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Why are Western Riots Happening?

Russell Brand has been surprising me of late, specifically in his writings about Amy Winehouse and now his opinion piece in The Guardian about the London Riots. I feel I have to take him much more seriously than I have been.
His piece on the London Riots is bang-on. More so than most erudite intellectuals in the press will ever grasp. Here is just a portion of his spot-on commentary:

Politicians don’t represent the interests of people who don’t vote. They barely care about the people who do vote. They look after the corporations who get them elected. Cameron only spoke out against News International when it became evident to us, US, the people, not to him (like Rose West, “He must’ve known”) that the newspapers Murdoch controlled were happy to desecrate the dead in the pursuit of another exploitative, distracting story.
Why am I surprised that these young people behave destructively, “mindlessly”, motivated only by self-interest? How should we describe the actions of the city bankers who brought our economy to its knees in 2010? Altruistic? Mindful? Kind? But then again, they do wear suits, so they deserve to be bailed out, perhaps that’s why not one of them has been imprisoned. And they got away with a lot more than a few fucking pairs of trainers.
These young people have no sense of community because they haven’t been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron’s mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there’s no such thing.
If we don’t want our young people to tear apart our communities then don’t let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together.

-Russell Brand, The Guardian

I’m braced for a future in which riots are more common, and more violent, than they’ve ever been.
We’re at a turning point in this world of ours. We’re on the verge of Alvin Toffler’s fanciful future, and we’re not receiving what we were sold.
Technology hasn’t made our lives easier. It hasn’t increased employment opportunities, it’s doing the opposite. We have economic upheaval the world over. Food shortages are everywhere. There’s no sense of community in the western world anymore.
There’s a haves/have-nots divide greater than ever, and with more media around us than any point in history, that reality is being driven home, hard, in every newscast and throughout the web.
The real news stories about real people leading troubled lives and feeling disenfranchised, where are those? There are none. If you’re not eating $25 plates in the restaurants, gallivanting through the social scene to be seen, then you might as well be invisible. The media sure as fuck doesn’t want to write or talk about you.
After much of a decade lived with reduced income — as often by choice as by necessity — I can tell you the anger and jealousy one feels at seeing all the pretty people with all the pretty toys isn’t reserved only for Angry Young Men. The feeling of being excluded is also not only their lot.
The divide is growing, and politicians today seem to encourage that divide.
The anger is not dissipating. The community is not healing. It will not.
This world is locked in a losing battle against spirituality, community, and togetherness. It isn’t THERE anymore. There’s a declining sense of ethical responsibility for our fellow humans.
Add to that the changing economies, the losses on the jobs fronts, the increase in retail jobs that underpay people, and escalating costs of living, ever-increasing taxes with less to show for them, and it’s a wonder we don’t see more rage in the populace.
The London Riots are a harrowing potential turning point.
Politicians of the world need to wake the fuck up.
Corporations have no soul, and to continue pandering to the millionaires and the upper classes will leave politicians gasping as the Forgotten Citizens start realizing we have more power than we’ve been led to believe.
And god help us if those realizing it are devoid of ethics and don’t give a shit about the law.
Remember the French Revolution? Everything changed in three years. The monarchy fell and it spread across Europe. It only took three years because they didn’t have Twitter, Facebook, et al. Those revolutions changed the known world for the following two centuries.
And times are ripe for change again.
I don’t agree with the riots. I’m radically opposed to them. I loathe the destruction, violence, and crass behaviour.
But maybe the day is coming when it’s the only way those in power will listen.
When every politician is barely a change on the last, what’s the point of putting faith in ballot boxes?
London is the canary in the societal coalmine. The change-train is a-comin’. You better get onboard.
I know I’m fed up. I’m angry. And I’m pushing 40, smart, have everything I theoretically need in life… but I’m angry, too. My “fuck that” schtick on Twitter isn’t actually a schtick. I’m really that bitter about much of life today.
It’s a simmering pot of discontent, this big ol’ world of ours, and I fear the day it boils over.
What’s the solution? It’s not on Wall Street. That much, I know.

Summertime Booze Recipes: Dish'n'Dazzle

The "Staves & Stones" drink. That sage is amazing in this bevvy. Picture by Cathy Browne! Thanks, Cathy.


Here we go, yo! Just in time for the long weekend. These are recipes for some amazing drinks we got to taste from some of the city’s best bartenders, at the the really great BC Hospitality Foundation’s Dish’n’Dazzle last Friday.
The restaurant’s food choices may have had too much seafood for this landlubber, but they knocked me out with the tasty beverages.
Thank you to Dana for giving me the permission to share these recipes with you. The sponsors of this portion of D’n’D event were Skyy Vodka & Gibson’s Finest Whiskey, so it was nice to attend a wine event with a little kick on the side. Whoo!
What’s neat about these cocktails is that they all include something South American — Chile, or its neighbouring countries. It’s nice to see how traditional bitters/ingredients like Amargo Chuncho can really pack a different wow.
My favourite two were the Afternoon Delight and the Staves and Stones, oh, and the Sangria Blanco. Heck, they were all super-good.
I was put off making one of these drinks because the mixologist was being so fancy when putting it together that it looks like crazy hard work. Now the recipe makes it sound ridiculously easy. I wonder if mixologists learn all the tricks to making drinks look like rocket science and serious work. But, hey, now, the recipe’s reduced to 2 lines. How hard can this be? You know?
Hey, I know: Party at your place, Saturday at 5. Bring the mix! We’ll find out!
Want to make a larger “punch” size of these? Go for it. Multiply! MmMm! Bottoms up, kids!

Afternoon Delight
by Evelyn Chick of UVA Wine Bar

*Steff’s favourite! Nummy-nummy-mm!
Featuring: Cointreau, Chilean Chardonnay, Lemon, Black Pepper, Coriander, Thai Basil, Ginger, Celery Bitters.

  • 1.5 oz Cointreau
  • 1 oz Chilean Chardonnay
  • 5 oz Fresh Lemon
  • 5 oz Black Pepper and Coriander Syrup
  • 1 leaf Thai Basil
  • 2 slices Fresh Ginger
  • 3 dashes Celery Bitters

Place ginger in a Collins glass and muddle gently. Dice basil and place in glass. Add all other ingredients and top with ice. Stir thoroughly.
Continue reading →

The Day After

Photo by Steffani Cameron.


Wow. What a difference 24 hours makes.
There’s something about hundreds, maybe thousands, of drunk-assed fuck-faces rampaging through your city, breaking glass, burning cars, and hurting innocent civilians that makes one go, “Hey, you know what? I love this place. And you just PISSED ME OFF.”
One of Vancouver’s finest somewhat-under-the-radar bloggers (bookmark that shit, yo) is Kimli. She has deliciously turned her snark on to these three asshatted rioters. Based on the strength & zeal of this piece, I think she should embrace her angst and do an entire series on these jerks (and out-of-towners!) who thought they’d try messing up Vancouver, and tarnishing our reputation worldwide.
I love my town, man.
I love my town with its disparity of lives, rich-versus-poor, plastic-ass districts like Yaletown, through to hard-ass hard-luck big-art cultural-love-in ‘hoods like Commercial Drive on the East Side.
I love my town with its ludicrous concrete jungle in the middle of a temperate rainforest at the bottom of big-ass mountains on the coast of the wide watery world of the Pacific.
I love my wickedly multicultural once-upon-a-world white-folk sushi-capital crazy-ass side-of-Little-India jumble of a town.
And these guys picked the wrong fucking day to toy with us.
We were gonna take it all, win the Cup finally, and instead of just losing The Cup, we lost our reputation and our self-respect.
A sick billion dollars will be pumped down the drain because of these asshats. Some will be getting in trouble with the law for stealing a Big Gulp or Pringles, and I hope the insignificance of their theft does not diminish the extent of punishment they receive.
Principles, baby. Gotta have ’em.
Because the world is hurting, because the economy has been gutted like a fish, because there are better things to do than coddle these spoiled drunk punks with incarceration, I would hope the City of Vancouver will solicit “alternative punishment” ideas from the public.
Whether it’s making rioters clean up inner-city elementary schools, ridding beaches of trash, doing clean-up after civic summer events, working for the employers whose businesses they damaged, being forced to talk to high schools about why they regret doing the criminal acts they did — I think there are two things we can’t really do; We can’t run up taxpayers’ tab with jail time for all these assholes, and we can’t cripple them too far into their future with huge reparations fines, thus escalating their angst.
But they need to pay with their time and their physical labour. The city and Mayor Gregor Robertson should let the public speak as to how that should happen.

Photo by Steffani Cameron.


Last night, I was embarrassed. I was hurt. I was angry. And I would have beat the living shit out of someone who was guilty of crimes against this city if I could have.
This morning, I got up, I did my social-media-woot thingie of informing the locals and world at large about Douchebaggery Central as the morning unfolded more and more. Then I decided that, back instability or not, I just had to get my ass downtown to experience the “Day After.” I couldn’t let the asshats win.
And I’m so very, very, very glad.
Tonight, fueled by the clearly mad-deep-true love most Vancouverites have for their city — because, after all, more than 18,000 people signed up on Facebook to do clean-up today and, as a result of those who honoured that commitment, the biggest riot in almost 4 decades was cleaned up before lunchtime.
During the clean-up, hundreds and perhaps thousands of people wrote on the boarded-up windows with markers left by every pane, messages of everything from apologies to the hockey team, testimonies of love for the city, through to rightful damnation of the rioters.
As the city was literally swept up in a wave of awesomeness, people’s angst turned to pride and love for their fellow citizens. Friendships formed, people shared and laughed. It was a really, really awesome experience to be there even for just an hour.

Photo by Steffani Cameron.


Now, people have turned their attention, like Kimli, toward trying to expose all these assholes for who they are. They need to pay with their friends, their schools, their jobs, everything.
We cannot abide this behaviour.
If the government cannot punish them, then we must socially ostracize them.
There is a code. You do not fuck with another man’s home.
This is our home. This is our town.
Whether local or not, that behaviour will never be tolerated in Vancouver at our public events.
You’re on notice, asshats. We have smartphones. You’re on video. And it ain’t the 15 minutes’ fame you’d hoped for.
Everyone else, we got your back. Get here, have fun with us. We’re good people. We’re not gonna let these chumps wreck our party.
We’ll see y’all same time next year, man. Without the losers.

See below for TIJANA MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY's link. Photo by Tijana Martin.

Visit http://tijanamartinphotography.wordpress.com/ for more heartwrenching riot (and pregame fan) photography.

Legacies: When All That's Done is Said

Wow, so this posting got long. It should probably be separated. I just don’t have the emotional-editorial prowess for that, so I’ll leave it all jumbled together. I’m sure as the days and weeks move on, I’ll become more cemented in what I believe about Derek’s legacy in the blogging world, but, for now, I’m less academic and more the fumbling friend amazed at the outpouring of interest in a loved, lost voice on the local scene, to say the least.

__________________

As of yesterday, our Vancouver friend, the Penmachine, Derek K. Miller’s infamous The Last Post had gone viral both on the web and in the world’s news media. On Monday, the Canadian Press newswire went live with a story on Derek, it was picked up by American Press’s wire, and suddenly it went from 23 notable world press stories on Sunday to more than 220 press organisations (at this time) carrying this story on Derek’s passing worldwide.
I wrote last week that, in blogging, Derek would “…have told his story. A ripple in the pond. That’s all most writers really want to make — a ripple in the pond.”
Some kinda ripple, Derek. Well done, friend.

Words, words, words

I think, in the scheme of Derek’s life work, in all he tried to share with others, that the legacy being created through this worldwide exposure to what blogging can DO for a man, his life, his legacy, and the memory others get to have of him, that Derek’s changing the world’s perception of blogging.
Maybe I’m too close to it.
Maybe I know the man, his work, and maybe I want this to be bigger than it is, but as someone who’s watched the press all her life and knows what the public thinks and feels, this is a rare, rare moment when a really honest, simple, powerful statement is getting heard by the whole world.
And it’s not a world leader. It’s not some political activist dying for a cause. It’s not a celebrity known the world over.
It’s just a statement from a good Canadian man. A father of two, a guy who married his soul mate and died still madly in love with her. It’s the guy we all knew we could call with a technical problem that needed urgent solving, or who we KNEW had just happened to take a secret perfectly-timed picture of us at that event where he just had a camera. He was that guy.
And somehow, who he was, who he loved, and the life he led, that was all captured in a mere 1,500 words. His perfect 1,500 words.
Then the world read it and, in 1,500 words, realised what was truly important in life, what can all disappear in a moment.
Like Derek wrote, “As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn’t make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that once I died, it was over.”
In a moment, we’re all gone forever. Then what?

Legacy-Making

So what’s his legacy, then? Super-nice local legend loved by those who were at the cusp of all the tech/web/music developments for 20+ years? Great writer? Spokesman for cancer, early testing, and living out loud?
Sure.
But I think Derek’s legacy is bigger, with more global implications.
Derek Miller took time in his dying days to write a post that, if we’re lucky, changes the way we’ve been thinking about language, communication, social media, writing, and connection.
For Derek, blogging (and podcasting) was truth, education, community, sharing, connecting, activism, camaraderie, and putting his stamp on the world. He did it all. He stamped good.
There are a lot of really shitty blogs out there. Content farms, traffic-whores. A lot of bad blogs.
Derek was never guilty of bad blogging.
He wasn’t a “writing filler” kinda guy. He didn’t have some self-imposed turnstile of copy-quota where he “had” to blog every day. He was a writer who was compelled to share a statement, a truth, or anything, but he certainly didn’t blog so we the audience had something to read, or the PR companies with schwag gifts had reason to mailing-list him.
Derek K. Miller always blogged because he had something to say. Something smart, well-said, perfectly edited, often insightful, and never sensationalised.
Somewhere along the road in the last five years, blogging became about expected numbers, certain amounts one had to get done on a weekly basis. Some “experts” claim 3-6 posts is the “perfect” amount. They’ll tell you a “good word count,” and that Derek K. Miller’s The Last Post was 900 words too long. They’ll show you how to juice it up with “search-engine optimising,” and sex it up with a graphic or two — oh, and break it up with headings, gotta do that too.
But they don’t tell you how to have heart in your writing.
They don’t tell you that your readers deserve significant content. They don’t tell you that creativity, quality, honesty, and originality count.
Somewhere, somehow, blogging and social media became about having a social resumé, hawking your wares, getting connected, getting laid, everything someone like Derek K. Miller never bothered manipulating it for.
I’m a writin’ romantic — a passionate idealist about language, writing, and communication.
I believe that blogging is the BEST thing to ever happen to writing.
And I think blogging is the WORST thing to ever happen to writing.
But, for every site concerned primarily with driving traffic, and not worried about enriching your life, there’s a blog quietly churning out good content week-in, week-out, just like The Penmachine did.
I believe a quality blog only needs one posting a week.
If it’s great, then one will do. If it sucks, then none will do.
I believe the sparse, simple, shocking truth behind Derek Miller’s brilliant The Last Post serves as a reminder of what economy of language, a simple desire to state the facts, and opening yourself up to the world can provoke in all manner of people.
We all want to be remembered. We want a legacy.

Blogging: Whoop! There it is

Not stupid blogging. Not bad blogging. Not blogging where you’re talking about ordering a muffin.
Blog about what that muffin means to you — what do you remember when you’re eating it, what was the most emotional muffin you ever ate and why, what happened right before that muffin was served, how did it smell, how did it taste, and does the emotional overload that triggered that muffin return to you now and then when you’re enjoying one, and if so, what’s that like?
A muffin, does it matter to the world at large? No, but your experiences that determine how you feel about a particular muffin, those experiences might.
And that’s a sort of ridiculous-but-clear example of blogging is — a chance for every person to have a real, true, digital record of their understated lives. Their commentary, opinions, injustices, whatever. It’s a record.
We’ve lived in a world where publishing, media, communication have almost always been in the hands of those with money and power.
For the first time ever, we can control our words.
We can make sure others can read them, even strangers in far away lands.
AdAge magazine called Derek Miller’s The Last Post an example of the “democratization of publishing.” Yeah, okay. Sure: Cheap-n-easy self-publishing.
Personal blogging is powerful, not only for you but for the people who get to read it… and maybe even those you leave behind.
We’re told not to “tell” too much. Yeah, all this not-sharing stuff seems to be doing a LOT of good for society.
Oh, no one will ever understand what you’re enduring. No one will get that.
Derek Miller blogged about wearing diapers, yet millions are hanging off his extensive cancer-living archives this week.
You know who doesn’t know what people want to read? THEM. The “experts.”
You know what I want to read?
I want to read people who write about things that leave them feeling uneasy when they hit publish — or proud, or desperate to see what the comments are because that post mighta been pushing it or so angry while writing that clicking “publish” felt like they’d just flushed the toilet on all the shit that had ’em feeling that way.
I want to read about people experiencing life — in all its varieties.
If you CARE what I think, I probably don’t want to read you. If you think, while writing, “how should I say this to best elicit a reaction?” then I likely don’t want to read you.
If you write because you need to write, because you feel like you have something on your chest and you’re hoping writing will help sort it out, or because you just can’t NOT share THAT observation you had earlier today?
Then you’re the kind of blogger I wish everyone was.

Empowered by Blogging

Blogging is a tool we have for breaking down barriers.
We can connect, teach each other, expose injustices, examine life, do whatever the hell we want.
No longer are we under the thumb of industry when it comes to distributing our creations.
As artists, writers, musicians — if an audience is all we require, then we have the whole world before us. We have 100% artistic control. We have instantaneous access to publication and audiences. We are not at the mercy of industry. Industry is at the mercy of us, and the tide is turning.
Back in 1990 was a movie I always thought was ahead of its time on some of the issues (though dated now), Pump Up the Volume, about Christian Slater as a pirate radio DJ named Happy Harry Hard-on, aka Chuck U. Farley. The premise of all his angsty railing against society was pretty simple come movie’s end: You have a voice. Use it.
In the end, if Derek Miller’s legacy is that people realise they can use the voice they have, I can’t think of a better one. Nothing broke my heart more than to know Derek had lost his speaking voice for much of his remaining weeks in life, and to think his “eternal” voice is heard around the world now… well, it blows me away.
You have a voice. Use it. Leave a legacy of your own choosing.
And, more importantly, consider today what you’d write in your obituary for tomorrow, and take stock now of what you need to change to have that obituary reflect a life you wish you’d have been living — and an emptier bucket list.
Blogging: It’s good mental lifting. Writin’ does a soul good. Check it out, kids.
(Photos: Derek K. Miller — from Facebook profile shots he’s used.)

Common Sense Food-Shopping Adds Up at the Bank

I’m a writer. A broke-ass writer, it’ll probably say on my tombstone. This means I’m cheap at my very core.
For centuries, writers have toiled for the mere sake of writing. Usually, writers earn crap wages, supplement their calling with “jobs,” and that’s the way the cheap-eatin’ cookie crumbles.
Me, I’m okay with that. If I work too much, I may not have the time to write something brilliant (yuk-yuk-chuckle), even if it doesn’t pay, because, without the writing, I don’t maintain my craft, I don’t keep kicking wordy ass, and life gets complicated in a hurry. And, sorry, but those other jobs? Not what I enjoy. Writing, I love.
So, choices get made.
I know, there’s this whole “Buy ethical food! Organic is everything!” kick, but a lot of those folks pushing that lifestyle and those food-buying habits CLEARLY don’t live on MY budget.
And I’m a foodie, so, y’know, fuck ramen.
Sometimes I buy ethically, sometimes I don’t. In my perfect wet-dream reality where I sleep on sheets of gold, with pillows stuffed of angels’ feathers, get cocoa-butter slathered on my ass daily, and all that, I’m buying local, 100% organic small-grower foods.
In this reality, though, my happy place sings when I see a can of Suraj’s chickpeas for sale for 67 cents. Screw your expensive ethics, buddy.
At least I know what my financial reality includes, and when I do shop, I shop where my bucks stretch the furthest.
Today, I made a Twitter comment slagging the local grocery chain “Save On Foods” as being a complete joke, and was surprised how many folk replied. Half agreed, the prices are 10-20% higher than elsewhere, and for no justifiable reason — the generic brand is shit, the other stuff includes your average staples to be found anywhere. Whole Foods is similarly priced, but they have products I feel better about buying when I do know for realz that I’m overspending.
The reality is, I think a lot of people fail to note how much they’re overspending on groceries. When prices have already increased an average of 5% this year, are you sure you’re being thrifty on your food choices?
I save a lot of money just by making my own things, like homemade tzatziki. Doing the math today on the fancy house-made tzatziki sold by Whole Foods versus mine, which is made with real organic Greek yogurt, lemons (not cheap vinegar), and high-quality olive oil, I found mine costs $6.50 for a litre volume of it, versus $6.30 for a QUARTER of that at Whole Foods. And those savings take all of 20 minutes to make happen, and it lasts a month in the fridge.
Hummus, another example. I make my own beans, use more of the boiling liquid/brine for thinning for consistency, no olive oil, etcetera, and I think I make some of the best hummus you’ll ever try, again at about 30% of the purchase price for commercially-made hummus, and it keeps two weeks but can freeze for up to three months. (Meaning I’m saving 70% or more every time.)
Furthermore, when it comes to any kind of beans, and I’m using a lot for soup or something, I hydrate and cook my own — often for 75% or more off what canned beans costs, then I put extra beans in their liquid, in Ziploc bags, and freeze them for up to 3 months — which I then thaw and use as I would from a can.
Some boxed wine can actually be terrific and really saves you money (30% or more) if you’re a 1-2-glasses-a-night person. Then, save yer moolah for a nicer bottle with a splurge item on the weekend.
Whole chickens — even if you buy already-roasted ones at the Supermarket — are a huge budget-saver. While the ready-at-the-market roasted birds are usually 1.2-2 pounds, for $7.99-11.99, I can get a 5-7 pound chicken (Vancouver, visit Poultry Land on Granville Island) for $15 or so, a really good Halal / Kosher bird, and the amount of meat that comes off that is phenomenal. But, face it, that smaller, less-economical chicken can be a lifesaver when you want a healthier meal on a weeknight. Grab some salad fixings, a nice bread, and make it go further.
Whatever’s left of those roasted chickens gets frozen in small packets for salads, sandwiches, tacos, and more. Chicken bones get simmered (frozen until then) for stock, and I can make a good 20 LITRES of stock, which I then cook down to a super-concentrated 1 cup or so and freeze for a LONG time. I mix a tablespoon of “stock” with a cup of water, and then I have stock for all manner of uses — instead of paying $4 for a LITRE of the supposedly-fancy stock I think is real boring. That’s about $80 worth of “fancy” stock, plus all the chicken that can go in salads and other meals, for a total of $15 an an afternoon of work (which is really only an hour or so of labour, just a lot of waiting for shit to simmer — watch movies!).
Now and then I plan burrito factories. When you get wraps on sale, buy them, freeze them, and get ready to make wraps and burritos. You can do classic chicken-and-bean, Indian chicken curry, whatever, but I generally find I can use good food, control the calorie & nutrition count, and provide myself with up to 20 freezable lunches for under $2 each. Just make sure it’s drier stuff you’re putting in there — nothing soupy or it’ll be a mess later.
Let’s face it, the cost of living is skyrocketing. Somewhere between making ethical food choices and fiscal ones lies the perfect medium.
I buy nice local produce when I can, I save in other areas, and make compromises or plan ahead to get savings. An example of planning ahead is, by knowing a great quality produce shop I love has “customer” day on Wednesdays, I shop there and save 10% on everything… mostly quality local stuff, and that’s where I get my organic eggs, rice, and other things that never go on sale otherwise. But, THERE, I know my coconut milk costs 20% more there than another store’s prices, so even saving 10% means I’m throwing out money, when it comes to buying the coconut milk.
So, be intelligent. Buy what’s cheaper there. Buy the other stuff elsewhere. Yeah, it’s work, but it’s YOUR money and YOU had to work for it, so why not SAVE it with a little work now too?
It’s really about realizing how many products you buy on any given shopping trip and how much each little item can blow your budget. Add the difference up. Just today, one pack of pita bread was 25% more across the street. I saved $1 on that one item. Imagine how much that adds up in a single month, a single year. I live in an exorbitant city on an underwhelming income, it adds up a LOT.
Know how the saying “getting nickel-and-dimed” means a person’s pissed off at getting price-gouged? Well, we nickel-and-dime ourselves daily. Think more about everything you spend, and who sells X item for less, make some effort, and you might see a huge difference in your bank account. God knows I have.

Remembering Slavery: Book Review

Please take yo’ fine self over to Books on the Radio, where you can read my review of REMEMBERING SLAVERY, a powerful collection of stories from slaves themselves about their experiences as “owned humans”.
I believe it needs to be on every serious book owner’s shelves, even if you’re unlikely to ever read more than 5 pages at a time.
Here’s my review. Thanks!

BUSTED!

Fat dude broke into my house. I caught him. Nothing gets by me! Poor Quatchi was so bombed he fainted when Santa squealed like the girl he is and I trapped his fat ass.
Merry Christmas, World!

Santa at Steff's house!

Merry Christmas to All!

From the 1945 Fireside Book of Christmas Stories that's been in my life since birth.


I wish all my readers all the best.
Whether you’re alone or with family or friends this holiday, I hope you do something special for yourself. May Christmas be a wonderful day for you.
And may you strive to keep its ethos year-round.
Merry Christmas, readers, and may we all have a wonderful year ahead. Thanks for sticking around.

No Fatties: The Ethic of Funny

People urge me to try stand-up comedy. A natural, they call me. A funny girl.
And, hey, they’re right.
What, it’s wrong I should know I’m funny? I shouldn’t acknowledge it? Right, like I’ve spent my life cracking jokes so I can play the fool now.
Jokes are hard. Funny is tough. Humour’s a fine line.

I pride myself on a having higher funny “ethic” than I think most people ever will. There are things I won’t touch: I don’t insult people for their size or weight, or for their colour or abilities.
Your job, clothes, where you live, how you act, what you do with your time — those are all choices, and I feel absolutely fine about ripping them apart and going to town on ’em for jokes. It’s commentary on who we’re opting to be as a society. Get on the bus in thigh-high rubber fuck-me boots and a LaToya Jackson studded-special leather jacket? Sure, yeah, I’ll use it for humour. Your choice.
But I don’t hurt people with nasty public jabs made about a weight problem, or vision issues, or a goiter, or anything like that.
You think people wouldn’t change those things about them if they could? You think they’re not aware of how outside the norm they might be?
Somehow “fat” is different from all the other discrimination out there, because people “choose” to be fat. That’s another argument for another time, considering the modern food industry, media, how government’s been bought and sold, and more — so I’m not going there.
This whole posting sprang up because I got all pissed off about some remarks a young guy was making about “fatties” on Twitter today, mocking overweight girls trying to glam it up for a profile shot — saying how they’re just getting fatter and fatter, and he wants to puke.
Who the fuck does he think he is? He’s perfect? Does he KNOW what it’s like to be 300 pounds and feel like losing weight is the hardest thing in the world? Um, no.
Know who does? I do. I know what it’s like. I’ve weighed that. Note the past-tense.
I’ve hauled my 275-pound body up a 30-floor highrise’s stairs and back down again, I’ve cycled 70km in a day, lived through the hellish pain that comes from waking up a body that’s long been hibernating. I know.
I know the looks a girl gets when she’s pushing 300 pounds and has the audacity to enter a gym — the skepticism, the obvious wondering about how long she’s gonna last.
Fat people are NOT encouraged to change. When they try, they’re largely scorned and mocked just for even attempting that. Trust me, I know.
It took watching my father almost die from diabetes to wake me up; I didn’t want to die like THAT. And it was the hardest road I’ve ever travelled.
Mocking fat people clearly hasn’t been working. Look at our world.
Insulting the disabled removes them from our world, while denying us the possibility of another Ray Charles or Stephen Hawking because of shame felt from having to endure the mockery that comes from a large portion of the public.
Making a non-specific insult about a body-type or disability or skin-colour doesn’t have to have an intended recipient — without one, you’ve broadly painted everyone. They’ve all been struck by the ignorance of that comment.
Have YOU ever been that person behind the computer screen when an insensitive generalized remark is made, and you react with “is he talking about me?” because it could totally be about you?
Passive-aggressive hate is everywhere on the internet. Its passivity should in no way suggest it is impotent. It rises up and harms many.
My tweet about it said it best: Being mean isn’t cool. It’s never been cool. And if you make it funny, it’s still not cool. Grow up. High school’s over.
We’re an unhappy society. What’s causing it? Is it the ever-present derision and commentary about each other that sets us constantly on edge? People are less secure than ever, and some are striking out at others as a result. Suddenly, it’s no longer a grown-up world, but a return to all I loathed about being in grade 10.
Seriously, what’s going on?
When I hear waif friends panicking about calories, “oh, god, I’m getting fat!” and they’re a size four, I wonder where the fuck we all went wrong.
Maybe some people still haven’t gotten over their elementary-school mocking and want to take it out on everyone else. I don’t know.
What I do know is, in an age where we have greater glimpses into other people’s lives than ever before — their pains, their sorrows, their struggles — I find that we’re getting crueler, more ignorant, and more insensitive when we’re supposedly civilized.
I often wonder if it’s the culture of the celebrity-gossip blog that’s killing kindness in society.
Instead of pettiness being confined to blogs about celebrities, we’re now visiting it on everyone.
The thing about this whole thing that’s most odd, this little fight with this ignorant kid, is I might consider myself somewhat overweight, but I know I’ve changed a LOT about myself — I’ve lost more weight in the last couple years than most people could even fathom. I KNOW what it takes to lose 3 pounds in a week, I know what kind of hardcore activity is required week-in, week-out. I could probably kick your ass.
There’s a reason most people fail in trying to not be “fat.”
It’s not a two-month course-correction — it’s trying to change for the rest of your life what it took you a lifetime to become. There are years of up-and-downs as you learn about yourself before you one day figure out what it takes for YOU to have success. There are medications and environments that can artificially influence weight. It’s not a black-and-white thing.
And there is no addiction in the world more difficult to overcome than food: We are faced with making choices about it three times a day, at least. Every holiday revolves around it. Every social outing is based upon it.
Overcoming weight issues and other addictions is a massive challenge.
It’s NOT society’s job to fix anyone’s life. It’s on EACH PERSON to improve themselves, and using excuses why you won’t change just doesn’t cut it — because some of us find the strength to change even in the face of our largest adversities.
I don’t accept that being unhealthily fat is a lifetime sentence. I believe every unhealthy overweight person* can change their life and improve their health — because I could, even after a decade of injuries.
And I think we can be better people.
We can be a kinder society.
We can accept that words and actions hurt others.
We can try to understand how it might feel on the other side.
I don’t WANT a world where everyone’s NICE all the time. Do I strike you as a sunshine-and-roses kind of girl?
I just want a world where people are treated with a little respect.
I didn’t need the world to give me a hug and tell me everything was gonna be all right when I was super-fat. But I sure as hell needed less skepticism when I finally had the courage to go to the gym and try to change my life. I needed people to understand and support me when I started on my path of change, rather than presupposing I was just going to be another failing fatty who would give up on everything.
I may have ate the food, but EVERYONE in life around me helped perpetuate my mammoth size that by saying all the things that made me insecure and hurting in the first place — which drove ME to my security blanket of food. Yes, I still take the blame, but at least I understand the reasons, too.
Too bad I didn’t have an emotional dependency on cocaine — at least then I might’ve been a hottie and socially-accepted in my svelte size four. After all, nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels, says Little Miss Kate Moss, who might be confusing how skinny feels with the high she’s riding from her cocaine addiction that fuels her size-zero money-maker.
We’re ALL fucked up.
Don’t try to pretend you’re not. YOU know it. I know it. We ALL have things we’d rather not have come to light at a party.
People with obvious physical issues can’t hide theirs, though, so they don’t get off easily. Instead, they’re publicly hurt.
That’s my problem.
That it’s somehow been deemed acceptable behaviour in today’s world?
That’s our problem.
* “Skinny-fat” is the new phrase out there — people who look healthy ‘cos they’re skinny but their numbers are off the chart, all because they luckily have a quick metabolism so they can hide their true health. There ARE overweight people who are healthy, I’m definitely one — since I can climb/descend 30 floors in a high-rise after cycling 15 kilometres and get my 6 cups of veggies a day — but society still isn’t talking about how health is about internal numbers, not outward appearances. Stop judging on looks or abilities.

The Power to Own It

I began a new blog today.
There’s an area of my life I don’t feel like writing about here or anywhere else too obviously just yet, so I figure a new blog is a good way to do it.
But I don’t want true anonymity, I don’t want to write for just myself, because what I’m going through is something that’s a universal experience, and it’s painful for us all.
I believe I know something about sharing pain. I believe I know something about sharing the dark inner-workings of some life experiences that many don’t have the guts to put a voice behind.
I believe my obligation as a writer is to share that with my audience. I believe I owe it to myself, and to anyone else hurting in that same place I’m going through, to put my emotions and hurts into words so that there’s some kind of community behind the feeling.
I don’t think I was given the talent of writing so I could fill paper for-my-eyes-only journals that get stuffed in a drawer and contribute fuck all to the way the world spins. I believe each of us was given whatever skills and talents we have with the obligation of using them in a way that builds into the human condition.
We owe it to each other to own our experiences and share them. We underestimate the power of identity and community, but we truly don’t fathom how important both are to the fullness of our lives.
So why am I writing the blog a little bit incognito?
Because it’s not just my story to tell right now, and to put my fully-public stamp upon the work would be difficult for others.
I don’t do secrets well. I keep confidences beautifully, but I can’t keep secrets about myself from others. I don’t care to, it’s not my style. I’m honest to a fault. I’m absolutely fucking CERTAIN I’m not the only person who thinks the irreverent things I do, who gets pissed about the things I do, or hurts in the ways I hurt.
I know I’m not alone. That knowledge emboldens me. I want to share. I want to stand up and shout THIS IS HOW IT FEELS!
So, if you look hard enough, you might find me.
And I’m fine with that.
But here, now, this place, given my audience, I can’t begin to define for you the scope of these feelings I have, because, well, it gives everything away. To my whole audience.
It’s hard, too, though. It’s hard to hide this, but it’s also hard to put it out there, because putting it out there means I can’t pretend it’s not real or that it’s not happening to me.
I don’t want to own these feelings. These are truths I could well do to avoid. Which is all the problem, and is why I’ve opened that can of worms.
That’s when writers need to write: When it’s the very last thing in the world they wish to write about.
When’s the last time you told the truth about your biggest fears? When’s the last time you owned up to your most regrettable failings and accepted that you’ve not paid the price for them or atoned in any way? When’s the last time you said you were all that and more, but that you could confidently say that that didn’t mean you were a bad person, just a normal human?
Because we should all do that a little more. We should all acknowledge we could be closer to that person we have a vision of being, and accept that our ethics and morality may stand room for improvement.
If you’re the perfect vision of who you’ve always dreamed to be, then congratulations, you’re in the rare 1%.
Me, I’m far, far, far from that woman. Today, I’ve taken another step in possibly trying to write/right some of the wrongs that are the crevasse separating me from who I’ve been and who I’d like to still be.
It’s a good way to end a week, and a bittersweet moment of satisfaction. I know there’s no happy ending for me here. But there’s a better ending than the one I currently see unfolding, and I know that it’s in my power to change.
And somewhere on the web I still get to have a voice and share that common human experience, if only a little incognito.
What a beautiful world technology gives us the opportunity to have…
If only we’d all try to use this technology to create real community rather than just more commodity.