Summer is here in force, and even though I'm slowly roasting to death I'm determined to enjoy every minute of it. Normally this season is a mixed bag. Sure, it provides some tremendous things that remind a man like me why life is worth living: Gorgeous bikini-clad women bouncing their way to the beach, late night cigars in plastic easy chairs, the shift in winter diet from heavy ales to lagers and white wines and champagnes...but I have a heart of ice that melts as soon as the temperature rises above freezing and leaks through my pores to make an obscene mess.
Exercise has helped, and carrying around 50 fewer pounds than I used to buys time in the sun before I turn into a puffy red-faced hog. Still, mine is not a body that is optimally designed for summer. This year is different, though. First, training to run a half marathon is forcing me to become close friends with sweat and heat and like a hostage with Stockholm syndrome I'm started to enjoy the mild discomfort of it all. Secondly I have a screen door again, and the reason that is excellent requires a few belts of scotch and a trip down memory lane.
Sometime around 2011 - three lifetimes ago - some thoughtless fool broke my balcony screen door during a barbecue. We were outside enjoying some sunshine and burgers when there was a loud crack and a twang as a flimsy piece of silver metal wheel flew past our heads. "Hit the deck!" I shouted as the door came off the rail and slammed loudly on the floor. "It's the goddamned Libyans!" (I had recently written some unflattering things about Colonel Ghadaffi in the dying days of his regime and he seemed like just the sort of rotten prick to dispatch one of his famous female assassins to get his own back).
In the end it turned out not to be a seductive Bedouin murderess but a dumb drunk, sliding the poorly constructed door faster than its design apparently allowed.
I called my bumbling landlords and reported the incident, which they promptly noted and then informed me they would do nothing: In a shell-game strategy straight out of the Stephen Harper and Michael Fortier school of facilities management, the balcony doors portfolio had been outsourced to a company which would come in, once a year, and perform all the year's necessary maintenance then. As it turned out, I had missed the window to get it fixed or replaced for that year by mere weeks.
"Bastards!" I shouted, but to be honest it never bothered me at the time. Ottawa's weather is so extreme that almost every month of the year you want your house sealed up as tightly as possible to keep the cold either out or in, and it would be unfair to say the loss of a working screen door had seriously crippled me. Still, my wife wanted it dealt with and it would be silly to have a spare, broken, screen door sitting on my balcony forever, so I had them put me on the list for a replacement and that was that.
Five goddamned years passed. The wife left me, I've grieved, developed a whole other almost-marriage, and watched it fall apart in that time. I've completed two different long-form census questionnaires since it broke. Gadaffi's been long dead and Libya has gone through a whole second civil war while I've been waiting. Every Province and Territory has had an election cycle, and both Stephen Harper and Michael Fortier long since swept away; all the while I haven't been able to enjoy the comforts of a screen door. Unconscionable.
I checked in periodically throughout the last half-decade, just to make sure I was still on a list. Oh yes! Any day now, they'd say, and I would smile because I knew they were lying. This year, however, they finally went too far: The Greedheads were compelled to justify this year's rent increase by outlining the extraordinary expenses they'd invested in the property. Sure enough, a million dollars on patio door repairs was right there on the front page of the document, which came to my door along with a form that announcing that my pre-authorized payment had expired and my rent was five days overdue.
I sent them a cheque, along with a letter copied to the Ontario Tenant Board containing some damning photos. "If you're going to make me shell out an extra half-percent to fix the patio doors," it read, "you should probably actually fix them." I then threatened to provide the deposition from my divorce, which had been dated in 2012, notarized, and clearly stated that the common-law marriage had fallen apart due to "Irreconcilable differences re: Fucking with the landlord over a broken screen door vs Just getting on with life and being a grown up."
The notice came swiftly that my door would be replaced and today it was finally installed. Victory!
So now I'm sitting here with my windows and balcony door wide open - screens letting the humid hot air waft in. It's made the apartment uncomfortably hot and even as I write this I can feel my gonads merging slowly right into the leather chair, but it's all worth it. The unit has excellent air condition and I don't even pay for it - a benefit for which I'm sure the bumbling landlords are kicking themselves for offering - and I'm sure that once the satisfaction of my personal vengeance has dulled and I get tired of picking up my balls I'll seal the place up and let sweet technology keep me comfortable.
But for now? Fuck 'em. It's summer right now and it should feel like it: There are beers to drink and cigars to smoke and summer nights to enjoy. In three months the United States will be in full-swing General Election mode and we can run for our drug dealers and assisted suicides and law suits then. I intend to enjoy this state of affairs until the last possible moment, sweat, sunburns, and all. How could anyone not?
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Thursday, May 12, 2016
March Mayday
Today is the March For Life, an annual event where hundreds of people describe themselves as tens of thousands and descend on downtown Ottawa to loudly protest abortion.
I should have realized it was today - my mind has been in such a fog that I've regularly lost track of the date and time. To compensate and clear my head I've been walking everywhere now. It was on my walk early this morning, halfway between my yuppie neighborhood and Parliament Hill that I noticed the path was unusually full of youths. They were all wearing matching fluorescent green and blue shirts with bearing some variation of "Respect for all lives!" and "Human Rights For Unborn Humans!" slogans.
The clothing looks like some vision of the future concocted in a 1990s daycamp but the underlying creepiness of eager teenagers, sober and smiling and talking about "youth group" was straight out of Pleasantville. For a moment I was gripped in panic. Jesus, where was I? When was I?
When it all came together I knew I was truly screwed. This thing is going to take up the whole day. All of the downtown core will be swarming with and decrepit old men in Knights of Columbus uniforms and church marms along with the scores of children they bus in to shore up the numbers and appear youthful.
We are be beset on all sides by the Faith Militant. Stick close and don’t trust anyone you wouldn't drink with in a strip club.
Over the years it has become clear that there are only two types of children attend the March for Life voluntarily: those who would step over their own grandmother for a day off of school on a sunny spring day, and tomorrow's League of Young Fascists. The former make a habit of disappearing into the crowds to visit the Rideau mall and likely can't name a single apostle, the later - those who don't end up running illegal daycares or militia groups - will eventually become United States Senators and run for President.
Both of those groups, along with those too young or mentally competent enough to object as their parents or teachers stick a "Praise Jesus My Mother Didn't Abort Me" sign in their hand and haul them down Elgin street in front of the national media, are here in droves. That's where the real horror show begins.
This isn't a rant about fetuses or conception. Opinions on what does or doesn't constitute a human being bore me...it's a designation I think should be denied to those who can't navigate a shopping cart around a grocery store. Besides, by and large that argument is over: the definition we have now seems to work well enough, satisfies our judiciary, and thus far hasn't been struck down by a bolt of lightning.
Oddly, this rant isn't even about Conservative MPs shouting about the Liberal Government of Death on the steps of Parliament - which, by happy coincidence, will spend today debating a bill on physician-assisted suicide! (Hah!)
No bub, this one is about how this town is flooded with the adults who describe themselves as protectors of all life from Womb-to-Tomb (except for "Godless atheists, queers, Hillary supporters, anyone who needs stem cell treatments, and whoever Jason Kenney tells us we need to bomb"), and take children out of publicly funded religious schools to use them as pawns for their own doomed attempt to govern the rest of us according to religious doctrine.
They accuse secularism or MTV or political correctness for brainwashing their children with wicked ways, but they're the ones goading them into shouting that their opponents are all baby murdering lesbians. This whole thing is exhausting.
I should have realized it was today - my mind has been in such a fog that I've regularly lost track of the date and time. To compensate and clear my head I've been walking everywhere now. It was on my walk early this morning, halfway between my yuppie neighborhood and Parliament Hill that I noticed the path was unusually full of youths. They were all wearing matching fluorescent green and blue shirts with bearing some variation of "Respect for all lives!" and "Human Rights For Unborn Humans!" slogans.
The clothing looks like some vision of the future concocted in a 1990s daycamp but the underlying creepiness of eager teenagers, sober and smiling and talking about "youth group" was straight out of Pleasantville. For a moment I was gripped in panic. Jesus, where was I? When was I?
When it all came together I knew I was truly screwed. This thing is going to take up the whole day. All of the downtown core will be swarming with and decrepit old men in Knights of Columbus uniforms and church marms along with the scores of children they bus in to shore up the numbers and appear youthful.
We are be beset on all sides by the Faith Militant. Stick close and don’t trust anyone you wouldn't drink with in a strip club.
Over the years it has become clear that there are only two types of children attend the March for Life voluntarily: those who would step over their own grandmother for a day off of school on a sunny spring day, and tomorrow's League of Young Fascists. The former make a habit of disappearing into the crowds to visit the Rideau mall and likely can't name a single apostle, the later - those who don't end up running illegal daycares or militia groups - will eventually become United States Senators and run for President.
Both of those groups, along with those too young or mentally competent enough to object as their parents or teachers stick a "Praise Jesus My Mother Didn't Abort Me" sign in their hand and haul them down Elgin street in front of the national media, are here in droves. That's where the real horror show begins.
This isn't a rant about fetuses or conception. Opinions on what does or doesn't constitute a human being bore me...it's a designation I think should be denied to those who can't navigate a shopping cart around a grocery store. Besides, by and large that argument is over: the definition we have now seems to work well enough, satisfies our judiciary, and thus far hasn't been struck down by a bolt of lightning.
Oddly, this rant isn't even about Conservative MPs shouting about the Liberal Government of Death on the steps of Parliament - which, by happy coincidence, will spend today debating a bill on physician-assisted suicide! (Hah!)
No bub, this one is about how this town is flooded with the adults who describe themselves as protectors of all life from Womb-to-Tomb (except for "Godless atheists, queers, Hillary supporters, anyone who needs stem cell treatments, and whoever Jason Kenney tells us we need to bomb"), and take children out of publicly funded religious schools to use them as pawns for their own doomed attempt to govern the rest of us according to religious doctrine.
They accuse secularism or MTV or political correctness for brainwashing their children with wicked ways, but they're the ones goading them into shouting that their opponents are all baby murdering lesbians. This whole thing is exhausting.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Burned
Editor's Note: Despite the author's contention that he'd "be damned if I'm going to write more than one of these things per week you blood sucking vermin!", we were able to goad a short special edition after the results of last night's Indiana Primary for which we are extremely grateful.
It is tragic but somehow fitting that Ted Cruz's homeland was literally on fire at the same time that his campaign was being burned to the ground metaphorically - like he'd finally cracked the secret of some Bad Sorcery just in time to project his own demise through space and time. It certainly feels like the kind of thing that human turdbag would do. The images coming out of Fort McMurray are like some place unearthly and terrible, and that there are still no casualties reported yet could be the first piece of good news all year.
We are all bereft. Discordia, you fickle tease, you've left us with a Trump nomination without even a fun convention: The holdouts have surrendered and the last vestiges of the old Republican Party are being swept away. The GOP now belongs to Donald Trump; whether it will survive that ordeal or not remains to be seen.
The phony war is over now, bub, and the real Blitzkrieg is about to begin: 2016 will be a contest to see whose negative numbers drive down their turnout the least. On one side stands Clinton with a massive war chest, the steely eyed glare of someone who has been waiting for "her turn" for a thousand generations, and a capacity for ruthlessness that could make your blood run cold. On the other is the biggest reality show circus in history peddling the kind of populist venom Americans always pretend they don't like, but to which they have long been debilitatingly addicted.
If the stage is set, so be it. Everybody take a breath before we dive into the next act.
It is tragic but somehow fitting that Ted Cruz's homeland was literally on fire at the same time that his campaign was being burned to the ground metaphorically - like he'd finally cracked the secret of some Bad Sorcery just in time to project his own demise through space and time. It certainly feels like the kind of thing that human turdbag would do. The images coming out of Fort McMurray are like some place unearthly and terrible, and that there are still no casualties reported yet could be the first piece of good news all year.
We are all bereft. Discordia, you fickle tease, you've left us with a Trump nomination without even a fun convention: The holdouts have surrendered and the last vestiges of the old Republican Party are being swept away. The GOP now belongs to Donald Trump; whether it will survive that ordeal or not remains to be seen.
The phony war is over now, bub, and the real Blitzkrieg is about to begin: 2016 will be a contest to see whose negative numbers drive down their turnout the least. On one side stands Clinton with a massive war chest, the steely eyed glare of someone who has been waiting for "her turn" for a thousand generations, and a capacity for ruthlessness that could make your blood run cold. On the other is the biggest reality show circus in history peddling the kind of populist venom Americans always pretend they don't like, but to which they have long been debilitatingly addicted.
If the stage is set, so be it. Everybody take a breath before we dive into the next act.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Everyone Wants Indiana
As I write this Ted Cruz is giving the a press conference from Indiana and it's the damnedest thing I've ever seen. If there is some perfect combination of desperate and honest and stupid that can render sentient life dumbfounded this thing has come pretty close.
There he stands, flanked by Carly "there's a bizarre alternate universe where I'm the Vice President" Fiorina and his wife, taking Donald Trump to task for his bullying nature, pathological lying, and woman-hating insecurity. He's apparently and righteously terrified of a future where his young daughters are exposed to President Trump's open philandering misogyny. "I dread to think of them coming home from school repeating his vile attitudes towards women.".
Fair enough Ted, but you also don't want them coming home with any idea of how to use a condom or a bathroom so let's dispense with the bullshit: Donald Trump is going to be going up against Hillary Clinton in the November election. It's been pretty apparent for some time but tonight's Indiana Primary should render it inevitable.
Sanders will stick around for a while longer - heck, he may even win tonight - but the Democrats' system of proportional delegates means anything less than thunderous, bowel-shattering blowouts in all of the remaining states keeps him so far behind (far further behind Clinton now than she ever was behind Obama in 2008) that a recovery is possible only in a child's imagination.
The surest sign of their doom is their insistence that they're going to take it all the way to a convention even after Clinton clinches it, relying on a sudden change of heart from the same Superdelegates that are an affront to democracy when they're in the other camp. Don't feel bad about it Sanderistsas, Bernie did a remarkable thing going from polling-in-single-digits to actually keeping Clinton on her toes, but it's over now and that party's coalescing around that unlikable stiff is virtually assured.
At any rate, I expect Sanders and the GOP holdouts Cruz and Kasich will all stay in no matter how utterly fucked they are after the Hoosiers are through with them.
I'm ashamed to confess to you readers: he's a Goober but I'm rooting for Ted Cruz tonight. He has almost no hope - his polling has been trending steadily downwards and Trump is likely to triumph handily tonight - but a Cruz win may keep his dying campaign on life support just long enough to deny Trump the support he needs win in the first ballot and give us the nuclear bomb of cable news coverage, a contested convention.
O Discordia, Bitch Goddess of Political Machinations, hear me! Give me a contested Republican convention. If we are to suffer the spectacle of a Trump nomination let us have such a spectacle as to burn our Great Decline into history: days of chaos, rumors and deals, fistfights on the floor, an endless Twitter stream, Cleveland in flames, and news graphics packages big and bright enough to trigger sexual arousal.
If you demand it, I will bring burnt offerings of cigarette ashes to your holy altar of pizza boxes and beer cases from July 18 to the 21, where we will read from the 2016 RNC Rules printed on sheets of blotter acid and take a communion of single malt.
You get whatever you want, just stall Donald a little longer and give us this convention.
There he stands, flanked by Carly "there's a bizarre alternate universe where I'm the Vice President" Fiorina and his wife, taking Donald Trump to task for his bullying nature, pathological lying, and woman-hating insecurity. He's apparently and righteously terrified of a future where his young daughters are exposed to President Trump's open philandering misogyny. "I dread to think of them coming home from school repeating his vile attitudes towards women.".
Fair enough Ted, but you also don't want them coming home with any idea of how to use a condom or a bathroom so let's dispense with the bullshit: Donald Trump is going to be going up against Hillary Clinton in the November election. It's been pretty apparent for some time but tonight's Indiana Primary should render it inevitable.
Sanders will stick around for a while longer - heck, he may even win tonight - but the Democrats' system of proportional delegates means anything less than thunderous, bowel-shattering blowouts in all of the remaining states keeps him so far behind (far further behind Clinton now than she ever was behind Obama in 2008) that a recovery is possible only in a child's imagination.
The surest sign of their doom is their insistence that they're going to take it all the way to a convention even after Clinton clinches it, relying on a sudden change of heart from the same Superdelegates that are an affront to democracy when they're in the other camp. Don't feel bad about it Sanderistsas, Bernie did a remarkable thing going from polling-in-single-digits to actually keeping Clinton on her toes, but it's over now and that party's coalescing around that unlikable stiff is virtually assured.
At any rate, I expect Sanders and the GOP holdouts Cruz and Kasich will all stay in no matter how utterly fucked they are after the Hoosiers are through with them.
I'm ashamed to confess to you readers: he's a Goober but I'm rooting for Ted Cruz tonight. He has almost no hope - his polling has been trending steadily downwards and Trump is likely to triumph handily tonight - but a Cruz win may keep his dying campaign on life support just long enough to deny Trump the support he needs win in the first ballot and give us the nuclear bomb of cable news coverage, a contested convention.
O Discordia, Bitch Goddess of Political Machinations, hear me! Give me a contested Republican convention. If we are to suffer the spectacle of a Trump nomination let us have such a spectacle as to burn our Great Decline into history: days of chaos, rumors and deals, fistfights on the floor, an endless Twitter stream, Cleveland in flames, and news graphics packages big and bright enough to trigger sexual arousal.
If you demand it, I will bring burnt offerings of cigarette ashes to your holy altar of pizza boxes and beer cases from July 18 to the 21, where we will read from the 2016 RNC Rules printed on sheets of blotter acid and take a communion of single malt.
You get whatever you want, just stall Donald a little longer and give us this convention.
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