American Idiot

I might need some secret service protection soon. Seems I may have offended some Drumph supporters last night with a not terrible but not entirely nice comment I made on Donnie's FB page. I simply conveyed the belief that he is sucking the oxygen out of the world and that he was a liar. Well.....people be freaking out, calling me all sorts of names and telling me to mind my own business. Followed by declarations that Hilary was a known paedophile and Obama was a tootsie roll lying do nothing liar, and for sure a Muslim plant in their great white society. Seriously better than TV I must say.

I guess that was a precursor for the following rant, augmented by the stifling humidity that we all know how much I love. Let the festivities begin....

I am still beyond understanding why this orange turd still has the support of his base. Even if 75% of the allegations and innuendo about him are false the remaining 25% would be enough to throw the bum not only to the street but most likely in jail. One wakes up every morning not at all surprised by anything that he says or does, we have become immune to his buffoonery. His multitude of believers literally think that everything that comes out of his mouth is gospel...that the entire world is out to get him so they are going to defend him regardless of his transgressions.

He threatens the special prosecutor, cuts the legs out from his own attorney general, calls out fellow republicans for their failure to pass their healthcare bill, calls the Russian meeting that his son went to a fabrication, despite his son admitting it happened and still people are believing it is a witch hunt. I don't know what kind of weed they are smoking but I want me some...escaping reality in that way seems pretty good on this shit show humid afternoon.

One more time to the well...Donnie boy, shut the fuck up you moronic lying piece of cow dung. Stop shaking hands, stop tweeting, stop everything. You actually stand for nothing but your own self interest, that's why this Russian thing won't go away...it smells of collusion. But not for political purposes, I betcha it's the money...somewhere someone bailed you out or something to that affect and in return you're the puppet of Putin. If not....then he is playing you like a cheap fiddle. Either way your reckoning will come...I hope.

And if that wasn't insidious enough, your quick dismantling of reality with claims of fake news and outright lies is the gas lighting to end all gas lighting. How supposedly conscientious people in our party support you still, speaks to their end game...."I want mine". Those fuckers....yeah you, McConnell and Ryan and your filthy fuck heads that joined the orange turd in political divisiveness and simple awful behaviour should find out what a bag of shit tastes like.

Tax cuts for the rich in the belief that it will trickle down to the working class....what a crock of shit!! If you actually believe that, you're just plain stupid. But most of you know that your power derives from keeping the masses under the thumb of big everything. HMO's succeed because they make money off of peoples pain and suffering. Big oil have no desire to see the electric car and big banks...well, we know what you're all about. And look who Drumph has surrounded himself with....he drained the swamp and filled it up with worse things. Much, much worse things.

A huge bottle of bleach and plenty of sunlight to bring everything out of the shadows for some good sanitizing is what the doctor is ordering. Before real damage is done the breaks have to be put on this orange menace. That's job one. Job two is harder and much more important. Reform your system. Get the money out of politics and open it up to multiple parties. Get going to the grass roots and start wiping out those tea baggers and the religious right. Get them off school boards, state houses and local councils. They care not for the general public....simply their own agenda...which entails imposing their beliefs on to all. In the not to distant future America will be espousing creationism and gospel, Noah's ark replicas will be the new Disney land and there will be a 100 foot wall surround the country...unless people like that fucker are stopped.

Get to work America....NOW!!!!!!

The Whitewash

This past weekend there was a minor disturbance in the bowels of little old Halifax. Seems we have a statue in a park dedicated to Edward Cornwallis, who besides being the "founder" of Halifax was a bit of a, how do I put this? a feral beast that offered rewards for Mi'kmaq scalps. Actually decreed this. Nice eh? Fucking people, doesn't matter what generation it is there are douche bags through out them all.

So one can understand how indigenous people today could be upset with statues and schools and streets named after this clown and many others. Our entire country is littered with this type of objections glorifying and the original Canadians have a right to be upset about it. Not to mention all manner of large and small injustices that have stained the soul of our country when it comes to the deplorable treatment that indigenous people have suffered. Obviously we still have a lot of work to do.

Having said this I guess I question the action that this group of people wanted to take. In their words, the statue is coming down. They have had all they can stand and they won't stand anymore. I'll admit I am torn by this. On the one hand, I get it, as far as I, as a non native person, can get it. That statue symbolizes oppression and it stands there as a testament to his "greatness". It should come down. On the other hand, it isn't the only thing he accomplished in his life. He is woven into the history of the city the same as John A MacDonald would be for the country...and he was no saint either.

Do we run the risk of sanitizing our past in the name of reconciliation? Maybe there is a better way of achieving that outcome while addressing everyone's concern. It's our past, it happened and there is no denying it....maybe we can use this and other instances to educate, a way of ensuring this kind of thing doesn't happen again.

The Germans teach about the Holocaust and what their grandparents did during the Nazi regime. I'm sure that's not a comfortable subject at the dinner table over bratwurst and beer. So tell me Grandpa Wilhelm....were you a brown shirt wearing, goose stepping Nazi fuck back in the day? We learned today that you killed a lot Jews for being, well, Jewish...what do you have to say about that? If the Germans can learn to live with the shame that uncle Adolph brought on them, then so should we for all of our misguided attempts at assimilation and extermination.

It's uncomfortable and painful to think of our perfect little country being imperfect in some way, but again...that is our past. So, along with the smugness over Tommy Douglas and Terry Fox, we have to come to terms with Ryerson and Cornwallis.

The old adage that you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you came from certainly comes to mind, in addition, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Woven into our collective tapestry there are a lot of blood stained strands, we have to accept them as our past, learn from them and ensure that we never repeat them.

That's my two cents worth.

Ciao
D

The Reason

98 years ago my fiance, and now ex wife, and I were forced to take a marriage preparedness course through the church in the build up to our nuptials. It was part of the deal with getting married in the church, ensuring that you were ready to accept Christ in your marriage and you actually knew a thing or two going in. All snickering aside the course actually was kind of useful to me, but not in the way I'm sure it was meant to be from a church perspective or my ex's perspective. It's always fascinating to me when knowledge comes at me, be it from passed on wisdom or fortune cookie foolishness, I like to learn I guess.

So, what did I learn? In hindsight I learned that we don't know anything when we are young. Certainly not anything close to understanding the gravity of getting married, interpersonal relations and the real reason marriages fail. The affable priest, who I had known for a few years, talked about the importance of openness and acceptance of not only Jesus but each other within the context of the church and marriage. I do recall wondering if Father Callahan was into the sacramental wine again but of course I was viewing everything from my own prism...I'm much to independently minded to let a church dictate much of anything to me. My attending mass and being involved with the church, even in my limited way, was a direct result of my desire to do my part in making the relationship work with my ex.

No, what I learned was a little tid bit that even now seemed like a throw away statement from vicar Keith. Near the end of the session he had us all sitting around in a semi circle and spoke of things somewhat philosophically. Looking around the room, probably laying bets on who would stay together, he laid down some simple things to think about.

• If you think you are going to change someone into your version of a better person, you're doomed, people essentially stay the same
• Those little cute and slightly annoying habits that your life long partner may have will get less cute and more annoying over time
• Failure to communicate will lead you to divorce

Hmmmmmmmm, anyone care to comment on this?  You know I have my opinion but this isn't about that...I'm not going to point the finger at my ex and say see, the priest even knew. No, I'm more interested in the whole changing thing.

A few years ago there was a band called Hoobastank that had a hit with the song The Reason. I actually liked the song, it had a good little melody and despite its newness it kind of grew on me. At the time we were in the midst of our troubles in the marriage and I kind of took the message of the song to heart.

I've found a reason for me

To change who I used to be

A reason to start over new

And the reason is you

I had myself convinced, with a great deal of help from my ex, that I needed to change things, that I was the reason (get it?) that things were rough between us. You know what? I was the problem, at least half of it. And if I could listen to what she was saying and adjust a few things maybe we could save this. Trouble was that this is a partnership and the other person needs to be fully invested in the whole change idea as well and secondly, people don't fucking change!!!

It's a nice sentiment but a fools errand I think. We are who we are and to have faith in the ability to change the core of someone else is folly. Maybe a few small things can change, like I'll put the toilet seat down and fold the towels your way, but to think that someone could change my beliefs, my sense of jocularity, my capital "T" for Tom and capital 'F" for Foolery is just asking for trouble. 

Not to say that the sentiment of making changes for one that you love is bad, don't be silly, indeed it's probably a good idea to keep your soul mate in the equation that is love and forever. But equation, by definition, has more than one part and that everyone needs to be part of the discussion. And by looking at it as a way of bringing us closer together as opposed to keeping score and "winning" the fight over the other, we may actually be serving a higher purpose. Not the Jesus kind, the whole of us kind.

I have made plenty of changes in my life in the interest of harmony, an exercise of getting along and being part of a larger thing. Not an actual fundamental change though, nothing that I would have thought earth shattering. But what I had done was dilute "me" to a degree. I always thought of myself as the same guy but the outside world, those that knew me well, probably saw something different. In small increments I had "changed" into not myself....and eventually I realized that I couldn't do that anymore. Not if what I was living at the time was all that could be hoped for. Not one more day I remember thinking to myself as I said the divorce word.

Sound familiar? I know for certain I'm not alone. I finally screwed the courage up to say it out loud. And I'm happier for my choice. It wasn't easy and there continue to be challenges but on the whole I am far more happy than I was....reason was beat out by heart and soul. Don't be afraid anymore.

So, Father K, you were right, bigly. Hoobastank...go fuck yourself and stop being so wishy washy. I still like your tune but not the message boys.

Ciao

D

A Day at the Fair

As a young teen I used to love going to the "Ex" every summer. The Canadian National Exhibition, CNE or the Ex was a summer ritual for all us suburbanites. Before the time of Canada's Wonderland being launched your thrills could come only from the Ex. The Flyer coaster...a wooden death trap that visibly shook it's foundation as it whizzed by. The Zipper, The Skydiver, The Polar Express...all of them evoke memories. Some great and others....well, continue reading.

I don't know how the Ex compared to other big temporary extravaganzas. It always seemed to me to be a bit chintzy but what the hell did I know? What it provided was a distraction, a thing to do on a hot summers night, a chance to see some grown up shit going down. A chance to make an idiot of myself. True story.

As I started to think back to those glorious days more experiences started flooding back. This was going to be a post about hitting myself in the head a few times with a baseball but then I started remembering other events....lo and behold we have other things to talk about.

The CNE was where I was at when the Edmonton Oilers won the cup, yanking it away from the Islanders dynasty in 1984. A cheer ran through the crowd as a Canadian team had finally won the cup again and because Gretzky was a golden child at the time, we were happy the Islanders had gone down to defeat.

The Ex was where I had seen mob mentality in close up action for the first time and I and my buddies actually had  a very tiny cameo in this sad night. A few of us were riding the subway down to the Ex...riding to Bathurst as I recall and taking a streetcar or bus the rest of the way. Along the line we met two unlikely friends headed in the same direction. Swan, as he called himself, was a good looking likeable guy with long hair to match our own and an easy way about him. One could tell that everyone wanted to be Swan's friend. In fact, through the course of the night we would glimpse him in the distance every once in awhile, making out with a different girl each time. A blonde near the Zipper, a red head behind the Gravitron...you get the idea. I suspect Swan borrowed his name from the gang leader in the movie The Warriors. Tagging along with Swan was another fellow that looked as odd a match as possible. His head was closely shaved, he wore green track pants and carried a Kendo stick. Right?? If I was to guess I would say that Kendo man and Swan were childhood friends that went different ways but still hung out from time to time.

As we arrived at the Ex we all hung out for a bit to start but eventually went our own ways, us three and them two, to find adventure, vomit inducing rides and in Swan's case, lots of female attention. The night wore on, we were having a good time and suddenly there was a commotion. Fights were not an uncommon occurrence in those days. An 80's version of the The Outsiders really as some groups of people simply did not get along with other groups. Mostly we stayed out of it but from time to time it did affect us, as this night kind of did. The commotion was a sickening display of the crappy part of humanity. Kendo man was getting the crap kicked out of him by a small mob of leather jacket wearing wannabe hoods. I don't know what started the melee as it was already in full swing by the time we managed to get a view, but it's not hard to imagine that the Kendo man had said the wrong thing to the wrong guy....and when faced with retribution, made the worse mistake possible...used his stick to defend himself. I've seen fights before but I've never seen six guys beat the tar out of someone like that. Personally, I wanted to leave, under the guise of not being around when the cops showed up but really because I'm not at all comfortable with violence, especially this kind of display. But we stayed. The fight, if you can call it that, ended when Kendo man got the Kendo stick across the top of his head and was knocked out. It was sickening.

One year the bearded tattoo clad ride operator of the Sky Diver stopped the ride to let me out because as he put it, I was screaming like a little girl. Inside the death trap car, Humberto was spinning the car on it's axis non stop and the ride spun around the larger wheel...I do not like those kinds of rides! Although I didn't think I was yelling that loud....hmmmmmm

I've lost track how many concerts I had attended to be followed by a quick jaunt into the Ex for one last quick ride or a scope of the area. Nothing like 30 or 40 thousand people emptying the mistake by the lake onto the grounds of the Ex. Sizzling energy you could almost see...anything could and often did happen.

It may have been one such occasion where I found myself with Dom strolling around, looking to meet girls. It seemed to be a running thing with Dom, be it Wonderland, the Ex or anyplace else, what stupid line could we use to say hello to some pretty girls....such as this one "Mary!! Oh, you're not in my English class? Hmmm. Wanna go on some rides?" Yeah...classy. Anyhooooooo...for whatever reason we decided to play one of those carnival games to win something stupid. The idea was to knock the wooden slat over with a baseball. Simple enough right. Not with yours truly around. My first throw bounced off the wooden base rebounding back at me perfectly hitting me directly on my forehead. Bahahahahahaha....we all laughed. Well, I don't know how much I was laughing as I was the one embarrassed but for sure Dom and the carny laughed. "Here you go man, take another throw" said the still chuckling carny. OK, here we go again....if you guessed the same thing happened you win the prize. Exact same thing happened. I think Dom was crying at this point. The carny just stared at me...."why didn't you duck?" I walked around with a red welt on my head for the rest of the night.

My last foray at the ex included my one and only ride on the Gravitron. I'm not a fan of rides that spin you so going on this ride wasn't really on my bucket list. It also meant I didn't know what the Gravitron was all about. If I was a tad smarter I might have asked a few pointed questions to get more information on said ride and thus avoiding said ride. But I'm not, so I went along with the crowd. Moron!!! All I knew was you stood in place as the ride spun around with us leaning up against this slanted wall. As we spun around ever faster the floor seemed to dropped out...uhmmmmm OK. I'm sure they would't make a ride to specifically kill someone so I'm sure that's supposed to happen. And next I saw the craziest thing....people were upside down next to me and across from me. I figured out, within half a minute, that the thrill of the ride was to "defy" gravity as centrifugal force pushed you against the wall. That half a minute, in the end, was the difference. As I started twisting myself into a new position, upside down in this case, my fellow riders were already planning their return to normal starting position. The ride wound down as I was slightly horizontal and when gravity struck I slid to the floor with a thud with much laughter from my friends. I know....why am I still alive?

Good, wholesome, scary, funny and painful memories of the summer extravaganza know as the CNE. Like the weekend forays to a cottage, drinking marathons by the tomato gardens, cold beer on the patio at Stripes, the Ex brings about many fond memories of that distant past. Summers gone by intertwined with all manner of tom foolery...ahhhhh, the good old days.

Ciao
D

Oh Shenandoah

I'd pray at the church of Aaron Sorkin if he was a religion. I know I've said this previously and I stand by this even more so today, the man often writes the way I feel. Extracting emotion and passion with seeming ease that leave me wondering if perhaps he is tapped into my head sometimes. If I can capture a tiny fraction of his lightening in a bottle when it comes to crafting prose I'd consider myself lucky. If he was a religion, I'd bow down...At least momentarily.

Combine his themes, style of writing and the usual great music to accompany his vision and I always find something to think about and often to write about. As he would have opined, good writers borrow from other writers and great writers steal outright from them...I'm borrowing as much as I can.

At first listen, the folk/country song Oh Shenandoah would be a love song about the meandering river, and it may very well be...but I wonder if it isn't about other things a tad more existential, living a life say, being open to where that river runs but remembering where it came from. Listen to Tennessee Ernie Ford sing it Oh Shenandoah and now listen to this version that was used on the show The Newsroom Oh Shenandoah  It's hauntingly beautiful and plays against a back drop of tragedy and joy. It's a tear jerker and between them both it is a very different song. Again, masterfully chosen works of art paired to masterful words acted by masterful artists.

My take away is about living life intentionally or as intentionally as possible since I think it would be a near impossible thing to do so all the time, life is too grey to plan everything out in advance. Not knowing which of the roads we will take tomorrow, how can we assume we will always be able to make intentional choices? This past week work life has been thrown into chaos...no one, least of all me, knows what will come tomorrow. But that doesn't stop me for making choices that point me in the direction that I wish to be going....it just means I need to be fluid and think things through. Try not to act rashly if you get what I mean. In the end there will always be roads not travelled and it does no good to fret over it after you have made your choice. The "river" will run it's course regardless.

Rivers run swift into seas that run deep, the constant ebb and flow, giving sustenance to life and sometimes taking life away. All we can do is build a better boat, be better sailors or simply know that water, in the end, will find a way.

Ciao
D

Burning Down the House

Sometimes you can't help but be caught in a trap not of your own making. Forces around you conspire to put you in a place you simply don't want to be in. More often than not those places aren't actually places, they are circumstances or states of mind. Arriving in Negative Town with Negative Nelly and Debbie Downer is what I'm talking about.

To be clear, this isn't about someone having a bad day or week for whatever reason...I get those. Hell, I sometimes literally get those. Or any sort of mental health issue that our brothers and sisters deal with on a daily basis with lack of support from the world. No...what I'm talking about is those miserable fucks that seem to take joy from being negative...always. You know the ones...they sap the energy out of a room when they walk in, you dread going to work knowing they are going to be there, you do a little dance when you see that they aren't working with you for a couple of days. Those people.

I worked with a guy a lifetime ago. Super nice guy and always upbeat. Despite my frustration with his "way" of doing things I really liked him. He ended up going into business with a couple of guys on a banquet hall in Burlington if I remember correctly. A shaky venture in a more than shaky building. My buddy was telling us how good of a deal they got on rent and all I thought I can't believe they have the nerve to charge you rent....but I digress.

As was often the case back then my buddy Peter and I would lend a helping hand to our mutual benefactor. It's what we did as he would do that for us as well if we ever needed a hand. So we found ourselves working one Saturday afternoon in the hall from hell doing some prep with one of his partners, an older Italian guy named John. Now, John was a good cook, old school but still a good cook. He had a great mushroom soup which was surpassed only by mine, and he did traditional Italian food well. And he was negative as fuck.

I mean it looked like he was sucking on lemons half the day. The rest of the day he was trying to erase his sour look with acts of contrition and kindness which you knew weren't genuine. Which of course simply added to the negative experience. I've met many people that seem to like being in a cloud of darkness but John even talked negative in regular everyday speech. Such as this: John, do you want me to put the knife on the counter for you? "No, no....put the knife on the counter." WTF? Do you want the knife on the counter or not? "No...on the counter please."

There's a line from the Godfather novel that Don Corleone utters when talking about Luca Brasi that I think of often when I come across these people that choose dark over light:

"There are men in this world who go about demanding to be killed. They argue in gambling games; they jump out of their cars in a rage if someone so much as scratches their fender. These people wander through the streets calling out "Kill me, kill me." Luca Brasi was such a man. And since he wasn't scared of death, and in fact, looked for it... 

Sometime I feel that people like this are simply happiest when they and all around are unhappy, shared misery being a bond of some sort. Or maybe "some people just want to watch the world burn." I don't know but I work at keeping those people out of my face, less they find out what a 2x4 upside the head feels like. I simply don't have the patience for it anymore...there is a good chance I will cut you out of my life if you are going to piss on my Corn Flakes. At the very least I will marginalise you and your effect.

I've been to Negative Town a few times in my life, didn't stay long though. I just don't want to be there and you can't make me. We all have our down times, that's normal, but fundamentally I think how we choose to react sets the tone for us as people. I choose to be happy...to look for the positive wherever I can find it. Sometimes it's not easy but perspective helps a lot.

"Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable

And lightness has a call that's hard to hear"

Closer to fine indeed.

Ciao 

D

Of all the gin joints...

Buried deep on one of my Spotify playlists is the Tom Waits classic "I Hope I Don't Fall in Love With You". If you're unfamiliar with it go listen to it a few hundred times before proceeding. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now, for the rest of us...what does that song mean to you? Love lost? Love found? Not sure? What the fuck are you talking about? The gravel like voice of good ole Tom over a simply strumming guitar. Heart laid open for all to see...you can almost see his puppy dog eyes. For me....well, it's complicated.

Taken personally, I can apply this to women I have known over the years. In a literal way I can connect this song through it's lyrics to a few people and for better or worse this song strikes a chord when thinking about a time in my past. Once again...music doing what it does best.

"Well I hope that I don't fall in love with you

'Cause falling in love just makes me blue,

Well the music plays and you display

Your heart for me to see,

I had a beer and now I hear you

Calling out for me

And I hope that I don't fall in love with you."

Mostly it's about fear I think. Fear of exposure, of hurt, of letting go and of falling in love. I've said this before and I truly believe this, you have to be willing to get kicked in the teeth to find true love. As Epictetus said "If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." To me it's not caring a wit about what anyone thinks about you and deciding to live life on your terms...and if declaring your love for someone results in humiliation and failure, you have let it all hang out for the world to see. That is living. That can also be pretty terrifying for some. Lay your heart and soul bare for all to see? Hmmmmmmm

If you subscribe to the belief in the idea of "no fate but what you make" then the above matters a great deal. To find your true love you have to decide to find her or him or it. It's your imperative to let yourself go and open up the door to the possibility. In essence you are setting yourself up for that epic kick to the mouth.

If you believe that you are simply reacting to what fate presents to you then you're either going to get kicked in the mouth or you will not. In the end though what does it matter, you're still the one that has to be willing to get kicked. And I mean really willing....no lip service here pals.

Doors open and close throughout our lives and no one, not one of us can say with any certainty what will be coming our way...who will walk into our joint and change our lives forever? While the end goal is important, how we get there is just as vital for me. I for one am eyes wide open to any possibility and I refuse to build walls to protect myself or limit myself. When I hit that wall you will see a hole in the shape of me in the aftermath. No fear.

"Now it's closing time, the music's fading out

Last call for drinks, I'll have another stout.

Well I turn around to look at you,

You're nowhere to be found,

I search the place for your lost face,

Guess I'll have another round

And I think that I just fell in love with you."

Repeat often....no fear.

Ciao

D