A rainy election day has dawned here in Vancouver. A low rattling hum comes from my refrigerator with the whistle of wind outside and the splatter of rain under passing roadway tires. It’s a murky aural mess that seems an ominous forboding of the day ahead.
I don’t follow politics as well as I should, given my aspirations, but the peripheral glances I take have me pretty riveted in this contest, and apprehensive, of outcomes tonight.
The NDP’s amazing ascent over the past six weeks is well-deserved. I think their platform at times equal parts unicorns and fairy dust, economically speaking, but a left-wing opposition under a minority government of a would-be autocrat should be the closest thing to balance this country has seen in decades.
I’m nervous about the notion of the NDP running the country, despite liking Jack Layton a lot, but if that’s what it takes to save the social system that defines what it means to be Canadian — a country where we’re in it for one and all, where my tax dollars are your security net and yours are mine, where healthcare access should be a basic human right — then so be it, bring ’em on.
That’s the country that defines who I am. It’s the nation that lets immigrants in, helps businesses grow, provides education among the best in the world, and celebrates arts and the freedom of information.
I don’t know what this country is that I’ve been living in. I feel like it’s America-Lite™. But I’m Canadian, not American, and that won’t be changing in my lifetime.
I’m unsure how we’ve become a place where a Tim Horton’s donut shop is converted to triage because there aren’t enough beds in the hospital across the street. We were the headline gag on The Daily Show that week. I don’t know where Tommy Douglas’s ghost is, but I bet he’s pissed.
Somehow I woke up in a Canada that began razing the Albertan tar sands, the environment be damned. A place where, on the one hand, the Prime Minister at long last apologizes to the First Nations for the horrors of the residential school system’s abuses, but then denies access to clean water for more than 100 at-risk Native communities nationally.
In today’s Canada, women are being legislated into regression by having 43% of federal funding cut under Harper’s administration.
Instead of being a Canada fighting for human rights internationally and advanced-thinking domestically, “my” government decided it wants to build more prisons, despite falling crime rates. Incarceration has never been the solution in Canada, our social programs have been a large factor of our always-lower crime rates compared to our Southern Neighbours, but now we want to replicate their system here? How does this make sense?
Don’t even get me started on issues of internet privacy and the business of bandwidth. If bandwidth is information, and information is power, and power encourages change, then the Conservatives’ position on access to bandwidth isn’t very encouraging for society as a whole.
Education is already priced out of reach of some; protecting bandwidth-access is a way of equalizing that.
Then there are the Liberals. I’m not happy with them, either. They’ve been incohesive for years, and they can’t figure out a leader who can win. I respect Ignatieff but there are issues I have with his record (a politician who doesn’t show up for votes is a politician who’s not interested in the details of legislating, I’ve always felt).
It’s your classic Canadian contest: Who do you want to win? I sure as hell don’t know, sir, but I know who I want to lose.
Long story short, it’s a good year to have a say and play a part.
The above gripes of mine are barely even scraping the issues of what we need to contend with in Canada.
We have climate change issues, and thus need a government who’s thinking about alternative energies, not just sucking the last of our fossil fuels without recompense.
We’re still in a shaky recession that Canada barely got through, while nurturing a massive personal debt/credit-load across the country, and we’ve a dangerously uncertain financial precipice before us.
Education is at a crossroads, as is the entire medical system, so too is the Canadian Pension Plan.
Cutting spending and thinning the spread only gets you so far. Then, one day, you’re not a socialist country anymore, and it’s every man for himself, like it is for our American friends.
In a perfect world, there will be a better distribution of power and no party will have a clear majority.
I’m not a fan of the hoodoo-voodoo economics behind an NDP platform, given it’s a combination of “if the stars align and the genie grants our budgeting wishes”, but if ever Canada needed a Socialist voice in the national government that carried a little weight, I’d say today, this election, THIS is when it’s needed.
Because I love the Canada I was raised in. And, like the rest of the world, I know what a dark and difficult path lay ahead, and we’ll be better for the long-run if we protect this Canadian way of caring for, and helping, our brothers and sisters.
My name is Steff, I am Canadian, and I have voted.
Category Archives: Society
The Death of Culture
Yesterday, I watched Oprah speaking with The Director Who Walked Away From Hollywood, Tom Shadyac, about the new doc he has coming out, I AM, in which he sort of explores the wrongness of “the cult of celebrity,” and how humans are the only thing in nature that takes more than what it needs, because of some ridiculous concept of entitlement.
The conversation took the point of how we celebrate people for nothingness. Oh, look, Paris Hilton goes to a party. OMG, how does she do it? Party queen!
Cartoon is by @meganmything, on http://mycartoonthing.com
Yeah, let’s talk about that. That’s important.
Are you kidding me?
There’s great art, great music, great film, great thinkers, great catastrophe, great urgency, great change coming — all of these things, everywhere around us.
AND YET these are the people we choose to discuss and obsess over? Lame actors and actresses who are simply doing their jobs, or celebrity debutantes who are do nothing but party and endorse brands?
I’ve shat all over gossip columns for years in blogging, and I’ve never written speculative posts that cut down people — famous or otherwise. I don’t believe in it, never have.
And I sure as hell won’t celebrate dumb-ass debutantes who contribute jack to the world. Sorry, walk on, bub. That might be on ANOTHER blog, but not here, baby.
Still, I do follow these things a little, because I think it says important things to us about our society and what we value, and why that means we’re in trouble when the world is in crisis and needs serious solutions.
So, when today, I hear that Jersey Shore is shooting in Florence, Italy, my jaw drops. Admittedly, I’m behind on this news, but…
Florence, bitches. FLORENCE.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
My whole LIFE I’ve wanted to go to Florence. The following passage from Wikipedia sure as hell doesn’t suggest it’s a great shooting location for the most vapid cast of reality TV ever.
Florence is arguably the last preserved Renaissance city in the world[11] and is regarded by many as the art capital of Italy. It has been the birthplace or chosen home of many notable historical figures, such as:
I bet Snooki’s over there mouth-breathing, chewing Hubba-Bubba goin’, “I’m packin’ for Eye-taly! We’re visiting a lady named Florence! She has nice food at her house, the guy said. And LOTS OF WINE.”
I used to be this bleeding-heart type who thought Eugenics sounded like a horrible thing, but then this cult-of-celebrity shit happened and now I want to sterilize Snooki, The Situation, Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, and a lot of other people.
Let’s sterilize them. Let’s end this now. Let’s save the future of civilization.
Or, you know, you could up your standards on filmed entertainment, America. “No more vapidity!” should be our clarion rallying cry.
Seriously. Wake up. Look at the mediocrity we celebrate. You don’t THINK this is hurting our soul?
But no. SEASON FOUR. IT’S NEVER GOING TO END. I’ll need a supply of Tylenol just for all the facepalming this will incite.
Snooki is a millionaire. If Snooki becoming a millionaire while espousing the advice “Study hard but party harder” in a two-hour Rutgers University speech/appearance for $32,000, more than the average person earns IN A YEAR, doesn’t suggest AMERICA IS BROKEN, then I don’t know what will.
Now, instead of keeping this lame series where it belongs, in JERSEY, it’s crossing the Atlantic to a place where, as a WORLD, we are lucky that time hasn’t erased, and we’re subjecting that hallowed Renaissance city to this horror that is the lowest of the cultural low that America has to offer?
So wrong. On so many levels.
Maybe I’m cynical. Maybe I’m jaded. People have often suggested this to me: “Steff, you’re such a cynic.”
Yep, heard THAT before.
So, that said, lemme reach here — lemme open up to the gods of possibility and offer that maybe, JUST MAYBE, this is the season Jersey Shore at long last has a character arc in which the vapidest of guidos and guidettes finally grow and learn that there’s more to life than beer bongs and g-strings.
Maybe Snooki grows a much-anticipated soul and learns to breathe through her nose and think at the same time.
Maybe “THE Situation” finally realises the world is bigger than he is, he’s just a cog on its wheel, and thusly he changes his name to the less obnoxious “A Situation.”
Maybe THIS is that season.
But I be it’s not. Growth and redemption apparently don’t sell in America anymore. Mediocrity, however, rakes it in.
I fear for Florence. I fear Italians will get a load of this crew and think “If we knew their descendants would’ve turned out like this, we never would’ve let the emigrants set sail. Had we known…”
But here we are. Season four. Let the wheels of exalted mediocrity spin yet once again.
I keep hoping America, and everyone else, is gonna wise up to this “Hah-hah, they’re so funny when they drink, let’s make them famous!” idiocy, but it might just be that my expectations are too high.
Come on, prove me wrong. Stop watching. Demand more.
A Last Look at a Horrible Crime
In 2008, my brother’s closest friend from high school and his early 20s was killed in a bizarre Craigslist murder that has captured the media’s attention.
Yesterday, the jury came back with a verdict of guilty. Mark Twitchell will, it seems, spend 25 to life behind bars. (Thanks, Jury.)
The poster Johnny's friends made when he first "disappeared".
My brother has obsessed over the case, following it in extreme detail. The murder broke his heart, I guess because Johnny Altinger was one of those quiet dorks that everyone loved because he was able to be himself. John was a little obnoxious, a little sweet, a little clueless. But he was a whole lot of good. He was a good, good, good man, and he trusted people at the blink of an eye.
Their crowd grew up on the computer, they were the original “social media” crowd. They talked on chat systems, came of age as the humble modem grew from 110bps to 300, then to 1200, then 2400… and now at seemingly the speed of light.
It was an oddball mix, back then. Folks too smart for the general population, kids too outside the norm to conform to the school crowd. They found like-minded friends on the precursor to the Internet, the Dial-Up Generation.
Johnny was the kind of guy who, in the ’70s, would’ve been stuck in lockers or mocked senselessly at school. He had a big nose, bad glasses, awkward gait, goofy teeth. But, coming of age in the ’80s, he found his crowd online, and so did my brother. Some of their friendships are as strong now, 25 years later, as they were then — friendships born on ideas and discussions, not just happening to be in the same class or born in the same neighbourhood, friendships that seemingly came from a deeper place and lasted longer on merit alone.
Johnny A and my bro kept in touch when Johnny moved north. They chatted online, stayed in touch, traded book titles to read, shared video files — at length. It wasn’t a surprise to hear that, given his newly isolated northern home, John was meeting more friends off the computer, and even using Craigslist for dating.
All right: I’ll be the first to admit that Johnny annoyed me. A lot.
But he was my brother’s friend, I was 16 or 18 or so, and that’s how it rolls — older brothers and their friends torment the annoying little sister. I think it’s Sibling Rule 72, paragraphs A through C.
That said, there were those rare moments where we both managed to be ourselves, rules aside, and I liked what I saw of him. More importantly, he was always a friend when my brother needed one.
But we were never close, and I don’t want to pretend we were. My brother didn’t live at home when he and Johnny were friends, so I really seldom ever saw him. He wasn’t even someone I’d even thought of in 5 years, aside from my bro’s rare mentioning of him.
Still, when I heard not only of his death but the horrific circumstances behind his death, I rethought many things I assumed to be true in life.
No one I know will ever be bludgeoned, stabbed, dismembered, burned, and dumped in a sewer. Wrong. Internet violence is a myth, it could never happen to me. Wrong. This stuff only happens in the movies. Wrong. Canada is a nice safe place. Wrong.
I’m more skeptical of people I meet now. More dubious of online followers, usually distrustful that they are who they say. When I see X many people in my audience, I now assume, the larger the number grows, that some amongst them are just plain evil. Because now I know it’s out there.
I thought my innocence was shattered in my teens, but the truly heinous nature of this crime, and the fact that it’s even touched the peripheries of my life, gave my remaining innocence a big adjustment.
And it’s so weird.
Now everyone wants to know about John. Everyone wants to hear “what was he like?” My brother can’t even log onto Facebook without a new reporter trying to contact him.
But where were these curiousity-seekers when he was looking for friends and relationships on Craigslist? Sure, now you have a story to file. Now you’re bored and surfing the web at work. Now you’re interested.
That part makes me angry. Now, interested. Now, prying through his life. Always with the sensationalizing. But I was trained as a journalist, so I get it, too. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Sigh. I don’t know. This whole case… the tragic death of a good guy, Johnny Altinger, it’s just so fucking unsettling when I think of the guy I knew, and THIS happened to him. If there’s anything I have, it’s a very healthy imagination. And this turns my stomach every time a flash of an image hits me.
My creative side has always wanted to write macabre books with twisted deaths. Sometimes I think about it now, but I stop at a thought of Johnny and I feel physically ill. It’s straight out of Dexter, ripped from fiction, what happened to him.
There are things that happen that really shake our faith in people, and this chapter has been one for me.
There’s a severe disconnect between the kind of person it takes to commit this kind of crime, and the kind of trusting person it takes to be a victim of this crime, and the idea that they both are in this same world, at the same time, breathing the same air…
When they told me the world was full of possibilities, well, I never for a moment wanted to believe they meant it like that.
Still.
Twitchell didn’t get to become the serial killer he dreamed of becoming.
People noticed him. He got caught. That says something, right?
People are horrified by the crime. That says something, too, right?
But I still can’t watch Dexter. It cuts too close to home. I’ve never been able to imagine a victim’s mindset like this before, and I hope I’m never able again.
Rest in peace, Johnny.
I hope it’s the hardest time imaginable that Mark Twitchell serves. I honestly do.
Today, as a testimony against this kind of crime that preys on those who are lonely and looking for friendship, be nice to someone who might not get a lot of attention. Don’t brush off that small-talk-making stranger at the bus stop or store. Give them just a moment of your humanity. You just never know.
Assaulting Employees: FUNNY! Really, Groupon?
I just don’t get it.
Maybe I’m not funny after all.
Apparently this Groupon video for unsubscribing is the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, so funny you’ll puke. Just asked Wired, that’s what THEY think.
Me, I watch it and think “Wow, we’re just a sad, sad society.”
2,000 years ago, the Romans threw Christians to the lions. We got off on seeing people hurt and killed as entertainment.
You’d think, in the Information Age, that we would have progressed some, so that we’re not at that stage where we think it’s a blast to see people hurt or tormented. Sadly, you’re kinda wrong, it seems.
We’ve toned it down, but the gist of enjoying the humiliation and harm, that’s still there. Way to go, society. Stay classy.
Sure, all that happens in this video is a guy gets chewed out, pushed around, and a cup of presumably hot coffee (since most mostly-full cups of coffee tend to be recently acquired) thrown into his face.
I’m sure no Groupon Employees were harmed in this video, but the suggestion is that, DUDE, it’s HAH-LARRI-YUS to chuck scalding beverages into a peer’s face. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Chuckle! Giggle. “That’ll leave a mark, dude!”
Can’t we be a little better than this? Can’t the same message be achieved by dropping a bomb on a computer and saying, “Bad computer! BAD! No email for you!” or something?
Well, yes.
But this is what happens when you like to shock and sensationalize for notoriety and water-cooler cachet.
We can be better than this.
Unfortunately, some folk who write the newspapers and stuff (lookin’ at you, Wired) seem to think Groupon’s writing is awesome and their ads are terrific.
In the social media trenches, though, more people than not tell me they hate Groupon’s writing. A number of people have unsubscribed on that basis alone. I haven’t even mentioned the Groupon Superbowl debacle, or the recent controversial ad that poked fun at depression as being a great sleep aid.
Groupon’s lack of taste is ridiculous, and it’s disappointing that there isn’t a larger hue and cry about it.
Thankfully, it seems consciousness has been growing since the Superbowl ads, and I’d hope the prevalence of things like Deal By Day’s newsletter, which aggregates all your local deals into one daily 6:30am email, might increase the number of people who unsubscribe from Groupon’s daily letter, who start shopping a broader array of deals, and will send a message that it’s not okay to mock committing cruelty to people, as Groupon has done on a few occasions now.
But, hey, like I say. Maybe I’m just not funny anymore.
Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe this whole “I’m past treating people like shit for a gag” thing is some emotional midlife crisis.
Who knows.
I just know I ain’t impressed. I ain’t laughin’. And I know I ain’t alone.
Groupon’s market share is falling, for a lot of reasons. I think the media doesn’t realize how much a contingent of the public loathes Groupon’s marketing, definitely a reason many of us have walked away. With ads like these, I say it couldn’t happen to a better company. Groupon walking away from a $6 billion sale to Google? Probably the stupidest decision since putting all the marketing eggs into one Crocs-shoe basket.
Oh… and I haven’t bought a Groupon since last August. Hello, DealByDay newsletter, how YOU doin’?
The New Aging Gracefully
I think it’s oddly intriguing I was inspired to write about aging gracefully on International Women’s Day, since there ain’t exactly a lot of women modelling how to age gracefully these days. Liposuction and tucks and Botox, oh my! But there you have it. Get over yourselves, girls.
I like getting older. I like it even better when I get told all the time that people think I’m 6-10 years younger than I am.
Probably from spending all those years protecting myself from the elements — sheltered on cushy sofas. No wind-battered face here, friends!
And now that I live much better than I did for a decade there, I guess that shows too.
Hallmark card character I LOVE.
But, aging? Yeah. I like it.
The big four-oh is still 2.4 years away, but I’m looking forward to aging and letting go of even more of the bullshit that mires one’s younger life.
I’m in a strange position in my life right now. Five years ago, I’d have been having a borderline nervous breakdown. Now I’m planning a dinner party for tomorrow, chilling, and erring on the side of faith.
There’s the old saying, “This too shall pass,” and I think around 40 is when we start really believing in what we can overcome and/or achieve. It varies, of course, depending on the crash-course life’s had each of us on.
Me, I got the lesson of “life’s tough, get a helmet” in the last decade, and now I feel like I’ve had the dress rehearsal, and I simply know at my core that every hard time I face is on a limited-life plan, and I’m more than likely to be the victor at the end of it.
“Face-palm and carry on,” as the new saying goes — the NEW Guide to Aging Gracefully.
It really comes down, I guess, to whether or not we’re willing to examine each lame-ass time for its growth lessons. I do. I can’t possibly imagine going through ALL that shit for NOTHING, man. If I’ve learned from it? Fucking A. I’ll take THAT for a dollar, Alex.
I still have more Zen Master schoolin’ to do. After all, I’m not even 40. I’m not nearly as chill as I’d like to be, but I’m surprising myself. Sure, I occasionally want to kill asshats on transit, but that’s not really indicative of me being high-stress, it’s more indicative of the erosion of intelligent life on Earth. I’m tryin’, man.
Honestly, I’m glad I was laid-off long-term. I’m glad I went through a lot of the shit in the last year that I have. I’m glad I had pneumonia. I’ve learned SO much about myself in the last year.
Was it hard? Yes. I even became depressed in the fall. (Not anymore.) I’m sort of back where I started, in a lot of ways, but as a completely different person. It grew a quiet confidence in me, and things I’m doing now will really amp that up. It’s confidence I had none of last spring, considering I was already in a depression and a financial hole before I even lost my job.
If the whole Malcolm Gladwell 10,000-hours-to-master thing is for real, then the 5 years since my last unemployment has been mind-bogglingly insightful. My god, the lessons we learn through our trials.
Staying employed and stable and never taking risks, well, that might make for a nice comfortable life, but I guarantee you, you’ll be learning a fraction of what it is you’re capable of in life.
Age. With it comes that experience you just can’t buy. And when you’re 20 and you think “OH! Why don’t they take me seriously? Why don’t they think I understand?” well, it’s because they feel exactly like I do — that you can’t possibly know all the things that’ll bloom in you over the next two decades.
I like to sit back sometimes and reflect on who I was at specific ages, how full of shit I was, compared to me now.
And then I like to think of how I’ll feel about the same question in another two decades. How I’ll chuckle dryly at the age of 57 — the same age my mother was at her death — and think how I couldn’t possibly have known all that would come my way, how much life could pack in an hour, a day, a week, never mind a decade, and how much I’d learn about myself and the world around me as I lived through all of that.
That’s the beauty of the unknown.
And the beauty of aging is, we better know the vastness of that unknown, but we also come to learn the vastness of human potential. We see more. We understand.
Or, some of us do.
Falling Dominoes: Our Changing World
I started a posting a couple weeks ago, when Egypt’s revolution was on the verge of blowing wide open. I saved it, moved on. I’m not a political nor economic pundit, so what have I got to say, right?
But it brought to mind the oft-misattributed proverb/curse “May you live in interesting times.”
Party like it's Tahrir Square after Mubarak stepped down, people.
Boy, things are getting interesting.
Watching the Eastern world come tumbling down is like being spectator to a game of Jenga after a bottle of vodka. It’s just crazy shit. It’s terrifying, it’s beautiful, it’s mind-boggling. It’s everything I never thought I’d live to see.
Decades of corruption, oppression. Decades of us living in the west and thinking Arab countries liked their lives and those horrible leaders.
A few years ago, I did some ESL tutoring. I met this great pair of Saudi couples. They were profoundly Islamic, and very traditional, but still young and hip, living on the university’s campus, trying to take in the Western way of life for a couple of years, and finding it really hard to assimilate, because nothing says “We’re different” louder than a full-length burqa, you know.
You might as well have a klaxon blaring “SUPERORTHODOX” as you approach a young group of kids, if you’re in a burqa here in Vancouver. We don’t get a lot of that here. And this was five or six years ago, closer to 9/11, still in the throes of war, under an idiomatic Bush regime to the south.
Yeah, it was a tough time to be a Saudi student in a burqa. So, naturally, the husband wanted a female teacher so the wives could learn some of the culture and take their burqas off, and be comfortable.
Well, learning about the culture went two ways. They were wonderful, kind, curious, sensitive people. I loved learning about traditional Islamic experiences, trying their food.
So, my attitude about the news I was getting, with western perceptions of Islam, began shifting at a faster rate. I’d also seen the documentary Control Room, around this time, and knew Al Jazeera to be a fair and well-delivered news network, not the “mouthpiece of terrorism” that our leaders were demonizing it to be.
As much as I loved the couples I got to know, I never did abandon my belief that much of the Arab world is far too patriarchal, and that the deference to their traditional beliefs was not only hindering their progress, but putting much of our world in a risky position. I’m a feminist and a leftist thinker, do the math.
Fast-forward a few years, and here we are, waiting for the house of cards to fall in Libya.
A powder keg of change has exploded in the Middle East and North Africa, and it all traces back to one man on December 17th.
Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old fruit vendor who set himself ablaze, in response to being slapped and beaten by officials, after they tried confiscating his apples and his scale.
So, when denied a meeting with the governor, he set himself on fire.
He died January 4th. The people fought in his name. By January 14th, Tunisia’s dictator had fled.
Less than two months later, the eastern world is being redrawn as decades-old regimes have begun toppling. Mohamed Bouazizi’s indignation sparked the fire that now rages.
It’s an amazing time to be alive.
Honestly, the future terrifies me. With this economy? Throwing in the uncertainty of a fast-changing world?
Where do we go now? What do populations that have been poorly educated and long-repressed bring to the societal table? How do tribal nations create democracy?
No one KNOWS how to accomplish this. Everyone’s got ideas. Everyone has a different level of “holy fuck!” they feel about what comes after all this. Every pundit’s betting on a different outcome. We have no idea.
When communism fell in Eastern Europe, that unleashed crazy shockwaves and took a while to adjust to, but it wasn’t that bad.
This time, our cultures are completely different. Whether it’s about the roles women play (but usually don’t play) in the eastern society, or the lack of widespread quality education, or the fact that the countries have all but given up trying to export anything but oil, well, we have one hell of a road to travel.
Never mind the whole “writing a bunch of constitutions and creating safe, transparent elections” dilemma.
Simply put, the ability to effect change in so many regions, at such a pervasive and far-reaching level, is an opportunity the world has seldom ever had, and certainly not on this breadth or scale, at this pace. With technology and communications that we have today, this is an unparalleled time of potential.
For the moment, today… wow. What a thing to behold. What a time of change.
There is nothing more amazing to watch than that light-switch that flicks on when someone realises they’re entitled to stand up for themselves and ask for more.
That’s basically what’s happening to millions of people. These people are saying they’re willing to die before they’re willing to take another day of being treated like shit.
Me, I’m inspired.
Interesting times, indeed.
Tomorrow, we’ll put together the world again. I hope. Today, we’ll watch, cheer, and dream.
Fight on, Libyans.
February: Waking At The End of Winter
The song that inspired this posting is in the widget down below. Give it a listen and get a feel for where I’m coming from.
February.
My least-favourite month of the year. I’m not a winter person, least of all a February person.
This month reeks of death. From personal anniversaries through to roadside molding rotted leafy messes, some days, it’s all death for me.
That’s February, nature’s “darkest before dawn.”
But February also becomes birth. Snowdrops emerge from recent-frosted soils, crocuses poke up. Cherry blossoms begin their storming of Vancouver’s awakening streets.
It’s the dichotomy of life and death.
This morning I awoke with the “I don’t know how I’ll make it through the month” mentality that inevitably hits me right around now every year.
It’s like my soul grows and dies with the seasons. Come this time of year, all the fallen life leaves — and winter’s struggles — have decomposed enough that a mat covers all that’s inside of me. Finding joy and fun at this time of year, embracing humour and seeing the big picture, it just gets hard some days.
This year, not so bad. Still, below is the song by “The The” that epitomises how I experience February every year. I start off blue and pensive, thinking about my mother, whose cancer was found, whose life was given a “best-by” date, and whose birthday all fall in Valentine’s Week. It’s inevitable, I remember her every year.
Me and my friend were walking
In the cold light of mourning
Tears may blind the eyes but the soul is not deceived
In this world even winter ain’t what it seems
Then, the week ends, and I realise it wasn’t so bad. I realise I like to remember, that taking that time to remember is what will help me keep some small fragment of her alive, that the confusion of pain and acceptance I feel even now comes from how strong a relationship and connection we had, and how many questions I never got answers to.
And, like this song, “Love is Stronger than Death,” I get that it’s all part of the journey. We need these times of sadness to really know when to embrace joy, like a million philosophers and Sufi poets have said.
Here come the blue skies here comes springtime
When the rivers run high & the tears run dry
When everything that dies
Shall rise
Then, it’s the last week of February, and more of nature wakes, March is around the corner, the temperature’s rising… I feel like I’m breathing more, I’m stronger. Energy returns, curiosity piques, and smiles come easier.
It’s human nature, spring fever, waking from hibernation. I don’t know. The northern way, perhaps. But that last week of February, that’s about when my soul refills with everything I’ll need to get me through the frenetic, light-18-hours-a-day Canadian summer.
And this is the month. It’s everything — birth, remembrance, death, a tease of things to come. It’s a world of emotion every week. That’s February.
This song captures that. I’ve played it on a loop for a half hour. The slow, painful start, consciousness rising in the middle, then the exuberant determination in the end, when a groove begins to fall upon you, the listener. Like February moving into March. For me, anyhow.
Soon. Out there, I can smell its arrival. Air too fresh like that, always signals winter’s either comin’ or goin’. Yeah. I’m ready.
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I give you “The The,” the band name that stumped pirates before downloading was even a thing. Trivia about The The? Local alternative radio station, CKST, Coast 1040, had a very short on-air life in the early ’90s after fighting hard for air time, and the station came to life and died with their first and last songs ever played being “The The” tracks: the first being from the Mind Bomb album, the last from Dusk, Lonely Planet.
The Stormy Psychic Seas of Job-Huntin'
The thing about the unemployed-becoming-self-employed-or-something lifestyle is, it’s fight-or-flight, feast-or-famine for a while.
It’s a reactionary life. “What’s out there? Jump! Get it! There it is! Don’t let it escape!”
When it’s about job-hunting, other pursuits in life tend to get dropped while opportunity gets pursued.
At the moment, that’s where I’m at. I have to work as much as I can RIGHT NOW because I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow. I could sit around and collect unemployment insurance and do nothing, but I’d rather be working. I’m thrilled to have the chance.
When it comes to taking jobs, I’m old enough to know that not just anything will do. When it’s 25% of your weekly life, including sleep, you better fucking like what you do, or at least who you’re doing it for and with.
There comes a point in one’s life when one should realize a job interview isn’t just about them interviewing you, it’s about them being good enough for your commitment. This is the first time I’ve ever been patient enough to see it that way and I’ve come close with some amazing opportunities, some of which aren’t yet played through.
Unemployment is a hard, hard road. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve been through, if you don’t learn new things about yourself during unemployment, dude, yer doin’ it wrong. Most of us, it’s probably one of the toughest tests, and most educational passages, of our lives.
I’ve been that person in the past who gets laid off, then the next day has a new resume, and nine days later has a shiny new job. I’ve done that. And it was one of the worst six months of my life. Including my mother’s death. Seriously. Bad choices equal bad results.
Getting A job, ANY job, is easy. They have books on it, you know. It’s a method. Look pretty, smile, be funny and warm and engaging, do stuff during your life that looks good on a resume, learn the answers, know how to talk, and really give a shit. It ain’t for everyone to master, no, but it can be learned.
The right job? Whew. They’re like blue moons and honest politicians, they’re out there — it’s just real damn hard to come across one.
Me, I’m in an era of transition. Whatever happens in the coming days will shape my year(s) to come. And it’s totally up in the air.
How often do we get to enjoy THIS? Uncertainty, hope, possibility, unpredictability, the unknown, variety? Most of us, we find a groove in life and off we go. That’s the path we tread for months, years, and even decades: Routine.
I called a dear friend on the weekend and told him a situation I had to decide about. Do I press forward despite the personal risk? He took a deep breath and sighed, we batted the idea around for a while. At the end, he commented, “I’m jealous: The unknown. I don’t envy the choice, but I’m jealous of the possibility.”
For years, he’s gotten up, worked at the same store, same people, same routine. For years, I had, too.
There’s a comfort in such a routine. It’s not exciting, but you know your bank account empties and refills, ebbing and flowing like any river of life.
This fluttery what-will-I-get confusion and possibility I’m living under these days, it’s driving me sort of insane, but it’s also something I know I might not experience again for 5 or 10 years. If ever.
All that being said… I’m glad I’m getting closer to resolution. I’m ready for a new chapter. I’m ready to work on other areas of my life. I want my financial picture clear and reliable so I can move back to feeling, and being, creative — with abandon.
The long things drag on, the more I feel like I should censor my creative efforts. @Smuttysteff who writes The Cunting Linguist? Sure, that says “hire me.” Well, actually, unbeknownst to some, it does say just that. Still, I’m not a fan of this creative apprehension.
A year ago, the Olympics were rolling into Vancouver. Since then, I’ve grown a lot through taking chances, confronting fears, and believing in myself in a quietly persistent way through some trying times. I’ve had refreshers about what’s important in life — and who. A year ago, I didn’t know I was about to lose my job. I never would’ve predicted the year that followed, but there you have it.
Even now, I’ve no idea what’s around the corner, except that it’s hurry-up-and-wait time.
But what I can tell you is, I hope I never forget some of the lessons I’ve learned this year, or the old ones I’ve been reminded of.
Adversity’s your friend. Suck it up, buttercup. Become better. Find your weaknesses and replace them with strength. Unemployment is a relentless opportunity to discover who you really are and what you really need.
Unless, you know, you actually enjoy the living-and-operating-from-a-place-of-fear approach to unemployment.
It can be a long ride, man. Best advice is, buckle up and see where the hell it goes. It might just be an end destination you never woulda seen coming.
With that, it’s on with my unpredictable-yet-not week. Oy vey.
Praying for Egypt
As I write this, the Al Jazeera live blog is reporting that the Army has told protesters in Tarihr Square that they will not go against civilians. Hundreds of judges are now reported to have joined the protests. Curfews are being ignored. Jets overhead are being ignored.
I’m a child of the ’70s and grew up during plane hijackings in an era of war in the Middle East. In my lifetime, that region has always been a problem… from assassinations to oppression, and now the home of terrorism.
This dream of seeing dictators overthrown and new eras come to life is something one holds inside when they love journalism and politics, something we dream of seeing once in a lifetime.
When the East German Wall came down, down came the Communist regime throughout Europe.
Is this Egypt’s wall? Is this the toppling domino that unseats Middle Eastern dictators en masse?
In an era when it almost feels like there’s less hope than ever for civilians, this protest in Egypt makes my heart sing. I’m so full of hope and prayers.
This could be the week that changes everything. It really could be.
If you’re not following what’s happening in Egypt, you’re missing out on what might be history happening… possibly the real start of real change in the Middle East.
Pray for Egypt. Pray for change.
A woman in Beirut supports the Egyptian struggles.
This Word, That Word, Any Ol' Word
I’ve been thinking a lot about language lately; useful if you’re a writer paid by the word. Words count. Every one of them. That’s why we charge you for each.
That’s why, when I watched this opening passage from an episode of The West Wing this morning, this exchange really tickled me. They’re talking about a pianist set to play a concert in the White House.
LEO: He’s North Korean, God knows how he managed to even learn. Their music’s all hymns to the barley harvest, not that they ever have one.
C.J.: To busy reprocessing plutonium to feed anybody.
LEO: Why they’re a rogue state.
C.J.: “Rogue” state… makes them sound bravishly charming. Should be “thug” state; “psycho” state.
LEO: We’ll ask the UN to re-designate.
C.J.: Punk state — that’s what they are, a bunch of punks.
LEO: Bunch of punks, with what could be six nuclear warheads.(west wing transcripts: here)
There’s a lot of weight behind them there adjectives. Each one changes the matter drastically.
As far as North Korea and the adjectives go, the “rogue” is the Count of Monte Cristo. I don’t mind him, a namby-pamby guy, not scary.
Perhaps if he had asked for assistance with a more well-thought sentence, we wouldn't be laughing at his untimely demise.
The “thug” conjures images of 50 Cent. Not a fan, he smacks of “itchy trigger finger.”
Then, with “psycho,” it’s Norman Bates; translation: “don’t ask for pillow service.”
Finally, you have “punk” Sid Vicious, which I guess makes South Korea their ‘Nancy.’ (Which takes on still more interpretations when you consider the British slang of “nancy.”)
The last three dudes: Ixnay the ombbay, eh?
Exactly who I don’t want to have a finger on The Button.
Speaking of people I don’t want with a finger on The Button: For anyone thinking cultural terms are as interchangeable as Lego blocks, I give you Sarah Palin. The Alaskan village idiot’s speechwriter sure got a lesson in that one when Sarah Palin made her ridiculous hyperbolic claims of “blood libel,” regarding the “target poster: let’s-get-Palin” fall-out after the Arizona shootings.
It’s just another Tea Party attempt to paint her in a Messianic light, but it’s also a cruel insult to Jews, who’ve had century after century of persecution, of which this term speaks, when it’s someone as privileged and plain-Jane white as Palin claiming that brand of persecution. And she’s being persecuted only for her own choice to employ irresponsible rhetoric, too!
Then there’s the recent oh-so-asinine choice to willy-nilly swap out “nigger” for “slave” in Mark Twain’s lamentable “New South” edition of the classic Huck Finn. Like my friend says, such a context-lacking blanket noun switch is completely irresponsible. It ascertains that all slaves are niggers, and therefore all niggers are slaves. Hello?
Word choice is critical. Language is powerful.
Sadly, in an age where everything moves at the speed of light, people take too little responsibility for things said anymore — or too much. Either flippancy precedes everything and words zing across social networks with zero regard for their permanence, or else people are so terrified of permanence that they add very little of any consequence to the dialogue, or they magnify the least relevant detail because of perceived slights in the language.
I realise much of what I’ve said in the past few years can, and likely will, come back to haunt me, but considering the truth in what I try to say, and the standards I hold for myself, I can’t say I have a lot of regrets for putting my truth out there in as choice of terms as I have.
Do I wish I perhaps took the paid-by-the-word attitude of precision when choosing those words? Well, sure, that might cover my ass a little more, but it is what it is.
Sometimes we have to take a bigger-picture look at language. Instead of microanalysing every little word, take the whole of it together. It’s often akin to a symphony. A piano can do wonderfully on its own, but really has so much more to give when played against, and with, other instruments. So too with any word you offer; they play importantly both ways — solo and ensemble. I like how mine play, either way.
But with so little regard paid to much of what we say these days, I’m afraid that, both ways, we’re often largely at a loss.
When it comes to language, think of words as your tools. Not just any screwdriver will tighten that couch leg when it wobbles, so why are we so given to such casual word choice?
Think. Choose. And then mean what you say.
Maybe then our conversations will offer more of consequence, more to be gained.