And Then There Were Fifty-Six, or Some Stupid Thing (An Update on the Conservative Leadership Race)

The geese are back and are already hissing at me; it's not even youngling seasons yet but there they are, nevertheless. I suppose it's inevitable: if you're going to rip a few of their heads off with your bare hands and then chase the others away in the middle of the night, flailing the corpses wildly, they're bound to give you some kind of a reputation and a pissy attitude. I intend on at least earning the shit they give me.

Nowadays I'm spending my midnights in the gym, by and large. It's the perfect way to balance a deep rooted hatred of human beings with the need to use modern and up to date equipment. Some of my fondest fitness memories come from all-night gyms too, like the time I watched the entire Israel-Lebanon war on CNN International at two o'clock every morning from a treadmill in a darkened retail basement. The treadmills weren't connected to YouTube back then, so it turns out I have a lot of catching up to do.

This week however, there's been one way to spend a late night that's just as good for the heart and soul as a bout in the gym. Anyone can do it and everyone should, at least once: pour yourself a nice glass of wine, sit out somewhere where there's a nice warm breeze, and read the comments on Kevin O'Leary's Facebook posts.

"Coward!" they cry, as he announced he was dropping out of the Conservative leadership race and endorsing Maxime Bernier. "Traitor!" Apparently a good number of people - suffering from some kind of reasoning defect - joined the Conservative party to vote for him and want him on the ballot. As if the possibility that the guy who skipped out on debates to shill for shitty wine on the Shopping Channel might not make it all the way across the finish line. Surprise!

O'Leary is citing his lack of French as the deciding factor for him to drop out (as of this posting there was no explanation as to why that wasn't considered before he got into the race to begin with), while almost everyone agrees that he's probably dropping out to avoid the embarrassment of losing to someone like Bernier or Scheer or whichever clown is ultimately successful in taking over that clown car.

Personally, I think it's more the opposite - I think he was scared he might win. Polls suggested it was a real possibility and if you can't even be bothered to show up for your own campaign events then why would you want to actually do even more? Especially for less money and after relocating from Sun Beach, FL (where you're surrounded by gropeable girls in skanty bikinis who probably let you do whatever you want if you're a star) to a drab boring dump like Ottawa. The whole thing was like a reality TV stunt and we are well rid of it.

By my reckoning this leaves Racist-in-Denial Kellie Leitch and her former partner-in-crime Chris 'I ought to know better' Alexander, a gestalt entity of Tory MPs of which Scheer or O'Toole are the best bets (don't bother Googling their first names, they won't be around long), self-styled "Mad Max" Bernier, Michael Chong, and a squadron of C-listers vying for the leadership.

Of the bunch, Chong is the only faintly interesting one because in addition to playing a surprise cameo in the best Globe and Mail disaster of the year, he was evidently unaware that he was supposed to do a gong-show act as part of the contest.

He's also caught my attention because he seems to have been able to trick some people into thinking he isn't really a Conservative. Supporting carbon pricing has thrown some lefties for a loop, a feat made even easier when they gloss over the fact that he wants to eliminate dozens of programs which work to curb carbon emissions, as well as cut three income tax brackets and corporate to benefit the rich. His proposal on Parliamentary reform was genuinely interesting but even if he were somehow able to win a leadership election for a party whose members probably think he's from "Red China" and then a general election against Justin Trudeau it seems unlikely much of it would be able to come to fruition anyway.

Ugh, whatever. I oscillate wildly between wanting this race to finally be over, and wanting it to go on forever. With O'Leary out and no longer making videos about how the country he hasn't lived in for years is run by female CBC executives, or struggling to answer basic questions about how government works, there really doesn't seem to be much point in going on any longer. Conveniently, advanced balloting started yesterday so let's get this show on the road.

Man's Search For Clarity

I don't know how crazy-ass stupid you have to be to be appointed as the White House Press Secretary but I'm starting to believe even I could do it, and I used to jam forks into toasters to rotate bagels. I suppose it probably helps when the boss is a petulant man-child who can be sidetracked by a slice of chocolate cake.

Alas, by the time you read this Sean Spicer will be on his sixth or seventh clarification in a desperate attempt to make us all understand exactly why he tried to compare Bashar al-Assad to Adolf Hitler by arguing that Hitler hadn't used chemical weapons on his own people - which is baffling because for more than sixty years "using chemical weapons on his own people" has been the textbook definition of Adolf Hitler; it's how he built his personal brand.

Spicer's previous attempts (plural!) to refine his remarks included watching him struggle lamely to find the words "Concentration camp", before giving up that spectacular mental wrestling match and calling them "Holocaust Centers" right there on live TV. Then there was some gibberish about how technically Hitler never dropped chemical weapons from airplanes and that's all he really meant to say; rhetorical Adonis that he is. It's probably correct, I guess, since you don't have to use an airplane when you just drop the pellets through a hatch in the roof. Which for the record the Nazis did a lot, the White House later had to point out in a statement in this the year of our Lord, 2017.

Really, Holocaust Centers? Holocaust Centers? Look, Sean, heaven knows I've forgotten my train of thought my fair share of times before, but if you can use the word Holocaust without remembering fucking "Concentration Camp" you need to get out of the White House Press Briefing Room and lie down until the ketamine wears off.

I suppose it could also be that you're deliberately trying to undermine the severity of the Nazis' crimes by avoiding a particular phrase that comes with a lot of unpleasant baggage and imagery in favor of a term that, frankly, I'm surprised Richard Spencer hasn't already trademarked for a future business name. But in all honesty I doubt the Press Secretary is clever enough for that - he's more banal than he is Bannon - and if there is one thing that may save us all these next (Jesus!) three years and ten-months, it'll be that the Trump administration keeps shooting itself in the foot and then trying to cover it up by shooting itself in the stomach.

Surely it won't be long now before Spicer ends up out on his ass and off on his next adventure, forming the world's shittiest crisis communications firm with the soon-to-be-former-CEO of United Airlines and whichever maniac wrote the Kardashian Pepsi ad.

Surely.

Fuck me, it's been a banner week for morons. For a brief moment in time it looked like I was going to be writing a post about how some good things have actually happened: the Republicans got spanked but good on health care and Paul Ryan got to look like a massive turd, Nikki Haley's gone rogue at the UN, Kevin O'Leary continues to lead in a race that promises to keep our own Conservatives in the political doldrums for another four years, and winter finally seems to be lifting. As I write this diatribe there's no shortage of "Ben Carson gets stuck in elevator" headlines to laugh at, and that is very welcome change from a detailed analysis of Mike Pence's filthy and bizarre perversions.

I've even started to lose weight, having decided to drastically reduce the number of calories I eat to practice for my frail dotage, when there won't be any Meals on Wheels at all.

The good always comes at a cost, though. It's unavoidable. The President's dementia continues to flare up, finally acting on Syria may end up triggering World War III, and cutting most of the alcohol out of my diet has ruined my ability to sleep. I just keep wandering around in a daze, unable to balance the catastrophically high levels of caffeine and rage-spittle in my blood.

I guess what I'm saying is that beach and cigar season can't come soon enough.

Spring Cleaning

This weekend, after much cajoling and nagging I finally gave in to the demands of several people and watched the critically acclaimed series Stranger Things. The show is all very well and good if - like me - you don't mind spending six hours perched on the couch like a coiled spring, but the real horror comes after it ends; that's when you have to go back to living in a reality where Rick Perry is the Secretary of Energy and you are forced to wonder if Eleven and the gang really just went through all that trouble for nothing.

He's probably the least objectionable member of the administration too, God help us.

Vacation was good for me, oddly. By an order of magnitude Iceland is the most beautiful place I have ever been and so despite the whirlwind trip only lasting 5 days I came back with a weird sense of ease and contentment. Time away is reputedly good for relaxing the mind and rebuilding the muscle that helps you stay focused and concentrate, but I suppose for that to be any help you still have to actually use that muscle from time to time. Is this how people who meditate feel? Should I start meditating? It doesn't matter, I wouldn't stick to it anyway.

I returned from the top of the planet determined to write a comprehensive review of my experience, but the hits started coming about five minutes after the plane touched down and haven't stopped since. Boom, Muslim Travel Ban. Bam, a failed raid in Yemen. Boom, Betsy DeVos confirmed. Bam, everything Sean Spicer has ever said. The President is issuing Executive Orders like he has a fax machine with a direct connection from Hell, and each is worth an expletive-filled screed of its own. Alas, you can't even start typing about something before before the next one hits you like a never ending storm surge of shit.

To top it off my new Alesis Crimson Mesh electronic drum kit arrived just before I left, so the days I would normally spend writing have been devoted to tinkering with the Latin percussion settings, and at any given time at least 20% of my brainpower is tied up in a meaningless argument over whether I would prefer to have a spent a previous life as Buddy Rich, or Gene Krupa. I mean sure - Buddy Rich was the more technically skilled player...but at least Gene Krupa looked happy sometimes, you know?

Simply put, there are so many things that deserve to have an essay-long post written about them but you don't have that kind of time and it would be nearly impossible for a real person to write them all...never mind a gin addled part time hack like me. So without further adieu I'll get to unloading a month's worth of thoughts now, in no particular order:

It's amazing how many of the people who say we can't provide shelter, healthcare, or education to refugees running from war and violence because we have to take care of our own first turn out to be the same people who don't want to take care of our own with shelter, healthcare, or education either. Funny, that.

Does Iceland count as Europe, or North America, or something else? On one hand the showers are all weird and the gas is expensive; on the other there's tons of parking and no cigarette machines anywhere, which is simply not the Europe I know.

I am increasingly convinced that there is a parallel universe not far from our own with the perfect Cable News Network. Jake Tapper, Rachel Maddow, and Shep Smith are in the studio. Anderson Cooper reports live from location. Wolf Blitzer is locked in a disused sound stage surrounded by cameras he doesn't know are disconnected, so he can to live out his days some place where he can't hurt anyone.

If you can make a modern suspension bridge that's very tall and impressive then you can make it two lanes wide, Iceland.

Kevin O'Leary didn't come back to Canada for you.

The Washington Post's new slogan is "Democracy Dies In Darkness" and Jesus, what a fantastic album title that would be. I can see it now, The WaPos: Democracy Dies in Darkness. I wonder if they need a percussionist.

Yes - you're absolutely right. These are serious times and these people have contributed to the total devastation being wreaked on innocent people across the United States and around the world, but between Julian Assange's Wikileaks, Milo Yiannopoulos and Breitbart, and the falling out between the Left and Bill Maher it's hard not to smile at least a little at the downfall of people I've hated for fucking years.

What is Jeremy Corbyn actually for? Like, really, what is his purpose?

If your country is overstocked with lobster meat and a pizza is going to cost $50 either way, why waste the precious space on pineapple anyway?

SNL has somehow managed to strike a second golden age and needs our help to make it last. To that end, I have some additional casting ideas to support Melissa McCarthy's Spicer and Alex Baldwin's Trump: Jessica Walters as Betsy DeVos, porn performer Piper Perri as Ivanka Trump, Betty White as Jeff Sessions, Lady Gaga as Melania Trump, and Chris Christie as himself because you know that sad sack of shit has no goddamned dignity left.

Whew.

Thank you for indulging me, dear readers. It feels good to let this stuff out, and it with any luck it will be easier to function without all those bats flying around in my belfry. Vacation over.

Here We Are, There We Go

I suppose I should start by congratulating you. If you are reading this then you have at least survived long enough to watch the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States and will accordingly be recognized as one of the last to bear witness to Western civilization.

You have won at history, and that's a pretty impressive feat when you think about it. This month marked the anniversary of the day David Bowie, presumably tormented by the ghastly images of what awaited us for the rest of last year, was called back to his home dimension and left this world for good. If the Gregorian calendar - of which I am reluctant participant - starts the start of the year year as January 1st, then January 10th was the start of it all going to hell. From that point on it was a bloodbath; 2016 seemed determined to kill every last one of us, never letting up for a second - not even in the wee hours of New Year's eve for the unfortunate soul died outside of my apartment.

So I'm beginning to think this whole era is one of those nightmares you're just never going to wake up from. We're living in Trump's world now, at the mercy of his tiny hands and weirdo fetishes until he gets us all killed or John Roberts ends up swearing in Mike Pence after a constitutional debacle, whichever comes first. Either way we should probably get used to calling this Year Zero, breeding more donkeys to carry our pots and pans, dying in childbirth, and debunking the Beaverton articles Kellie Leitch's campaign manager insists on posting as fact.

It's all so hard to bear that I've decided to slip into a fugue state and fuck off for a week to go adventuring. If we are the universe attempting to look at itself, then I better start looking at things before Chinese ICBMs or hysterical problem drinking whisk me away. Iceland in January may seem foolhardy, but I'm made from rugged Canadian stock and $20 pints may be precisely what I need to slow myself down and adopt the marathon pace that will be required to endure the lunacy of the years ahead. Besides, it's much better than my original plan of going to DC for the inauguration and it's as good a place as any to watch a nuclear war on CNN. Afterwards I can send myself off to sea on an ice floe to slip peacefully beneath the waves, if it comes to that.

But perhaps not. Adventure may be the key to escaping the general malaise that is our dim and fading present, and to kick off a new chapter in learning to live after thirty. We're all on the other side now, I'll see you there.

Waiting For Three Ghosts

The box of wine is open, the ribs are marinating, the television is playing one of the best Christmas movies ever (I refer, of course, to Eyes Wide Shut), and I am sitting in my chair swigging brandy in a leopard-print housecoat with a pair of reindeer antlers.

Holiday traditions are important, right?

New Axioms

Fuck me, that was a tough beat.

I've been in a daze since election night, finding myself wandering around aimlessly like it's The Day After and we're all victims of a catastrophic nuclear war. It's probably good practice for the real thing, I suppose, in case my streak of bad luck continues and I don't get vaporized instantly.

The news from the transition team holed up in Trump tower over the last two weeks is enough to convince even the most lighthearted and well adjusted optimist to drink himself to death in the corner of a dark room, all while Hillary Clinton's popular vote advantage continues to grow and it becomes increasingly evident that she will still never be President despite amassing more votes than any of the white men to ever run for that job.

Jesus, an incredibly tough beat.

That is not to say that I'm convinced Clinton will join the ranks of George McGovern or Al Gore as one of the Greatest Presidents America Never Had, but when you consider that their failures just left us to contend with Richard Nixon and George W Bush it feels like they got it easy. Dick and Dubya were crooks and fools, offensive in their own right, but the clouds lowering on us this inauguration day are some horrifying new thing indeed.

To be honest, the results were less depressing for me than they were disappointing. I've long been an American Enthusiast who held that there was a trust - a faith - that came from the stirring oratory of Lincoln or Kennedy or Sorkin, that our neighbors may be zany from time to time but they were, on the whole, a genuinely good and well-intentioned people. "If there is hope," a much younger and more foolish version of myself once wrote a million years ago, "it lies in the voters." Well so much for that, ho ho!

As it happens, this election has bereft me of that trust, and I fear it has left me for good. I've lost the faith, it seems, and that's been the most disturbing feeling of all to reconcile. True, as the white trash descendant of other working class white trash, I'm not unsympathetic to the voters who felt alienated by a triumphalist Democratic campaign seemingly tone deaf to their experience....but to hitch their wagon to the star of a compulsively lying abusive egomaniac? It's unconscionable, and I am completely unable to empathize with anyone willing to throw their lot in with the Reichsleitung of the American Nazi Party.

In fact, it's become impossible for me to shake off the feeling that this is the twilight of the age of liberal democracy itself. Eight years of progress - and so much more besides - are about to be wiped out by the DC Chapter of the Klan, backed and enabled by hopped up little weasels like Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus. In all likelihood, we are living in what will be remembered - at best - as the start of a lost decade that will be the subject of books written for the next century...assuming the written word survives that long.

At any rate, the repercussions of this election will be felt by everyone. The world turns its lonely eyes to Justin Trudeau and Angela Merkel as perhaps the last vestiges of sanity and good government left in this world, but already synagogues, mosques, and black churches across Canada have been vandalized. Marine LePen is re-energized in the Presidential polls in France. The unchecked racial aggression unleashed after Brexit continues unabated as Theresa May sits at Number Ten and unprecedented, wide scale harassment of anyone who looks vaguely brown has exploded across entire continents. It's all coming apart at the seams.

Enough.

Enough mourning. Enough uncertain confusion. Enough complacency. I should confess something perverse to you now, dear readers, before we go any further: in addition to the depression and disappointment and malaise, there's a small part of me that's excited, aroused even; spoiling for a fight. The Bush-43 era helped me discover and define my own liberalism, and now some deep part within me has been given new purpose.

Perhaps it's an opportune combination of time, experience, and not caring if an aggravated alt-right shithead from Twitter wants to try and blow up my car (joke's on him, I don't own a car), or perhaps it's the potential to feel useful again. Whatever it is, I am suddenly energized. When Clinton was going to be the next President of the United States we stood on the verge of a new golden age in liberalism, but now it turns out we're going to have to go back to fighting for it.

So let's fight, then. There's nothing I enjoy more than a good righteous shout in the dark, and frankly the more outnumbered I am the better I feel doing it. It's time for courage, grit, and new battle cries. These people are either monsters or in league with them and they deserve nothing less than for us to hound them to their graves, oh yes indeed.

If There Is Hope, he wrote, It Lies In The Voters

[Editor's Note: Unfortunately we are unable to definitely establish the authorship of this piece as we have not been able to establish contact with Mr. Mills for several weeks. Our intern Alfonso was able to barter under a locked door with a sobbing man we assume to be the author for this Public Service Announcement, trading it for a copy of the National Enquirer, stale pizza, and fresh lube]

We have finally arrived, it's finally happening: After two years and about seven billion (!!!) dollars the General Election of the United States is upon us.

For a political junkie this is four years worth of Christmases and Birthdays all rolled into one. Cable news outlets have been perfecting their insane graphics packages for weeks, bets have been made, bars rented, and cigars cut. The lights, the sounds, the magic walls and interactive maps...to the wretched souls like myself who are chemically dependent on it, election night coverage is as satisfying as an addict's first hit of heroin or an Obsessive-Compulsive stepping into a NASA Clean Room.

I still retain enough human DNA to feel the same way about this interminable election as anyone else, and to be ready for it to end so I can finally sleep. And yet the end of this campaign still feels like the end of my entire way of life, the whole year has been building to this point and now it's come; soon it will be gone. It's going to be hard to imagine life without a new daily campaign scandal or feverish poll update...like suddenly waking in a foreign country where you don't have a home or a job or speak the language.

So I suppose wherever you find yourself tonight while the returns are coming in, cherish it. Let all the high definition mayhem and excitement fondle your primate amygdala and be dazzled. Hell, you should probably do your best to enjoy it since it might be the last chance we ever get to see one of these.

Make no mistake, Friend, the winner of today's Presidential election will either be an incredibly and uniquely qualified political professional with decades of experience or a deflated sack consisting of the worst Twitter trolls brought to life; the kind that spew Infowars-style nonsense about Reptillian body snatchers and declare all opposition either cucks, cunts, or "the REAL racists!". Whatever success the Trump campaign sees tonight - win or lose - will be the inevitable byproduct of a country full of nominally normal and reasonably intelligent humans, who simply can not be trusted as a society to hold rational conversations about subjects like guns, healthcare, or immigration. It no longer seems possible to have a serious and important conversation about public policy without at least half of the country threatening to murder or rape the other half.

This would all be fine, funny even, if it was taking place in some tiny, far flung eastern European republic with zany ways and a quirky culture, but America is too deeply embedded in the very heart of the rest of us for the effects to be detached and separate...to just be a silly tragedy that's happening to other people. I'm not sure I can live in a world where Donald Trump can win the Presidency. Surely such a victory would render the West irrelevant, and mark final decline of liberal democracy.

To be honest I wasn't sure a universe where such a blowhard could even get the nomination of major party deserved to exist, but at least it looked like he was headed for a thorough thumping in the electoral college then. Until a week ago. Now it's a crap shoot, good God.

Ah, but I'm jaded and cynical. The media circus is at full volume, the pundits have been out in force, and a thug like Donald Trump is now what passes for a politician.

If there is hope it lies in the voters. If. If you can vote in this election then DO. If you can't, then hold your loved ones close and stock up on canned goods. I, having spent the weekend preparing my body with vegetables, quiet meditation and prayer, intend to debauch to excess until I collapse, spent and exhausted (if this is the end of Civilization than I intend for it to be an ending with some magnificence - like the fall of Rome, if only those poor saps had perfected chemical stimulants and extra large nachos).

I'm going to need to get it all completely out of my system before I can start to rebuild my life and find new meaning, assuming there is new meaning to be found and we don't just wake up in the hellish reality TV show that would be a Trump Presidency.

If there is hope it lies in the voters, yes. But only if they vote.