two things I chase most in my life, and as I get older and open myself up to that more, instead of living in safely comfortable fictions and denial, I find the truest thing I know is that truth and perspective are often not in accordance, but more of one inevitably creates more of the other.

Enough perspective and truth is revealed; how could it not be?

Truth knocks us out of our fictions, our blind spots; it provides perspective where none may have existed.

More truth. More perspectives. These are the only things that matter.

There is truth. There is perspective.

These things are not mutually exclusive. But one perspective, held without truth…

Well, there’s the rub, isn’t it?

Target: 1400 words
Written: 791 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel
Comics: Fables 5-8
Music: While You Were Out, Soul Asylum

well how about that

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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

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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?)

happy birthday, father

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Usually, we do this somewhere southern, but hey, Texas is fucking out.

Hopefully, the best birthday gift will come today, in Trump’s sudden downfall.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1117 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Bloodstrike 27-28, Youngblood v5 71-72
Music: When I Was Born For The 7th Time, Cornershop (featuring one of the catchiest tunes in 90s alternative history, but also, one of the catchiest tunes that carries on WAY TOO FUCKING LONG)

remember, remembrance

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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)

rosemary’s baby ii

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You ever think Donald sees that baby and thinks, man, I wish I could have that kid’s life?

Or do you think he’s just so worried about if Daddy loves him that he’s just jealous Satan actually thinks his son is cool?

Target: 1400 words
Written: 906 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Comics: Youngblood v3 1-2, Youngblood GT Interactive Special 1, Awesome Adventures 1
Music: What Hits!, Red Hot Chili Peppers!

rosemary’s baby

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You know, I’ve never actually seen that.

Was the baby really the spawn of Satan?

And was its name Donald?

Target: 1400 words
Written: 440 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Quiet: The Power Of Introverts, Susan Cain (well, that took way too long)
Comics: Judgment Day 3, Judgment Day: Aftermath 1, Youngblood Super Special 1, Awesome Holiday Special 1
Music: What Evil Lurks, The Prodigy

a particularly difficult scene

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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)