Hair-brained Year-long Project #18284-F: The dress
Okay.
I have decided I am making a dress (not for me, thx).
I’ve always liked fashion. But I can’t sketch, stitch, cut, or sew.
I am starting from scratch. But with my library card, my passion for ridiculous ideas, and my mom’s sewing machine, I’m giving myself one year, 365 days, to design and make a dress. Why? Why the fuck not?
Design V. Documentation: “What Is Art?” and my problems with photography
Every society and culture that I am aware of, has garnered my awareness through their desire to be remembered. Those who want to disappear, persons or societies, often do so. But I believe that we can logically assume that most would like to leave some type of legacy or, at least, a dent in the wall somewhere to show they existed.
A classical studies professor I had at UBC once suggested the reason we have the ancient literature we do is because it was popular and mass produced thereby greatly increasing its chances of surviving the ages. Does this mean that our society will be thought of as a society of Dan Brown readers and Justin Bieber fans? Well, truth be told, we are a society of Dan Brown readers and Justin Bieber fans, but we are also much much more. Unfortunately, that “much much more” is rarely as well documented as the other. When was the last time you saw major media outlets spend a week discussing the latest tattoo acquired by the lead cellist in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra?
So, my contribution to pot is documentation.
I review, promote, provide, and take pictures. But are the pictures art?
A lot of photojournalists have had their pictures declared “art”, won awards, etc… But are photographs always art? No. Where is the line? What is a good picture?
We (well anyone with a Facebook account) know what a bad picture looks like: over exposed, poorly framed, out of focus, poor use of subject… But what about a picture that is perfectly exposed, framed, focused, representing the subject as intended but the subject is a printing press you’re photographing for a technical manual? Is it art?
Another problem very evident in the world of Facebook and MySpace is the word “photographer”. I have owned cameras for over 20 years, but does the mere fact that I take pictures make me a photographer? According to a dictionary, yes. A quick glance through 99% of Facebook albums and the answer is “no”.
So let’s look at these:
Click me; I get bigger.
The Olympic torch bearer running through West Vancouver. I was prepared for him to arrive. I was able to run along side. I like this picture. If my flash had gone off, as I had intended it to, the picture would have been ruined. So… means, opportunity, and dumb luck. Am I a photographer yet?
Click me; I get bigger.
Serena Ryder, arguably the most famous person I have photographed. People see this pic and recognize her, see her. Is it well framed, exposed, focused? This was also the first time I was told by a stage manager that I had three songs to shoot before I had to pack it in. Other people were shooting pictures, flashes popping on their little palm cameras… The stage manager thought I was a professional: Three songs. No flash. Am I a photographer yet?
Click me; I get bigger.
Jeff Myrfield of The Stumbler’s Inn. I love to photograph these guys and have a lot more access to them than most. I like this pic. I was trying to take it. However, it is very dark. Jeff is backlit. To get this shot I needed to ramp up the ISO and got “noise”. I shot this with an f1.8 lens. If I had a lens with a bigger aperature, would this be a better photo? Could I have brought the ISO down and decreased the “noise”? As a non-professional, despite my desire, I can’t afford lenses that won’t eventually pay for themselves. Also, I’m asking a lot of questions about technical aspects of shooting. This time I had a plan, access, but wasn’t entirely sure if I was using my gear to the best of its abilities. Am I a photographer?
Click me; I get bigger.
Walking back from a live show, I stopped to take a picture of an escalator being repaired. As I turned, I saw this. Click. This picture led to this:
Click me; I get bigger.
This picture is an interesting one. It is the first time complete strangers have let me pose them so it is a step, for me personally, towards taking the kind of “people” pictures I’d like to. But this picture is also a big disappointment for me.
I shot it in black and white. I didn’t think to switch my camera back to standard. That graffiti is vivid and amazing. In this picture it is dull.
This picture isn’t in focus. I suck at manual focusing and the autofocus on my 50mm is sometimes worse. Plus, I’d been drinking, which is never conducive to focus… heh.
Here’s the thing. Could I have kept my subjects there while I changed lenses and reset my camera? A fun idea can become an imposition pretty quick sometimes.
Art cannot be dumb luck but dumb luck can contribute to art. Art is talent but cannot be restricted to only trained thought. Art is knowing your tools but not confined by them…
So what happens with a guy who just wants the world to know how cool his friends are and how much fun this city still has? I don’t know if I’m a photographer let alone an artist.
The History of the Hipster
The common mosquito, in its current form, is over 95 million years old. Despite its many eons of bothering the hell out of others and the sad truth that it probably isn’t going to go away any time soon, we still feel the need to complain about it, them. This is not hard to believe of course; they are annoying as hell and generally don’t provide a whole lot in return. Some would argue the same could be said of hipsters. I’m deciding. Granted they haven’t been around for 95 million years. Contemporary hipsters can be traced back a decade or so. But, as I will explain, there have always been hipsters, the parasitic culture gentrifier.
A Time article, written almost a year ago to the day, outlines the modern hipster. Dan Fletcher describes them as “smug, full of contradictions and, ultimately, the dead end of Western civilization.” This may be a bit harsh, but it’s not the first time it has been said.
Herb Caen, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, coined the term “beatnik” in 1958. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were not amused. If you read the Beat writers’ work, you’d know they almost always had jobs and worked very hard to play very hard. Kerouac was admitted to Columbia on a football scholarship, a strange crossover for the King of the Beats. They did not create a scene, but drew attention to it. This is the invitation, the opening of the door that beckons to all the hipsters. In a letter to the New York Times Ginsberg wrote, “if the beatniks and not the illuminated Beat poets overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash men.” When Ginsberg wrote of “Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,” I suspect he was referring to those who came before, those who were the scene, not the ones who made it. Even the French Revolution was going along swimmingly until Maximillien Robespierre hijacked the Committee for Public Safety and kind of ruined it for everyone. Hipsters have existed everywhere.
The term “hip” is from the jazz clubs of the 30s and 40s. Before that, the etymology becomes a little hazy. Suffice it to say, to be “hip” meant that you were in the know. To be “in the know” now is not very difficult, especially in the digital age, when music and image are swapped like so many hockey cards. I think what angers a lot of people is that the hipster culture isn’t a culture; it’s a flea market where culture is bought and sold. Fletcher writes, “…instead of creating a culture of their own, hipsters proved content to borrow from trends long past.” Indeed. I once had a 15 year old kid tell me that I was responsible for Kurt Cobain’s death because I “didn’t appreciate him.” I didn’t have a calendar on hand, but simple math revealed that he would have been two years old when we killed Cobain and not even an egg-seeking sperm when “Bleach” was released. That’s probably why I don’t remember seeing him at a show.
You would never go to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. dressed as a veteran if you were born in 1987. The Black Label Society had to cancel a show in Manchester because of threats of violence from a local motorcycle club. The club argued that BLS’s use of “rockers” on their jackets was an insult to any 1%er who’d actually earned them.
So is there anything actually wrong with a parasitic subculture intent on the lifelong search for cool? If there is, I blame Henry V. His Saint Crispin’s day speech called out all the “gentlemen in England now abed” and called their “manhoods cheap.” Essentially, if you’re not at the party, if you’re not hip, you suck and should think yourself “accursed.” Maybe that’s a bit of stretch. We are a society of consumers, of course, but cultures are supposed to produce as well. The true danger of a parasitic culture is not what it feeds on but how it feeds.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, a sentiment first expressed in the 3rd century BC by some Greek guy, then it doesn’t actually exist except in the abstract. We must see it for it to exist. This would also imply we should look for it. But if our search only extends as far as what someone else has told us is beautiful, the buck stops at the “industries of mass communication” Ginsberg railed against.
Candace Pert was responsible for discovering the opiate receptor in the human brain. In a 1981 interview with OMNI she stated, “Heroin bludgeons the opiate receptors into submission, functionally shrinking them.” In other words, if we keep outsourcing our opiates (she also stated that most drugs have less potent, natural analogs within the human body) our bodies can lose the ability to use our own; if we never leave the house, we become dependent on the deliveryman. This is the danger of the cool-seeker who doesn’t actually look. Hunter S. Thompson takes a similar stab at Leary’s Acid Culture in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, calling them “a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture.”
I too am a cool seeker. I too am a hipster in some aspects. But I want to believe that I replace that which I mine from the depths of culture in equal measures. I write about culture and society not to hand down truth from on high but to inspire you to take up the search as well. As Shakespeare wrote in Love’s Labour’s Lost, “Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, / Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.”
So we continue to swat at the hipsters buzzing around us. They’re not going anywhere though so get used to them. As for yourself, art can be art for art’s sake but cool shouldn’t be cool for its own sake. Cool is the blind faith of the unoriginal. At least that’s what I heard.
Shiloh Lindsey, James Wood, and The Devil Falls @ Cafe Montmarte, May 20, 2010
The tables don’t match. The chairs don’t match. Three tricycles, a pram, and an old-school banana bike hang from the ceiling. The Cafe Montmarte (4362 Main St. (@28th), Vancouver) is an anti-Starbucks. The absinthe posters covering the one wall are perhaps a tad obvious, but hell, why not eh? I don’t actually eat, not wanting to interfere with the buzz I have going, but they have a full menu starting at $5.95 and topping out at $13.95. Appies, salads, crepes, gourmet pizzas, and a couple of entrees fill the menu (along with deserts, specialty coffees, and two pages of hootch). There is one salad, “La Parisienne”, that I’ve decided I’m coming back for: grilled sweet peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh herbs and cubed mozzarella w/ balsamic vinaigrette. Sounds delish.
The Devil Falls (Chelsea Wakelyn)
Over from Victoria, James Wood introduces her as one of his “favourite song writers.” She is unassuming in her presence but her songs will work you over if you let them. She sings the songs a bird would sing if it wished it could walk like us, while we all dreamt of flying like it. They are beautiful in their search.
James Wood (w/ Murray MacDonald)
It is really good to hear James play again. It is the first time I’ve heard the Hotel Lobbyist’s songs played in their original form. Afterward, Wood asked me what I thought of the raw songs. I couldn’t help but answer, “Weird.” Wood cannot be continually defined as the “friend we almost lost”, but he left a lot back on that Manitoba highway and he’s come a long way to reclaim it. My favourite of all Wood’s songs is a bona fide heart breaker but the intro always gets a laugh. “The Letter Never Written” is, as Wood puts it, “the prettiest song written about suicide.” He quickly adds, “I had to tell my wife not to worry.” It is the prettiest song written about suicide. Wood’s songs are some of the prettiest songs about a lot of things and his accoustic set is not one to be missed.
Okay, there are 1001 things I can say about Shiloh Lindsey; however, I said 1002 things about her in a feature article that I will run in ten days. Suffice it to say, her set (minus a patch cord that was acting up) was nearly as wonderful as the way I feel when she and I share a laugh. She has a new album, Western Violence and Brief Sensuality, coming out on June 10. You can catch her at the album release show that night at The Anza Club.
Wood finishes off the night by reminding everyone that this is hopefully going to be an ongoing thing, once or twice a month. I’ll be sure to keep you posted. He thanks the owners of Cafe Montmarte for the venue to play. Referencing No Fun City, Wood reminds us that too many live venues in this town are closing (an all to familiar refrain) and it is always great to find people with the courage to provide a home for the many talented performers and artists this city has to offer.
PCAHA Scholarship Awards
When a kid does something wrong, it’s news for days if not weeks. If they do something really bad, after week two of unending “coverage” we start seeing pieces about “What’s Wrong With Society?” and “Will Your Child Murder You Tonight?” If you’re lucky, they’ll tell you who is to blame for all this; chances are it’s video games or tv or music. What about when kids do something right?
Tonight, I find myself in the “Captain’s Club”, a lounge on the 2nd floor of GM Place. I’m here to take photos. Over the past 33 years, the Pacific Coast Amateur Hockey Association (PCAHA) has given away more than $380,000 to 687 players. I’m willing to bet the $10,250 they give away tonight that you have never heard a thing about it or the kids who win. Despite several invitations, no major news provider in the Lower Mainland has ever mentioned it, let alone attended. Even the power of the Vancouver Canucks, who present five scholarships, can’t sway the media to pay attention.
However, get one of these to kids to throw a brick through a window instead of excel in school (coach and referee sports, work with special needs children, be camp counselors, produce films about sustainability, raise money for Third World nations, volunteer for the Red Cross, save a school from closing (yeah, he did), tutor, play an instrument, volunteer with Big Brothers/Sisters, work at the Food Bank, bring Palestinian and Israeli children together (no, I am not making this up), act in school productions, write for the school paper, be on the Grad Committee and/or Student Council, raise $70,000 for cancer research, work at a Mexican orphanage, prepare and serve food in a soup kitchen) or play a damn good game of hockey on top of it all and it makes it to the papers.
The list above is a short cross section of the accomplishments of the winners tonight. The ceremony usually lasts about 30-45 minutes and is a generally tame affair. One year Brian Burke scared the hell out of some kid by yelling out, “Smile! They’re giving you money!” just as I was about to take the picture. Burke, for the record, stayed for the entire ceremony that night, despite his aides constantly tapping at watches. He even stayed afterward to take pictures and sign autographs for anyone who wanted them. He knew how important nights like this were. Small and quiet as the ceremony is, it’s special for the kids and parents (and coaches and teachers and principals) to know that there are rewards for hard honest work, and hockey.
Slate.com ran an article about positive peer pressure. Surround children with smart, achieving classmates and your child is likely to rise to the occasion. This makes perfect sense to me. So why do we rarely hear about the kids who do well? If children are our future, maybe it would be a good idea to remind them now and again that there is still a future worth having. Just a thought.
Border Towns: Myth v. Fact when it came to my passport[s]
Someone once told me that the United States doesn’t recognize dual citizenship between the US and Canada. That didn’t sound right to me. Guess what… it wasn’t. The United States most certainly recognizes dual citizenship between our two countries. You only run into problems if, when you became a citizen of Canada, you meant to renounce your US citizenship. For myself, I didn’t. In fact, becoming a Canadian citizen was a passive act for me. While I sat (or stood) doing whatever it was I was doing on my 24th birthday, I became a Canadian citizen.
I was born in the US – Greenwich, CT to be exact. I have often joked that having been born in Greenwich and raised in West Vancouver, BC, my snob pedigree is perfect. Both my parents are Canadian (born and raised in the Kootenays) so I was considered a Canadian citizen born abroad. Because I lived in Canada when I reached the age of 24, I became a full Canadian citizen.
When I applied for my Canadian passport, I needed a guarantor’s signature, and those of two references. For my US passport, I just needed my birth certificate (stamped with the seal of the issuing State) and picture ID. I used my Canadian passport. Which leads me to myth number two: The US won’t allow you to carry two passports.
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Thanks for playing.
The woman at the US Consulate in Vancouver told me that when arriving in the US, arrive as an American. When arriving in Canada, arrive as a Canadian. That’s two passports kiddies. Surprised me too.
Lastly, though it pains me to say it, these idiot Tea Partiers might actually have something with this smaller government thing. It took two and a half weeks for my Canadian passport to show up and about two hours to apply for it. My US passport took me less than 45 minutes to apply for and arrived a week and a day later. Of course, when it comes to government, if the US can figure out healthcare and education for its (our?) citizens I’d be willing to wait another ten days for my passport.
Granville Pt. 3: Eleanor Rigby’s Friends
On a street full of people, these four guys had no one to talk to, though I suspect it was more like a case of no one really feeling like talking to them. Strangely enough, all but one of them seemed to be in generally good spirits despite being quite obviously alone.
Enough about f*cking Avatar already…
The year I was born, three great things were brought into this world: me, The Godfather, and Atari Pong. Thirty-seven years later, people still watch The Godfather, people still love me, but not a whole lot of people are still playing Pong. Thirty-seven years ago, Pong was the shit, the highmark of videogaming. Today it is an obselete joke, admired only by retro-fanatics and garage sale enthusiasts.
Enter Avatar.
Sigourney Weaver feels that James Cameron didn’t win the Oscar this year because he had a penis. She told a Brazilian publication that, “Jim didn’t have breasts, and I think that was the reason. He should have taken home that Oscar.” I sincerely doubt that such a commanding actress as Weaver would ever suffer from penis envy. Cameron on the other hand sucks and gets the lifeblood for his scripts from others so it is entirely possible that he does have breast envy.
Weaver then goes on to compare Avatar to Ben-Hur: “In the past, Avatar would have won because they loved to hand out awards to big productions, like Ben-Hur. Today it’s fashionable to give the Oscar to a small movie that nobody saw.” Well, it’s 51 years later and people still watch Ben-Hur.
Avatar and its stunning production values are not the future of moviemaking. It is the future of videogaming. Hurt Locker won the Oscar because it is a well-written and well-acted film. Like The Godfather and Ben-Hur, good movies will never go out of style; cool, movies on the other hand, disappear into gimmickry pretty damn quick. The remake of Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland have proved that already, much quicker than I would have anticipated. A bad movie in 3-D is still a bad movie in 3-D.
Dances With Ferngully may have grossed an obscene US$2,712,444,933 compared to Hurt Locker’s pittance of US$42,079,220 but Hurt Locker will stand the test of time. Good stories always do. Speaking of good stories, track down a copy of “Call Me Joe”. If you liked Avatar, I’m certain you’ll love it. It’s a science fiction story by about exploring the surface of Jupiter using remotely controlled artificial life-forms. It focuses on the feelings of the disabled man who operates the artificial body. Sound familiar? Fifty-two years after it was written, people are still reading it. Well, we all know James Cameron has.
A little lesson in advertising
Lets pretend for a moment that while sitting on your couch, you accidentally spill beer into your bowl of Hawkin’s Cheezies at the same instant that your Clapper shorts out, giving you and your Cheezie slurry one hell of a jolt. When you regain consciousness, to your surprise, you’ve discovered a cure for cancer. So what? No one knows. You could have the greatest product in the world but if the public isn’t aware of it they can’t/won’t buy it.
I read an article on Slate.com today that included a picture of an Obama supporter in the midst of a Tea Party rally, holding a sign that read, “All These People Are Idiots.” This seems to be the only place we see pictures of Obama supporters anymore. You see, content people are boring. They don’t make for good news; whereas, a group of overweight, undereducated malcontents waving ”Don’t Tread on Me” flags and screaming about communsim make for good media coverage. Start whipping bricks through the window of a Democrat’s constituency office and you’re sure to be the lead at 11 o’clock. There has been a lot of talk this week about Ann Coulter’s trip to Canada. Yes, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees us the freedom of speech and expression but how many people have actually read the Charter?
A society like Canada is built on two political philosophies: natural rights and utilitarianism. Proponents of natural rights believe that as humans we have the right do to pretty much whatever we damn well please. This is an interesting notion, always linked to the belief that humans will always work in the best interest of themselves and other humans. Doesn’t work (the “and other humans” part). Utilitarianism is the belief that what is good for the greatest number of people rules the day. This is how societies maintian themselves.
If you actually read all of the Charter, instead of just quoting the good bits that seem to give you the right to do whatever you damn well please you’d find this at the very beginning:
“Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law [...]” (emphasis mine).
Right after that introduction you find this little piece of legal literature:
“The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” (emphasis mine).
Your rights end where laws protecting society start.
So, back to Ann Coulter and advertising.
What Ann Coulter spews from that evil little mouth of hers is “speech.” Some of it is Hate Speech, which, in Canada, is illegal. So Ann, please quit complaining that your rights have been infringed upon. Every Canadian’s rights are infringed upon to protect society as a whole. It is the paradox of a “free” society. In order to have the freedoms we enjoy we must relinquish our sovereignty to those who would safeguard it. This is, very basically, the Social Contract.
To Coulter’s more vocal detractors? You shut up too. Ann Coulter is not stupid, nor is she an idiot. Coulter is a bully, but a bully with a book deal. The more you shout, the more books she sells. She knows it and if you’re half a brilliant as you think you are, you’d know it too. You don’t have to keep a constant vigil to figure out what she’s doing now, or who she’s offending. She’ll let you know herself. I guarantee it.
The reason so many products are so expensive is we help pay the bill for advertising them. There is no discernable difference in performance between a Puma, Nike, or Addidas shoe. The only difference is which one looks cooler in Maxim. Companies pay millions for this advertising. Stop giving it to Ann Coulter for free.
Really? (This post is NSFW)
I am seriously considering starting a new category called, “Only A University Student Could Be This Stupid.” A while back I blogged about an interview about tolerance I heard on CBC Radio. In this interview, a professor told of how he was shocked by a student saying that she would not lift a finger to stop the Nazis if she were a time traveller, not because of the “Butterfly Effect”, but because it wasn’t her place to comment on how other people (in this case the Nazis) ran their societies. She was “tolerant.” I remember very clearly when the professor said, “Only a university student would think that way.” Yesterday, I was commenting on a friend’s Facebook page. She had made a comment about Olympic protestors and then caught it from all sides, big surprise there. Her older sister and a friend were being particularly patronizing.
SISTER: I think you need to read a bit more before you can make any accusations. Maybe develop your understanding of “violence” instead of relying on what you saw or heard on CTV.
I couldn’t resist responding to that; so I did. I repsonded that I read a lot too and that I thought the protest was violent and that I had never actually seen any of CTV’s coverage. What I had seen were photographs by local photogs.
SISTER: “[R]ead a bit more” was directed at the term “violence,” looking at the difference between damage to property and an act against a human being…. Anarchist theory is about consensus. Yes we can question the actions of the black bloc, but at the end of the day it was only windows and now it’s time to move on.
I guess she didn’t actually mean “Read” but “Read stuff that will make you agree with me.” I pointed out that the Black Bloc assaulted journalists and police officers in the course of carrying out their duty. Were they property? This is a point no one cared to comment on after if was made. As for consenus, I asked if this was anything like democratic voting or the public agreeing that police officers should try and stop people who are breaking the law. What followed was classic.
SISTER’S FRIEND: Re: free speech, I guess you missed JS Mill. The movement does not pretend to totalize and reconcile the tactics of the movement. It certainly doesn’t consider pandering to the mainstream media to be tactically advantageous. It’s only defense against corporate media is the independent journalism of the movement, which is something, I’m sure, that any activist who knows the motives of canwest et al would read.
If the movement were considering efficient causes, it would vote for the NDP. But it is not, as I read it, interested in upholding the organism of law which it accurately perceives as a defense of the rich. It’s not just the parties that are inadequate, but government. This critique is not invalid if it is articulated as a problem. its exegesis is simply impossible here.
What movement doesn’t support an “efficient cause”? The “organism of law”? You mean a society with Law and Order? I could smell first year university on this idiot. Especially this: “Re: free speech, I guess you missed JS Mill.” Heh…
While John Stuart Mill did have a lot to say on the subject of free speech, as most philosophers do, he also had a little philosophy called Utilitarianism, the “greatest-happiness priciple.” Basically, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Whoops. By quoting John Stuart Mill as an expert supporting his point he also opened the door for me to comment that J.S. Mill’s philosophy of Utilitarianism basically means “DTES suck it up; the majority of us are doing just fine at your expense.” In order words, he blew his own point.
I was dying to know who this moron was so I took a glance at his Facebook page. Turns out he’s a fan of Sasha Grey. J.S. Mill was also a supporter of the rights of women so I asked my new friend this: How does a teenage girl being gangbanged and humiliated by 8 men her father’s age then being ejaculated on by same represent the rights of women or freedom from the exploitation of corporate media?
He accused me of making an ad hominen, which I most certainly had after making my comments. I’d suggested he drop the “pseudo-academic buzzwords” by the time he reached fourth year or his profs would eat him alive. He didn’t answer my question. So I wrote this: I just knew you would say [it was an ad hominem]… How about begging the question, answering everything but the question put before you?
Let’s try this again: How does a teenage girl being gangbanged and humiliated by 8 men her father’s age then being ejaculated on by same represent the rights of women or freedom from the exploitation of corporate media?
~or~ Why would you quote a source that actually harmed your argument unless you were ignorant of his full body of work?
He answered, but then quickly deleted his answer. How do I know this? Because it’s Facebook and a flea can’t fart in Madagascar without 10,000 notifications being sent. When I got to the “chat”, the sister was back and speaking in his stead.
SISTER: [O]ne more thing then let’s end this because I think after Baron’s last comment the argument has gone fucking nowhere. I’m also a fan of Sasha Grey, in fact I was before P. The reason why we are fans is because she’s probably the most articulate and critically minded porn star out there, making her pretty fucking fan worthy to me. Baron you should not reduce her to her image.
Now I would argue that the argument was going “fucking nowhere” because he refused to answer my questions but ”The most articulate and critically minded porn star”? Really?
It is not me you need to worry about as far as reducing her to “her image.” Let’s look at that “image”, shall we?
Now, of the 7 men in this room and more specifically the three fucking her, slapping her, and flipping her around like a meaty blow-up doll, how many are thinking about her “articulate and critical” mind? How many men watching this are? How many young women who may see Grey on Oprah being all coy and “smart” and talking about “freedom” and all the money she makes are? Interestingly enough, the file above is “image15″.
Ask Jennie Ketcham about the glamourous life of a porn star.
Sasha Grey may be “articulate” but her image is what everyone sees. The sister would have us believe that taking your child to see a man juggle chainsaws without explaining the danger is okay. People with their noses buried in theory with little or no practical experience to back it up can be very dangerous. Only a university student could be this stupid.
Ugly stuff
Okay, so I usually spend my days searching out beauty (well, that and stupidity). Today I have done the opposite. Hellachella, Queen of All Things Internet-y, is holding a contest to see who has the ugliest stuff. Below are my two entries (As a blogger, I’m allowed THREE but I don’t have a whole lot of ugly stuff).
Weird fish towel holder (I have THREE of these babies). When we tore out the bathrooms, I kept these:
I have no idea who/what this is supposed to be. Generally speaking, I find the Japanese to be a very beautiful people but I am at a loss trying to explain what the hell this is:
Check out Hellachella’s Ugly Contest HERE
What do I get if I win? This piece of sheer awesomeness.
this is one of the most beautiful views in Vancouver…
… but you can’t see it unless you’re watching TV.
Here Comes the Sun
Thursday, 12:00pm
When I wrote my Latin final at UBC, it wasn’t going well. I sat at my desk, an ancient language mocking me. If I failed this exam, my degree would go with it. My future hung in the words of the past, the words of the Caesars, yes, but the past nonetheless. When I finished my exam I added a line: alea iacta est. The die is cast. These are the famous words spoken by Julius Caesar as his army crossed the Rubicon into the Republic. It was a move he could not retract. I passed my exam.
Now, I find myself in a similar situation. My stomach is in knots as I await the result of a meeting Friday night. Two people will sit down to discuss their futures, and, in doing so, will discuss mine as well. I was led into this willingly as we so often are. I am not a naive man in any sense of the word unless it comes to matters of the heart where I tend to strike fast because my passion outweighs my judgement at every step.
To love a person is almost a cruel joke. Idealism and fantasy clash with realism at almost every step. My heart leaps when thoughts of this woman enter my mind and I just can’t stop. Some friends have told me to just drop it and walk away. But I cannot. I cannot walk away until I know for sure. The prize is just too worth it. Our discussions have opened my heart to a world I possibilities I never thought imaginable until now. It feels too right to be wrong but the universe and I have had similar jousts. Some of them I won; most resulted in my bloodied armour being dragged from the field.
Will it happen this time? I fear that it will. But we all fear such an outcome. I am unwilling to express my true feelings on the outcome here because I don’t want to jinx it. But I also know she’ll say “no.”
There, I said it. Damn it all.
There have been moments in my life when I wanted to take my library and burn it. All those words of hope and love clouded the despair of those that wrote them. I survived those moments and remain an adherent and disciple of those men and women who wrote the words that have brought so much pleasure and pain into my life.
The death of my father sent me into a tailspin that ended with a mythologized trip to a video store and police shotguns. The loss of my nephew put a dent in me that I just can’t straighten out. The death of my heart would be the death of me. I fear I would revert to my ultra-narcissistic and dangerous ways. And it is not self-pity. It is an awful pragmatism when one realizes that his path is such that for every step forward he takes, he is delivered not a reward but a crushing blow.
Like Nietzsche’s slaves, we comfort ourselves by saying, “Nice guys finish last” and a bunch of other Hallmark platitudes designed to sugar coat the harsh reality that life is cruel and nonpartisan. The law of averages dictates that if you surround yourself with goodness your chances of evil encroaching upon you are greatly reduced. Tell that to my nephew.
It is a gorgeous day outside today and yet here I sit, keeping counsel with my typewriter. I will go outside today, but I fear the sunlight. In here, I can amuse myself with the gadgetry of our age and try not to over think the next 36 hours of my life. When I go outside, I will be thinking of nothing but the joy of being a family walking in that sunshine for the rest of our lives. I’ll do that Saturday or never at all.
Thursday, 11:00pm
We didn’t make it to Friday but parted with a tender “Goodnight.” Tomorrow, the sun will rise and I will walk in the sunshine. If it rains, I’ll bring an umbrella and walk in all the puddles.
(I was just about to post this entry but decided to check the channel listings before doing so. It was playing Here Comes The Sun. Fucking universe… you really just gotta love it.)
If it’s H1N1 I’ll be soooooooo embarrassed
Today is a lazy day. I don’t feel well. I am sure that it is not the flu, but just the first week following a paycheque weekend. I am so lazy, in fact, that I am not typing this; I am dictating it using voice recognition software.
*Author’s note: Though I know what the word means, I have never really understood “onomatopoeia” until right now. Every time I breathe in through my runny nose, my computer writes “if.”
My ill health may also be a symptom of my recognition that Halloween is gone and the long, slow descent to Christmas has begun. I have no problem with Christmas but the bullshit that surrounds it tires me on the best of days.
I often find the Christmas season to be much like Tim Burton’s first Batman film: it wasn’t bad but could never have been as good as we were led to believe it would be. Christmas, it seems, would be far more enjoyable if we didn’t wait for its arrival for two whole months, spend two hours opening presents, another three stuffing your face, and then be expected to spend the entire next week buying more on sale.
I like Halloween because it is a useless but fun holiday. I enjoy Saint Patrick’s Day and New Year’s Eve for the same reason. Days like Thanksgiving, Valentine’s, and Christmas claim jurisdiction over abstracts: gratitude, love, peace, and joy.
Clichéd as it is, naive as it may be, I still believe the world would have more gratitude, love, peace, and a joy if we spent more than three days thinking about them.
The following line was dictated by my runny nose:
if this is the if if if
Playing the odds
According to B.C.’s Health Minister, the odds of dying from the swine flu are about equal to that of being hit by a car. Apparently we don’t have vaccinations for pedestrian vs automobile encounters. I’m not even sure how that would work. Perhaps they give you a shot of atomized chrome from a front bumper. Of course, if we did develop a way for kids to be vaccinated against car accidents, someone would make a YouTube video about how it was a secret government conspiracy, designed to steal our “essence” by contaminating our bodily fluids.
Why does a conspiracy like that always sound crazy when it is upheld by a US Air Force Brigadier General who just started armageddon but suddenly sound normal when a celebrity with a YouTube infatuation espouses the same thing?
The key question to ask of any conspiracy theorist is “cui bono?” Who benefits?
How do doctors benefit by giving all their patients poison? Well, they wouldn’t, so they wouldn’t.
How does a government benefit by having all of its citizens die from being mass-poisoned? Well, they don’t, so they wouldn’t.
You see, conspiracy theory is like religion.
The weak and unknown feel small and alone and need to find a sense of worth and belonging. For this, they seek religion. Others, feel that the only way to explain their lives not turning out exactly as they planned is to blame it on a vast conspiracy that seems committed to keeping them down.
Sometimes it’s the Jews. Sometimes it’s the rich. Sometimes it’s the intelligent. But, it is always a group that can be blamed for the misfortunes of others. There is never a solution given by a conspiracty theorist. It is always whose fault it is and how it affects you.
So when it comes to the immunity booster or “flu shot,” make sure your decision is based on solid medical fact (like you CAN’T get Swine Flu from the shot) not some angry mom who seems destined to bring back polio and smallpox because she thinks doctors are pompous and she knows better when it comes to her child because she saw a YouTube video while the doctor was studying microbiology at Johns Hopkins.
As for you conspiracy theorists out there, what do you say you all take a flying leap in front of a speeding car? Bet you wish you had the anti-automobile vaccination then.
Groan… Turn your head and cough
Sorry for not putting up a blog yesterday but it’s official! I am now the least productive person I know. It took a lot of hard work to not actually do any hard work but it think, in time, it will be worth it. I am stupidly behind on everything that I am supposed to be doing but somehow I have managed to move my office furniture and audio/video set-up across the room so that I can use my fireplace this winter AND finally figured out what I’m going to do for Halloween this year (well, narrowed it down to two costumes from five). Tonight, I need to bone up on Christian History for Non-Christians, prepare a handout on literary and poetic devices, edit three hours of video, and create a test. This means that in all likelihood, I will end up at the bar having done none of these things with an awesomely carved pumpkin. This just seems to be the way my life is going these days.
Can you blame me? Well, of course you could. But why would you? Perhaps because your job description isn’t one you wrote yourself on the back of a cocktail napkin while feeling very self-generous after six rounds of Jaegerbombs one evening; therefore, you actually have to adhere to yours. Getting close? HR people always seem to think that writing out your own job description is a good way of defining yourself at work. Personally, I think doing yourself such a disservice just lays your testes out as targets for any corporate hatchet-man that just happens to be walking by looking for a sacrifical lamb. Rather than letting them interpret your self-penned job description, it is always more fun to interpret exactly what their description your job means to you and then throw the “think outside the box” bullshit from the motivational seminar they made you attend last month right back in their faces. I’ll be seeing you at the bar, pen and cocktail napkin in hand, in no time.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one
I have often joked that if my friends heard I’d died during a bank robbery, their first question would be “Was he robbing the bank?” This, I suppose, is fair.
When you hear that someone you know has been killed after being hit by a car you feel terrible. Strangely enough, you feel a little less terrible after you hear that he was pissed drunk. For whatever reasons, you feel even less terrible if you find out that he was running around in traffic, wearing a shirt that read, “Please Hit Me I Can Use The Money!” Lastly, we wouldn’t know how to feel if we found out our acquaintance was run down by the mother of the infant he was about to sacrifice to Satan. The point of all this?
Today I read an article by Wendy Stueck in The Globe and Mail. To quote:
Since 2003, Vancouver has been the only city in North America where drug addicts can shoot heroin into their veins at an officially sanctioned injection site.
Now some of the same voices that lobbied for the site are suggesting supervised inhalation rooms for crack addicts, saying such facilities would help connect users with treatment programs and help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.
SUPERVISED INHALING ROOMS?
I work. I pay taxes. I can legally purchase cigarettes. Yet do you think I can find a spot in this country where I can have a smoke inside? Absolutely not. Now we’re expected to funnel health care money to supervised inhaling rooms? How about we funnel money to having crack dealers arrested and thrown in jail? How about we funnel money to getting people off of crack? How about we funnel money into education so that people don’t end up doing crack in the first place? How about we spend our health care dollars on something other than supervised inhaling rooms?
This may be a knee-jerk reaction to reading the article but I still don’t think that everyone should be allowed to be as blameless as we want to paint them. Actions must have reactions. Lives must have repercussions. To live in a society where no one was ever at fault would leave us with a bunch a rowdy yahoos running around in traffic and leaving us to clean up the mess.
Read Wendy Stueck’s original article in The Globe and Mail HERE
Someone Has to Stand Up for This
I remember the first time I ever saw laser beams shoot from my dad’s eyes. It had something to do with admission, either a movie or the PNE or the like. He paid for my older sister and then looking down at me said, “He’s only seven.”
I hadn’t grown up for so long to be cheated of it in front of a stranger!
“Nah, Dad! I’m EIGHT!” was the proclaimation. Cue laser beams. Either my father didn’t know how old I was (punishable by spouses and highly unlikely) or he was trying to screw $5 out of wherever it was we were trying to get into (punishable by law and extremely likely).
So my dad lied to one zit-faced ticket taker over wanting to save $5? No one called the Air Force. Paramedics, police, and fire departments weren’t mobilized. No one shut down Vancouver International Airport. He was trying to sucker one person until my bout with honesty stymied him. A lie is a lie but I think Balloon Boy’s pop has my dad hands down on this one.
Richard Heene wanted a reality show.
After all the mess that these shows have created, no one in their right mind would want one; therefore, it must be someone else’s fault. To this end, I have compiled a list of likely suspects.
John Langley – creator and producer of “COPS.”
On March 11, 1989 (six years minus a day after Buckwheat was killed on live TV by publicity hunter, John David Stutts), “COPS” hit the air. It was decided that people who are drunk, high, and/or stupid we’re much better at acting drunk, high, and/or stupid than actors were and you didn’t need a script or actors. Imagine how much it would cost a producer in today’s market to pay Lindsay Lohan and Brittney Spears to do the stuff they did for free outside nightclubs.
Kato and Ken and the Tokyo Broadcasting System
In the mid-80s, the Tokyo Broadcasting System had a hit with “Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan.” This show included a segment which asked for Japanese families to send in funny home videos. American producer, Vin Di Bona, saw it and liked it and WHAMMO… America’s Funniest Home Videos. Some of the more adept of you may have wondered why, during the first couple seasons, an inordinate amount of American families sending in their home videos appeared to Japanese.
It should be noted that both these series were developed during the Writers Guild[s] of America (East and West) strike which lasted between March 7 and August 7, 1988. It was the longest strike on record and producers were getting nervous.
Allen Funt – creator of “Candid Microphone” then “Candid Camera.”
At 7:30pm on June 28, 1947, “Candid Microphone” hit the airwaves via ABC Radio. August 10, 1948, “Candid Camera” hits TV for the first time and the rest is, as they say, history.
It should also be noted that I’m not sure Funt can be blamed here. Firstly, both of his shows had writers (Woody Allen was one) so they effectively weren’t Reality TV. Secondly, people didn’t know they were on TV so they couldn’t ham it up for the cameras.
In 1997, the UK production company, Planet 24, produced a show called, “Expedition Robinson” for Swedish TV. The show featured a group of “castaways” being marooned and then voting each other off one at a time. Mark Burnett paid for the idea and in May, 2000, “Survivor: Borneo” hit the air.
Finally, I blame Nancy Grace. She just can’t help herself. She gives the John David Stutz treatment to everyone and can’t figure out why people with no discernable talent or prospects want to be on TV so bad. As for Nancy, she’s had her hand slapped twice by the Supreme Court of Georgia for Prosecutorial Misconduct and once by the panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for the same thing.
She claims it was the murder of her college fiancee that led her to law school and victim advocacy. She makes these claims in the book [she had the nerve to title], Objection! – How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Legal System (emphasis mine). A reporter from the New York Observer compared her telling of the story to the police reports and found that her version was wrong on several points, points that seemed to pad her credentials as victim advocate: the murder wasn’t random, the killer did confess the night of the murder, and the killer did not appeal the conviction. Also, according the other New York newspapers, entire sections of her book are plagiarized, word for word, from a New York Times article by Sabra Chartrand. My favourite Nancy Grace fun-fact is that she has two kids with her husband David Linch (not the director) and, therefore, actually has a “Linch mob.”
Okay, so the spelling of “lynch” is wrong, but all things considered, I’m allowed one cheap shot.
Is Richard Heene a bad parent? I am going with “Yes” on this one. In the end, I guess he did get his reality show. He just never got paid for it and might lose his family before any episode is even shot. And THAT, is why he is such a lousy parent: he wagered the well being of his family for fame and lost them all.
Go-Cardgate: Your tax dollars at play
A couple weeks ago, I boarded the bus to find a Transit Security officer standing next to the driver. I showed my bus pass to the driver and was then stopped by the security officer who wanted to see it too. I guess the driver was blind and unable to see my valid bus pass without the officer’s help. I hoped it wasn’t night blindness because the driver needed to drive the bus too.
It soon became apparent (at the next stop actually) why the security officer was there: shake down teens for $0.75.
The adult fare for my bus is $2.50. For students, it is $1.75, but only if you have a Go-Card. All students have them. All students are supposed to carry them. We all know that all students always do what they’re supposed to.
It turns out that the security officer wasn’t just a security officer: apparently he also does research into hormonal conditions that cause 40-year-old women to look 14. His first “bust” wasn’t a day over 15 (a fact that would have been readily apparent to Helen Keller’s corpse) and therefore, unless homeschooled, owned a Go-Card. Think she could produce it though?
The looming rent-a-cop bullied her into giving up the $0.75 her absent Go-Gard said she didn’t have to pay. In the 20 minutes I was on the westbound, West Vancouver bus, the Transit Security officer managed to shake down another $0.75 for a total of $1.50. The bullying he did for free.
At $1.50 every 20 minutes, apparently Go-Card gate is costing this bus about $4.50 an hour. What a good thing for taxpayers and transit users that this security officer works for only $4 an hour.
He doesn’t?
Oh, how much does he make?
Really?
Well, you can imagine my shock when I got off the bus and saw that there were TWO! And a chase car! How much money are we losing to this malicious kids and their Go-Card scam?
Who the hell is paying for all this? Students by their very existence as students don’t need to pay the adult price. Should they have their Go-Cards? Sure. But do we need to pay two security officers and fuel up a single-occupant car (the whole reason people should take the bus instead) to shake down teens for money that they don’t owe?
I figured that saying something at the time would just make it worse for the kids involved. Besides, I kind of felt for the guy. It’s not everyday someone who doesn’t qualify to be a real police officer gets to feel like anything like a bully with self-esteem issues… oh, wait.
This is NOT a pub crawl
Okay, maybe a little. I prefer to think of it as a “leisurely cocktail walk“.
I have been blessed with many things in this life; a good cocktail bar was not one of them. Don’t get me wrong. I still love the Squarerigger Pub, my “local” (Crystal and Scott pour a mean “dirty”), and I will still go to pretty much any venue to see/hear good music but I wanted a cocktail bar, somewhere hip and cool and ridiculously overpriced. So last night, I started holding auditions.
5:30 pm – The Squarerigger Pub, 150-1425 Marine Drive, West Vancouver.
Beer. A pitcher of Sleemans Original $9.99. $13 after tax and 16% tip.
I like the Rigger. Anyone who knows me knows I spend most of my time out here. It’s a great place to watch a game and the downstairs section is just itchin’ to host your party. I recommend coming down during the day for a cup of coffee and annoying the manager, Scott, while he tries to get some work done. It’s my new favourite thing.
7:30 pm – George Ultra Lounge, 1137 Hamilton Street, Vancouver.
Aviation: Beefeater gin, maraschino liqueur and fresh lemon juice, served up and finished with violet liqueur. $11. $15 after tax and a 22% tip.
Essentially a Mike’s Hard Lemonade made with Gin. It is simple but good. It was also my server’s favourite.
I have no idea what an Ultra lounge is but whatever it is, I have a sneaking suspicion that George is it. The lighting is at the perfect setting for apres-business or pre-sex. Take your pick. The staff are all beautiful (women and men) and clad in black. It’s definitely Yaletown in here. As I continue to sip my cocktail (apparently in places like this, sipping is appropriate – not a lot of beerpong going on in here), it actually gets better. My heartburn doesn’t but that’s not the cocktail’s fault. The lovely Alexandra brings me my bill and I am off. I am coming back to be sure. George also gets an extra point because it is a chip shot away from my lawyer’s office. Always handy.
8:10pm – The Morrissey Pub, 1227 Granville Street, Vancouver.
Classic “dirty” martini. $12.05.
1516 beer. $5.50 (after tax)
$25 after tax and a 31% tip (and a free beer).
This one was a bit of a cheater. I’ve been here before and really quite like it. It really isn’t a cocktail place either. But that doesn’t stop them from serving some of the best martinis I’ve ever had. According to the bartender, they are more of a “beer and scotch” type place. And they’re pure rock and roll. You’re going to find more lip piercings and plaid in here than you would suits and Italian shoes. The stereo sounds like my iPod and the bartender is a slightly shorter, bearded version of Graham Myrfield in appearance and attitude. This is a good thing. I get the impression that a lot of the customers have forgotten more about Vancouver’s music scene than I’ll ever know and I have to stifle a sigh as the two lovely young ladies beside me drink Jameson’s with beer chasers… Honey, I’m home!
9:45ish pm – The Keefer Bar, 135 Keefer Street, Vancouver.
I don’t know. I just said “Dealer’s Choice” and got this: Famous Grouse scotch, sweet vermouth, artichoke vermouth, maraschino liqueur, with Peychauds and Angustura bitters. $12.50 after tax. $15 with 20% tip.
Now THIS is a cocktail. Plus service with a smile.
Now, for starters, the Keefer Bar is small. It’s cozy and great, but it’s small. If you plan on going there, go early. I meant to be there around 9:30 but the bartender at the Morrissey Pub queered the deal by comping me a beer. So I pour myself in at around 9:45ish and the place is packed. The burlesque show starts at 10. There is one empty stool at the bar. I asked if it’s being used and the woman kindly responds that she’s pretty sure it is but she’s not sure by who.
The MC takes to the stage. She cracks wise and plays some tunes to get the crowd primed. Lola Frost does her routine to Mancini’s “Pink Panther”. It’s killer. I think this is the third time I’ve seen Lola perform. The other two times, she was dancing with Villainy Loveless (as “The Switchblade Sisters”) as part of Shiloh Lindsey’s stage show. There was a routine with a wind-up doll that made me happy in all the right places. Good times. Great hootch and pasties? How can you go wrong? After the set, the woman I spoke to about the stool earlier comes over and tells me the stool is free. I thank her but tell her I’m quite enjoying being in everyone’s way. It was standing room only and the ladies on stage deserved it. So did the Wee Keefer for that matter. I chase my nameless-but-awesome cocktail with a Blue Buck lager and hit the streets once more.
11:05pm – Bus.
11:20pm – The Squarerigger Pub, 150-1425 Marine Drive, West Vancouver.
Beer. Sleemans Original. $6.15 with tax and 15% tip.
So I’m back at The Rigger for about five minutes when the wild & wonderful Miss Lori Roberge comes rumbling in. After surviving her harrowing drive across North America, she has returned to Vancouver only to have someone swipe her glasses. So if you know someone who frequents Darby’s Pub (2001 Macdonald Street, Vancouver) who suddenly has a new pair of glasses that look like these:
Kick some ass WITHOUT breaking the frames and let me know.
All in all it was a fun night. I’ll let y’all know when the next round of auditions is being held and we can go for a “leisurely cocktail walk” together.
December 3, 2010 | Categories: Straight from The Bear's loud mouth (insane ramblings disguised as social commentary), [re]Discovering Vancouver | Tags: 15 minutes, 2010, Baron S. Cameron, beer, blue buses, booze, British Columbia, burlesque, Canada, chinatown, cocktails, contrarian, fame, gastown, george ultra lounge, Granville, keefer bar, loud mouth, loudmouth bear, morrissey pub, music, Vancouver, waste of resources, west vancouver, writing, yaletown | 1 Comment »