The Grumpy Owl

To impress a selection of war criminals, our government recently spent a small fortune on an artificial lake and some wooden deck chairs.  Since the wife and I are not war criminals (yet) we were not allowed anywhere near this costly display.  So we decided to accept the next best thing: A trip to the Muskokas.

We were surprised to discover that real lakes and chairs are much larger than their fake counterparts.

Size is relative.

The trip was partly a much needed vacation and a chance for my wife to spend some time with my family so that she might ally with them against me.

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It’s Canada Day and I usually like to mark the occasion with some flag vandalism, a rant against the nation state in general and this one in particular, and then spend the next six months sifting through a selection of insults, threats and various other comments.  I’m not in the mood this year.

Usually, my Canada Day post is a visceral  reaction to the idiotic, nationalistic exceptionalism that most Canadians feel.  They think this country is so much better, so much more free and so much more egalitarian than any other place on earth. Just like people do on any other place on earth.

This year, in Toronto at least, where white folks got a tiny taste of how Canada treats so many other people both here and abroad, not many people are feeling like that.

They want to.  I can sense this.  And I’m not one to kick my enemy when he’s down.  Not unless he’s trying to get back up.

So let me just slip one to the ribs here.

I’ll be attending today’s protest to have an independent inquiry into the events of the weekend (hopefully by Amnesty International) and I fully expect to hear the protesters singing the national anthem.  It’s not a practice I’m ever comfortable with but now, after that nation spent a drunken weekend chasing people about with sticks and on a day when our taxes are being raised, it now seems especially ludicrous to gather together and sing its praises.  But people will.

They want their rudely shattered delusion back in place.
These post-summit protests are an exercise in reassurance.  Many seem to feel heartbroken about the events of the weekend.  They feel like their boyfriend has broken up with them and now they don’t know what to do.  Mainly, they want everything back to normal.  This urge for a return to status quo is called reactionaryism.  They’re not terribly concerned that it was the status quo that created this situation in the first place.  They simply think: If you just stop drinking, everything can be like it was before! They want the police chief to resign.  A scapegoat.

As if any other police chef on the the planet would have handled things differently.

I can’t really blame them.  Change and loneliness is a frightening situation, especially for those who are dependent on the state for their livelihood.  The people are much like a battered housewife.  They want the husband to stop beating them, desire a return to a happier time and, lacking any self-esteem, are now eager to believe any Sunday morning apology they might get.  Yet it’s a dysfunctional relationship.  We saw an expression of that dysfunction –not its cause– over the weekend.  Our hubby, the state, might promise to quit drinking but can we believe him?  Has he earned our belief?

I don’t believe he has.

And yet, while I will not condemn black bloc tactics as their violence is nothing when measured against that of nations, I cannot ever endorse anyone ever purposely breaking something they cannot rebuild.  If you cannot install a window, you have no business breaking one.  Smashing is the easiest and most meaningless aspect of anarchism.  If we are ever going to leave the state behind, we must do the hard work and form better systems.  We must make ourselves less dependent on it so that we can leave.  Conflict will then arise, to be sure, but it will be on our home turf, not theirs, and we will have something to protect.  We need to be independent.

The first step, I suppose, is admitting that you have a problem.

That you might be suffering from a carefully cultivated Stockholm Syndrome.

I know the bulk of this city will accept the flowers and apology, then talk itself back into the lie, probably within the month, but I also know that some of you won’t.  I would urge those ones not to turn to the smashing of things but to the building of them.  We are hostages and breaking the dishes, while satisfying in the short-term, will accomplish nothing.  We need an escape plan and place to go to.  That is where we need to direct our energy.  Not towards politics but towards removing them from our lives.

Tags: canada day day, G20, toronto

I didn’t invite the internet to Valentines Day.  Sorry internet.

I actually like this strange holiday.  Not because its a celebration of romantic love –I celebrate my romantic love the old fashioned way: by fucking– but because it’s just so very sadistic towards lonely people.  In the depths of gloomy February, when you haven’t felt an amorous touch or heard a loving word in too long, every florist, shopkeeper and couple decides to rub their happiness in your face.  You get to feel like an orphan on Christmas morning.

What’s not to like about that?

On the day before Valentines Day, on February 13, I celebrate a much more important event to my romantic life.  It’s the one year anniversary of my first fart in front of Shalome.  Although it was unintentional (I might have been bending over or something) a noisy bit of gas escaped my backside.  I stood there aghast.

Farting has never improved a relationship.  It leads to nosepicking, sweatpants and dutch ovens.  Farts are the funeral bells of romance.

I almost ended the whole thing right there.  But, against all odds and my better judgement, we persisted in our certainly doomed relationship.  We just had to accept that mistakes happen while endeavouring that farting would never become routine.

A year later, I’m proud to say it hasn’t.

A lot of people seem to think love is about being as comfortable as possible with a person.  I disagree.  Love is about fear, crippling self-doubt and showing off.  Did Romeo and Juliet look comfortable to you?  Love is discomfort.

A relationship on the other hand, if it’s to last, needs a certain degree of comfort.  Working on all cylinders all the time will burn you out.  But it also needs respect.  You can tell how respectful you’re being by how uncomfortable you feel.

In a relationship, you should be comfortable enough to know that if you err, you will be forgiven but you should also have enough respect to never view forgiveness as permission.  It’s not.

So after that dark, farting day, I have never made a habit of farting in front of Shalome and she has paid me the same respect.  But, strangely, on our one year fartiversary, as if in some morbid celebration, she let one rip in her sleep.  There must have been some special magic in the air.  Gassy magic. Noisy, gassy magic.

With work, I can forgive her “little” mistake.  But that’s just the sort of guy I am:  A hero.

YouTube – Westboro Baptist Church: Santa Claus Will Take You to Hell.

There’s no such thing as Santa.  Or Hell. But the Westboro Baptist Church is real and they have an important message about both.  For some reason.

YouTube – Thanksgiving Prayer William S Burroughs.

Earth Day came and went, making all the difference to the melting glaciers that Live Aid made to Africa.  That is, none.

People trotted out the empty platitudes about how every day should be Earth Day, tried to hawk sustainable, organic wares in the market of spectacle and beg money for charities that have accomplished nothing and will never accomplish anything.  Appeal to my morality, ask for my cash.

And just where is this environment that people keep talking about?  Is it on Young Street, perhaps lurking in a strip club wash-room?  Or is tied up with real-estate restrictions in some park; a green-zone that exists at our mercy to serve our voyeurism?  Maybe it’s the sky.

There is no such thing as the environment.  The environment is just something you watch on television.  If you’re lucky, you take a two week trip to it, snap some pictures and return home. Post the evidence on YouTube and Fickr.

It’s bigfoot.

We do not live in it, we amble through it as tourists.  Our real environment is the boulevard, the bar and the electric box.  It’s not the trees we’re trying to save, it’s the ability to remain alienated from them.  Having raped the Earth, we’ve decided that it’s now polite to ask it on a date.  “Was it good for you, honey?”

Environmentalism is just a method we use to trick ourselves into thinking we’re good people.  It’s a marketing stratgey used by us, on us and for us.  We don’t care about the planet.  We never have. We care about the planet’s ability to impact our shopping habits.

Should we think about the planet, we might realize why our ancestors ran from it in such screaming horror. It’s a monster. Like Bigfoot.

And it’s dead.

I’m half English and half Irish.  Problem is, it’s the wrong halves.  Mother is North Irish Protestant and Father is South London Catholic.  I’m basically what happens when a Jewish Palestinian marries a Muslim Israeli.  Or something like that.

But the Irish have a song for everyone.  Except me.  The closest they have for me is “The Orange and The Green.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFobrWenTIY]

Lyrics:

Refrain

Oh, it is the biggest mix-up that you have ever seen.

My father, he was Orange and me mother, she was green.

Oh, my father was an Ulsterman, proud Protestant was he.

My mother was a Catholic girl from Country Cork was she.

They were married in two churches and lived happily enough

Until the day when I was born when things got rather tough.

Refrain

Baptised by Father Ivey I was rushed away by car

To be made a little Orangeman, my father’s shining star.

I was christened David Anthony but still in spite of that

To my father I was William while my mother called me Pat.

Refrain

With mother every Sunday to Mass I’d proudly stroll,

Then after that the Orange Lodge would try to save my soul.

Though both sides tried to claim me, well I was smart because

I’d play the flute or play the harp depending where I was.

Refrain

Now when I’d sing then rebel songs much to me mother’s joy,

Me father would jump up and say “Look here would you me boy!

That’s quite enough of that lad.” He’d then toss me a coin

And he’d have me sing The Orange Flute or the Heros of the Boyne

Refrain

One day my ma’s relations came ’round to visit me

Just as my father’s kinfolk were all sitting down to tea.

We tried to smoothe things over, but they all began to fight

And me being strickly neutral I bashed everyone in sight!

Refrain

My parents never could agree about my type of school,

My learning was all done at home, that why I’m such a fool.

They both passed on, God rest them, but left me caught between

That awful colour problem of the Orange and the Green.

Refrain

pic nicked from here

With the election of popular Negro Barrack Obama, white people ended racism for all time.  Yet, I don’t hear a lot of black people thanking me.  I haven’t received a card, an email or even a friendly handshake on the street.  I’m beginning to suspect that black people are ungrateful.

But, because we’re all post-racial now, I think it important to give them the benefit of the doubt.  We’ll simply overlook their voting against gay marriage as a simple misunderstanding.  You see, they just didn’t understand that they owe us.

And we’ll try to make sure that no one ever notices that white people voted exactly as normal while Obama rode black and Hispanic support to the white black house.  It makes us look a little less heroic.

What we should do is organize a day when black people can pay us back for the wonderful favour we did them in no longer subjecting them to us.

Us white folks should prove our outstanding charity by going a step further than we already have.  We could give them a holiday so that they might better celebrate us.  Let’s take Valentine’s Day and change it to Black Heart Day.

Upon this holiday, black people would have the chance to formally thank white people.  Aside from sending us loving cards of gratitude and voting how we see fit, they could also work for us.  For free even.

I can just picture it now.  I’d sit in my rocking chair, sipping a mint julep, bravely carrying my burden in contemplative silence while watching all those simple dark faces smiling in the fields; their smoky voices raised in a happy song, so pleased are they to repay the debt they owe us.  It would be a wonderful new era of post-racial understanding. A truly beautiful new morning.

I know we’d have to give up Valentine’s Day but no price is too high in the service of brotherhood.

I loathe New Years Eve.  Of all the holidays, this is the worst.  Transit is a mess, there’s no such thing as a taxi and the streets are full of the very worst type of people. People desperate to have fun.  People realizing that they’re not going to.

There’s no way to win.

If you go out, you’re inevitably disappointed, and feel like you should be somewhere better.  But, if you try to go somewhere better, you just can’t get there.  Then you stare down the nightmare scenario of being on the sidewalk when midnight rolls past.  God forbid.  Better start hooting and screaming.

If you stay in, you feel like a social leper.  The depressing tension builds, you figure everyone is having a better time than you, then you start thinking about life and all that nonsense.  Finally, you watch Bladerunner and fall asleep.

As for spending it with your loved ones, didn’t we just suffer through Christmas?

I’ve had exactly one good new years eve.  The switch to the year 2000.

I spent that one drunk on guaro, high on ecstasy and mushrooms, at a small rave on an organic farm in the Costa Rican Jungle.  At dawn, I fell asleep with some blond girl on the beach while a rainbow came up over the ocean.

Needless to say, the year went downhill from there.

This year, I just want to get into a bath and into my pajamas.  Watch some “Little House on the Prairie”, fall asleep on the couch and wake up tomorrow to pay rent.  The night isn’t over yet and people will, no doubt, keep trying to drag me outside.

I don’t want to go.

Nor do I want to do an end of year wrap-up post but here I am.  Doing one.

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Tags: Uncategorized

But just remember, it’s not all gifts and charities and peace on earth.  If you’ve been bad –and I know some of you have been– Krampus is coming for you.   And he’s not happy.

Halloween is my favourite holiday.  There’s none of that family nonsense and I like to see people getting all dressed up for no reason. The women look good and the men look no more foolish than usual.

But this year I’m not doing anything party related for it.  I’ll be working.  This is a good thing.  I’ll be downtown and seeing the costumes parade down Queen West.  And I’ll be paid for my time in a bar.

I had thought of dressing up as a priest but failed to get my act together.  Surprisingly, even this simple costume involved effort.  I can’t stand that amount of effort.  It makes me mumble.

As for the socializing aspect, I can only ever get so excited about these things.  While it’s certainly amusing to watch my friends get drunk and say crazy things while wearing funny clothes, I can do that on any given Tuesday.  It’s not really an occasion.

Also, winter is here and I’m saving for a new suit.  This means that every expense except for the necessary must be chopped out.  No random tie purchases, no pointless evenings in restaurants, no hemorrhaging cash while walking down the street and, if I can be paid for going to a bar instead of paying to sit in one, then the choice is clear:  I’d rather be paid.

But I hope the rest of you have a good time.

pic nicked from here

It’s nice to sit down and do nothing for an evening.  One would assume that I’ve been doing a lot of that — seeing that I’m on vacation.  The assumption would be wrong.  For the past two days, I’ve been turning the blue room green.  This has been quite a bit of work.  Enjoyable though. And I’m seeing some progress.

Finally.

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I’m back in the city. The big smoking, stinking city. The screaming crackheads and sirens city. The place where no one knows your name and no one wants to. I’m home.

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I must have my holidays confused. I just put a turkey in the oven. Cooking one is much harder than it seems. He really didn’t want to go in there. And by turkey, I mean pigeon. Also I didn’t really stick it in the oven; I drowned it in the bath. And by bath, I mean toilet. You see, I’m going to nail it to the door of the special woman in my life.

Something like that really says: Love me! Love me or Die! Just like Valentine’s Day.

I’m not even sure why I’m doing this post. My romantic life is only notable for its complete absence.  Over the last year the highlight was probably when someone posted my description of myself as an example of what women don’t want.

I’ve also been set up a few times. Or, as I like to call it, pimped out like a 15 dollar whore. My habit of using those sorts of phrases, as well as being “a grumpy and bookish eccentric who dresses funny, lacks small talk and is prone to saying outrageously insulting things by accident” has left the female population less than enthused about my prospects as a mate.

I can’t blame them. I’m less than enthused about my prospects in this regard too.  And honestly, I’m less than enthused about the idea of having a woman in my life, diverting my time away from myself and my money away from my tailor. All together, you might just say I’m less than enthused.

Having established the level of my enthusiasm (low) here’s a few things I learned over the last year:

I make people uncomfortable.

Although a woman may be well aware that you’re the sort of person who wears Hitler mustaches to cancer galas, she may not expect you to be the sort of person who wears Hitler mustaches to cancer galas.

The moment I realize that I cannot speak my mind is a bad one. And it’s a bad sign. But it’s not half as bad as the moment when I start speaking my mind.

I actually have feelings and whatnot. They can be hurt.

I have no game. There’s no middle ground between being simple and psychologically destroying my opponent. I should get some game. Perhaps they sell it at Zellers.

I should do a better job of closing myself off. Some people may say that’s a bad idea. Those people have not read this blog. I really need to meet some girls who don’t read it. Or anything. Reading is ridiculous. It’s for show-offs.

Women leap to the conclusion that, because I’m a man, I want to fuck them. They tend to view a great deal through those goggles. It’s as presumptuous as it is absurd.

Going in for a kiss, while sober, with an unpredictable outcome is terrifying. And awkward. And clumsy. Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve learned. But I hope all of your humping goes well on Valentine’s Day and for the rest of the year. Throw in a thrust for Grumpy. Or just dedicate your oral sex to me with a small and tasteful ceremony of some kind. I’m not fussy.

I’m bracing myself.

Right now, I’m sitting in my housecoat and pajamas, drinking a cinnamon and hazelnut coffee,  smoking a pipe and bracing myself.  I am dreading the walk home along Queen West tonight.  The streets will be full of some of the most vile humans there are: People looking for a good time.  It doesn’t get much worse than that.

I really hate Queen West.  It’s full of people looking for something that isn’t there and making something that is.  Mobs of these folks will be wandering from jukejoint to jukejoint, throwing up all over the place and shouting.  They’re always shouting.

I have no place to go to, no parties to attend and I would rather keep it that way.  But staying in on New Year’s Eve always feels funny.   Like I’m missing something better.  Going out feels the same way.  There’s no way to win.