Dumb and dumber

Do you ever look at someone and wonder how the fuck are they still alive? Unsurprisingly I do it often and have been for a very long time. From my first job smashing up that sock factory to my current employ as executive chef at a hotel, a lot of people have crossed my path in that span of time, the memorable ones are so remembered for being good workers, good people, funny, did something crazy or lastly...because they were dumb as hell...a group of people that you find it almost hard to believe that they are still breathing.

This instalment revolves around the two years that I spent as caterer to a sailing club in Toronto with my partners Peter and Caesar. This was a sweetheart gig for a our little catering business, no rent and no costs outside of what we were selling and our cut of the profits. A little gem that fell into our laps a few weeks after actually establishing the business as a side thing to our full time jobs. Exciting times ahead.

The good ole TSCC (Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club) was a meat and potatoes kind of place. No high cuisine here, feed the masses a few times a week, keep it simple keep it cheap. Not having to worry about the reducing demi on the stove or the salmon curing in the fridge left ample opportunity for trouble seeking, tomfoolery and our normal slightly anarchist based outlook on life. Actually, it would not have mattered a bit if we did need to tend to those things...we still would have done what we did to amuse ourselves.

Our dynamic within the company was kind of unique and opened up all sorts of avenues for exploration. All three of us were quite liberal in our thinking so we would often be at odds with club members and employees who seemed to gravitate to the more traditional and conservative side of life. This set the table, so to speak, for daily run in with the club managers that were hired for summer jobs. Two years at the club and we saw two "managers" flow through the place and they were both so ridiculously stupid that one could imagine that they were caricatures of real people. Thing One was named Matt and Thing Two was Scott, and a more moronic pair of half wits you could not find...where did they advertise for these guys and were they seriously the cream of the crop.

Our dealings with any management, to be honest, were minimal. We didn't answer to these guys and we were given pretty much free reign to do right, which we mostly did. Staff parties aside...just saying. Naturally, conflict would arise when one of these mental midgets would try and expand his power base outside of making sure the garbage was being collected and the boats had gas in them. As one would expect, we would start off the new relationship well enough...cordial and professional, but it wouldn't take too long for it to devolve into something else entirely. My ex mother in law used to say "the devil never rests"...I like to think stupid never rests.

Matt, it seems had been drop kicked in the head one time too many at his weekly "Drop Kick Matt" parties. He had a way of looking at you when he spoke that almost instantaneously made you question if he was even present while standing in front of you...dazed and confused were only the beginning. Matt made an art of looking like he was contemplating the universe when what he was actually doing was procrastinating on the job. Often I would find him staring out towards the lake, one hand resting on a shovel or an oar, seemingly deep in thought. Once or twice, sure whatever man...five times a day....something is wrong here.

When the early hustle and bustle of getting the boats launched in the spring gave way to school letting out and sailing school running in full force is when one truly saw his legendary creepy persona come out. This mullet wearing neophyte manager seemed to have a liking for the young teen girls in the sailing classes. So, now we find Matt standing in the same pose but without his shirt...and his gaze aimed towards the small sailboats dotting the area with class attendees all around. Picture the white underbelly of a fish sporting a mullet and saggy jeans....eeeeewwwwwweeeeeee

So while the work at hand was piling up along with the complaints about him, Matt would try and look sexy for 13 year old girls. How he never got hit with an oar is beyond me. Our dealings with him gradually turned more toxic because he wouldn't follow through in the things that he needed to do. Kegs weren't ordered, supplies ran short for the bar, the place was never clean enough and so on. He began to dislike us quite a bit because we were, as he put it...foul mouthed cooks. Who? Us? Put your fucking shirt on ass hole....how dare you say I'm foul mouthed?

He was, in short, a piece of work. But compared to Thing Two, Scott...he was the cats meow of a manager. Sir Scott came to us the following spring and to his credit, he actually started out pretty well. He seemed to be interested in cleanliness, didn't seem to want to extend his empire over us and wasn't standing around holding shovels down from the effects of gravity. The honeymoon, however, was short lived. It didn't take too long to see how boneheaded this guy really was.

I personally saw him stick a screwdriver into a wall plug when investigating why a fridge in the bar wasn't running...instead of say, plugging the fridge back in. When one mops a floor one generally mops oneself out of the room, walking backwards to ensure you leave a clean floor in your wake. Scott seemed to like mopping in front of him while he walked forward over the just mopped floor...thus leaving a trail of foot prints across the room.

One morning he came in to work and trudged up to the bar and asked for a coffee. As he sat down one couldn't help but notice the two shiners he sported along with a swollen nose. The boy had been in a fight, which he admitted to, but not for a second did I believe his Ramboesque story that he tried to peddle that day. He was defending the honour of a young bar patron and two muscle heads attacked him from behind....but not before he managed to inflict a certain amount of his own damage on them. Right.....this guy was 98 lbs soaking wet and I'm pretty sure he was afraid of his own shadow. If I was a betting man I would have said he drank one too many beers, looked at a girl the wrong way, said the wrong thing and her boyfriend cold cocked him. When he got up he made the mistake of saying something else to them both and she cold cocked him for the final count out.

My favourite story of Thing Two involved little ole me. One afternoon the sailing school got itself into some trouble by going out in swells that were just a tad too high for the novice sailors to handle. We had a couple of boats flip over....and this is where the crash boat is supposed to come to the rescue. But Scott wasn't manning the crash boat he was eating a hot dog on the deck. I happened to be standing outside when the boats tumbled over. Uhmmmmm, Scott....shouldn't you be out there, you know...saving people or something. To his credit he didn't take another bite of his dog and sprinted towards the crash boat. He implored me to come along and help which I of course did, nothing like piloting a souped up dinghy. Suffice to say I didn't get to drive the boat, I was tasked with pulling out some frightened and wet kids out of the water, resplendent in my white chef jacket as I was. Now...I'm so sailor but I'm pretty sure that you want to keep the motor running in rough waters so as to maintain some semblance of control in the swells. Scott it would seem was no sailor either but he was stupid, so he cut the engine...and while we made our way towards the break wall under the power of the waves he tried to restart the motor...and was failing miserably. "Hey you dumb fuck...start the fucking motor before we get smashed on that wall. Why are you looking out behind you...the wall is front of us....holy shit get out of the way" He actually tried to stop me from starting the motor...not wanting to relinquish control of the thing. This lasted two seconds as I grabbed him by the scruff of the shirt and pulled him away from the motor...I should have thrown him into the lake but I wasn't thinking straight. The motor was restarted and off to the relative safety of the dock we went.

Once safely tied up the true absurdity started...the sailing school guys were yelling at each other and at Scott, the kids were crying, Peter had moseyed on over to say hi to me and was there just in the nick of time to stand between Scott and I when he approached me shouting some nonsense over how I couldn't do that to him and the board of directors were going to hear about this. I've mentioned that I have been told I have a look, Well...Peter told me that the look made an appearance right there on that dock and if it wasn't for his proximity to me Scott would have certainly ended up locked in the trunk of my car. In fact he could see that look from when I was on the boat and that is why he had come down to the dock from the safety of the kitchen. To save me from the justifiable homicide wrap I was going to get.

Scott was let go the next day. I'm sorry, if you fall for the "is Mike Hunt here" gag you deserve what happens to you, so nobody had any sympathy over his dismissal. He's lucky he wasn't thrown into jail...one of the members kids that I pulled out of the water had a cop for a father. Consider yourself lucky it was only getting fired.

I've said it before and I have no doubt I'll say it again....I can't fix stupid. But I will certainly get my stories from it.

Ciao
D

Schadenfreude

For those of you not familiar with one of my favourite words or phrases, right up there with go fuck yourself, schadenfreude means the following:

 "pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune"

It could be the ridiculous and slapstick, like watching someone getting hit in the head by bouncing a baseball off of a wooden board at a carnival game and hitting themselves in the head...not once but twice. Yes, you guessed it...that happened to me. And Dom had quite the laugh at my own expense and it has made it into my repertoire of self deprecating stories.

It could be more personally gratifying, likened to the Karma is a bitch school of thought when your ex ends up with a dick head douche bag and suddenly you don't seem so bad anymore. In case you're wondering...not a personal experience for me. I'm quite content to let bygones be bygones and move on with my life...I wish her and all nothing but happiness and peace.

I will admit that I have gotten a certain amount of pleasure watching certain people in my profession meet their comeuppance for being dicks in their own right. I work in a business for people by people and I do believe in treating people as I wish to be treated, so when I see others treat people like dirt or serfs....I have a special place in my own personal hell for them. Fuck them.

This post might seem a tad weird coming on the heels of my last post of love and all that jazz, further proving to you that my mind truly goes off in many directions and that I can tend to ramble on in semi coherence. But I'm thinking maybe that's the point for me...I'm saying exactly what I think. Fucking the filters and making sure I am not living my life with fear as the ruler. I have a perspective that I view the world through and since this is my blog I get to say what I want, when I want and for how long I want. Sometimes it's painful, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it only makes sense to me and sometimes it makes sense to others...but it is always me.

So if I take a little pleasure from someone else's pain I don't take offence to someone doing the same because of my pain. In the end, it really doesn't matter to me. Hell...I put my pain out there on full view. Case in point To all the girls I loved before If it makes you smile or laugh at me, fill your boots my friends, there is more where that came from.

The idea that there is a single word to encompass the Karmic principle as well as taking some guilty pleasure in watching someone fall down a flight of stairs could only be put in place by the Germans...they're so damn efficient that way. And while their language can sound like bull frogs mating while being run over by a horde of warthogs in heat it is still a pleasurable thing to hear and understand when used correctly. Perhaps later we can explore other languages and their words used for grand designs.

For now, explore the possibilities that schadenfreude can bring you. Taken in proper doses and with an understanding that there is more to life than laughing at other peoples pain. I think maybe it helps us to understand another concept we should all be aware of. The "there but for the grace of God go I" principle seems a worthy counterpoint to schadenfreude. Who knows?

The day is ending and so I must sign off.

Ciao

D

What is the universe trying to say....

Please go to this link and read this fellows story.... Christopher Mitchell Allen

What the hell did this guy do to deserve this kind of bad Karma from the universe? If you wrote this as a script for a movie nobody would buy it...not believable they would say. And you thought the guy in The Revenant was having a bad few days.

Yet, there he is, truly inspiring people with his never give up, the world loves you and I love you message. I truly don't know how I would respond to this kind of misfortune and bad luck but it certainly puts into perspective anything I may be going through or have gone through. Which leads me to some reflection. On Scott and Fifi losing Simon to leukaemia in 2014 and how they reacted. With grace, dignity and humour. Or Gord Downie and his last months being spent fighting for others. Time and time again we are reminded, if we allow ourselves to see, the true measure of humanity and its greatness. I'm awe struck with the indefatigable spirit of us as a whole.

Which brings me to my point...kind of. With the clouds of doom and the ugly spectre of a raft of isms bubbling to the surface with Drumph being elected, it becomes ever so important for men and women of hope and good to fight even harder to ensure that this isn't the end of it all. I know it won't be the end simply because I know that enough people will come forth to stand up to bullies, racists, homophobes and misogynists that we will get through this. The important thing to remember is that we need to stand up. Call him and his ilk out every time. Phrases like give him a chance or see what happens are nice for the papers and in the spirit of coming together but we should always remember who he is and who he is surrounding himself with. Simply put, apathy is not an option when it comes to the current state of affairs we find ourselves in. In fact, it never was, but this game changing development brings in to sharp focus what we really have to deal with.

And I truly hope we, Canada that is, don't wimp out because of the a new direction down south. It is an imperative to keep our leaders feet to the fire at all times...because we have a responsibility to and because that's the only way to ensure we get better. Get out and vote, be active, say what you think. Be plural.

Mr Allen has gotten up from the mat more times than one would think possible and while I'm sure he has his dark days he should be an inspiration to us all for his desire to help and improve other peoples lives. Choosing the light over the dark is a choice...what we do after that choice is how we end up defining ourselves. Like Gandalf telling Frodo, in the face of regret and pity over their dire predicament..

"So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. 
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

What will we do? What will the world do? It's hard to imagine that anything one of us may say or do can make a difference but in a time of connectivity that we are living in now, surely we can muster the troops of goodness and responsibility to build a better response to the fear and hopelessness that the far right has cornered us into. To once again quote Monsieur Cohen...

"There is a crack in everything 

That's how the light gets in"

Reflecting over the total mess the world has fallen into in the past few weeks I am confident that the good side will triumph. Yes it sucks and yes it is depressing to think what this maniac will do and the damage he can cause but we the world need to take a deep breath and play the long game. We lost an inning or two....there's still time to win the game.

Ciao
D

Lovevolution

I unexpectedly found myself driving the streets of the city the other day on a couple of quick errands, always a joy during the traffic chaos that this tiny city offers up...especially around the bridge. Since I have mostly mastered my road rage, reducing it to venomous stares, universal shrugs of WTF and an occasional extended finger. This new found inner peace allows me to pay slightly more attention to what I am hearing on the radio, so when I'm not air drumming or singing my heart out I listen to the CBC most often.

And this day I was listening to the "Q" while navigating around and I caught the tail end of an interview that the host was doing with D'bi Young Anitafrika. I've never heard of her but Mr Google tells me she is an actor, playwright and dub poet. In the short time I was listening I was moved by her passion and her message. The message I think is more important than ever in light of the coming chaos and uncertainty that will goes like hand in glove with the ascendancy of one Mr Drumph.

In a week where he won the election and phrases like the House Committee on Un-American Activities are bandied about, Leonard Cohen passed away and the annual Remembrance Day ceremony took centre stage...maybe pulling back and truly thinking about the ways of the world is in order. Maybe we react too much instead of being proactive. I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to throwing the mud at something I don't like, hell it's a pastime for a lot us. I seem to always come back to the idea that it starts with a change of direction....opening the clenched fist in an embrace of understanding and acceptance. She talked of a lovevolution...a revolution of love, using mentoring as a vehicle of spreading positive ideals...check out the segment and feel her passion D'bi Young Anitafrika on "Q"  You get high marks in my book when you are connected to Stephen Lewis and his foundation.

It's never going to be easy but now, especially now, we need to come together...throw off the fear and hate and use the message of hope and love as our starting point. While the darkness seems to be overwhelming, take solace in the words of Leonard Cohen...

There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in

Peace and love my friends

And on that note....

How appropriate that today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the coming out party for Adolph and his goosestepping brown shirts. Today we awoke to the stunning news that Drumph had won...against the odds, against the polls and pollsters and against better judgement. He is the President Elect...excuse me while I puke.

I'm not an expert on the political landscape and so it would seem can be said of every "expert" trotted out over the past year and a half of non stop electioneering, but I can't for the life of me see how this was possible from a country that had voted in Barack Obama, twice. What I can say is that no one, not one single person knows what will happen now. Anyone that says they know are just trying to get their fifteen minutes. With the trifecta of a Republican Congress and Senate alongside his Presidency, anything is possible...nothing will surprise me anymore but I suspect there will be much to worry and wring our hands over. Every Thursday could turn out to be Tuna Thursday, where he and his cabinet ride 300lb yellow fins down the Potomac or we could see images of internment camps full of "undesirables". Nothing is off the table.

I get that there is a large portion of the population that feels disenfranchised, left behind and angry...and these people just voted with their feet and have raised to the top post in the land, a man that, I think, pays lip service to the people that just voted him in. Well, now The Donald will have to deliver to his supporters...good luck I say as more than likely he will be in it for him. And if I'm wrong and he defies his image and actually does good, I'll be the first to say it...I was wrong. But I'm betting on somewhere in between Tuna Thursday and Armageddon.

Trumpsters collectively felt short changed, marginalized and lost at sea. The establishment ignored them at their own peril and a valuable lesson has been learned...and now we have to get used to the idea of a President with a pocketbook agenda. It's almost hard to believe that he won't be mired in scandal after scandal but the damage he will wreak in the meantime will be profound. The Supreme Court is not a plaything and this orange clown will get to name at least one justice. The steps forward to a progressive society may well be set back to the 50's. Nobody knows, and that's the scary part right now.

George Carlin called it though, "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups" Clinton must be devastated, Obama probably needs a stiff drink right about now at the thought of what this maniac may do to his work over the past eight years. His remaining days in office will be a dark cloud of doubt and fear. The people have spoken and one thinks they probably got what they deserved...since this is what they asked for, voted for. America just said "hold on to my drink, I want to try something."

The rights of women, minorities, the LGBTQ community and a whole host of others have a right to feel nervous and scared,he has provided plenty of fodder for this feeling. One hopes against hope that cooler heads will prevail in the months to come.

My Drumph rants will fade away from here for awhile I think...I'm tired of it all and especially of thinking of him. I didn't sleep well at all last night, like much of the world I suspect, and I just want to turn my attention elsewhere. Good luck America, and to the rest of the world...have hope, maybe he will surprise yet again.

Ciao
D

On the edge of a cliff

Finally the carnage is just about done. It's almost hard to believe but the election cycle from hell comes to a close tomorrow. Billions of dollars, words and eye rolls have brought us all to this place...staring into the abyss, hoping for the best but not believing it until the final declaration is made.

Despite the ludicrous nature of this entire process and the unlikely ascendancy of one Mr Drumph, Hilary Clinton should be elected as first female President of the Untied States. Knock on wood, because anything can and probably will happen. Drumph's refusal to acknowledge her as the victor aside, we should wake up on Wednesday to the coming new reality. A despondent and fractured Republican Congress, a possible Democratic Senate and a rather reviled Democrat President. Can you say grid lock and insanity? Well...say it, because that's pretty much what we're getting. And while that is infinitely better than the alternative of a Drumph presidency, it ain't gonna be a picnic for Madame President. Picture what Obama went through over the past eight years times ten...and that will be the real tragedy of electing her, the white boys club that will do whatever it can to avoid anything resembling governing in the interest of posturing and demagoguery.

If there is a God he would wipe out the Republicans, not in the biblical sense, but electorally. I think only then could one hope that they rebuild the common sense party into just that, as opposed to what the tea baggers and bible thumpers have hijacked the conservative arm of the country in to. The US, like Canada, is actually pretty evenly divided with liberals and conservatives but the far right, with God on their side, are yelling too loud for the moderates to be heard. Time to hit reset I think.

First a black President, now a woman. Nice, but I'll be truly amazed when an atheist transgender Muslim is elected with a Congress that reflects the actual make up of the country. Now that would be the highest glass ceiling don't you think?

In any event, I think I speak for many when I say, Mr Drumph, we hope to never hear your stupid voice, see your stupid face and hair and have to ponder the hatred and fear that you spout. Go back to that gilded cage you built and try launching another reality show or something. Fuck you!

Debt of Honour

When thinking about the upcoming Remembrance Day ceremonies and what I wanted to say about it, I found myself casting about a bit for some sort of relevance. A story that I can relate as to why Remembrance Day is meaningful to me, a connection beyond the simple fact that I do hold the day as sacred, maybe more so than any other "stat" day that is graciously bestowed upon us by the powers that be. But I don't...I don't have a grandfather that fought and died for our country in World War Two or a distant uncle or cousin that lost his life in Korea or Afghanistan. That lack of a tangible and specific connection to the horrors of war does not diminish the incredible amount of respect and gratitude I have for the people that have chosen to make sacrifices for our nation. Whatever their reasons for enlisting were, be it a sense of duty, patriotic fervour or simply for a way forward, these men and women put themselves in harms way for us and I think they deserve every possible measure of our respect. 

I try to imagine what it must have been like, taking a boy of my sons age and placing him in one of the hundreds of landing craft making that journey across the channel to the beaches of Normandy. All of 18 years old, knowing that the chances of survival were small, that death was near...the vision is unsettling, the reality must have been terrifying. The opening scene of Saving Private Ryan was supposed to have come close to depicting the horror of those first few hours...I'm sure it was worse, exponentially so.

I think it's easy to romanticize the idea of going to war to fight tyranny and evil personified in Hitler; to fight the good fight if you will, but reality strikes like a thousand knives when you are faced with the inescapable laws of physics. Bone and muscle are no match for fire and metal. And in that moment, when the realization comes that you may not get out of that fox hole alive is when, I think, the most heroic of all things happen...you move forward anyway. That's how Hitler was beaten, the sacrifice of many to stop an "ism" Getting up, despite the fear, together with your brothers in arms, and fighting for every foot of dirt.

Land and sea strewn with the wreckage of humanity, and lost amongst the carnage and totality of war is the warrior returning home to fight again. All too often suffering in silence, living with the memories, the severe shock to the psyche. We owe a debt of honour to all of these people, every last one of them, to help and support them. Always and forever.

Spare more than a moment, look around at the unbelievable amount of freedom that we take for granted. See how blessed we are when you consider the suffering at the hands of modern day Hitler's around the world....this freedom was guaranteed and won through sacrifice and through blood. Honour that unwritten covenant with those that died.

We will remember them