Steamed and Starched

I used to drink with a champion bull rider.

I was far from out of the closet (not even close in my own mind) in those days but the guy was clearly gay. The, ah, roommate he'd lived with for several years in a farmhouse right next to the transmitters for the radio station I worked for, was a real give-a-way. They could only get our station, so close were they to our transmitters, plus the radios would only last months before being fried. The association with Neil (his name I think) provided me with one of my minor life's regrets. He offered a group of us an opportunity to ride a bull -- only two of us did so. I chickened out and did not. Maybe that anecdote should provide proof of my intelligence and not regret.

I have two superb cowboy hats. Both cost in excess of a couple hundred bucks -- in 1980s dollars. One (a dark chocolate brown Biltmore) is pristine, rarely worn -- it was a going away gift from work shortly before I moved to a place where one just doesn't wear such hats -- if, indeed, there is EVER a place a profoundly fake cowboy can wear such a hat. The second (a pale cream Stetson) is a glorious mess. Wore that hat everywhere, much like I'd wear a baseball cap these days. Helped that I drank in hardcore working class bars and was an employee of a intensely C&W radio station.

The hat was re-steamed and shaped many times - a roommate and I learned to do it ourselves over a kettle to save on the cost of having the local hat shop do it. Oh, and to assist with visualization later in this blog, know that the roommate was mostly Ukrainian, a lot Indian, and some French. He, also Steve, was 6'5", ugly in a sweet way, but also in a I-can-rip-your-arms-off-if-I-decide-it-will-amuse-me kind of way, and regularly wore knee-high, hand-made (by women in Inuvik, where he once lived) mukluks and a hand-made, deer-suede, (long) fringed jacket, and ALWAYS a black cowboy hat. Oh, and cowboy boots, of course. (I chose my drinking partners carefully -- when you drink with the big and mean looking you can say much of anything you want when you're a pale, skinny-assed closeted homo wimp).

Steve had a foster brother, Billy, one of the most gorgeous men on the planet, at least in my memory. Native, he had jet black shiny hair to his Levis covered ass. Last time I saw Billy he stopped by the townhouse I shared with 4 other guys in the dead of winter night, and announced, "Hey boyz, I just came tah say hello. Can't stay long, the car is stolen 'n the cops is after me. Yah got any beerz?"

Hmm, booze and hats. When I was 18 I traded a Mennonite boy most of a 26er of CC rye for his hat. We then drove around on his horse drawn buggy sharing the 26er from the bottle until his father arrived -- the 26er long gone -- yelling, jumping onto the buggy AND pulling my new hat from my head and ordering me off the buggy and driving away screaming at his son, who was hot, as I recall.

God, how did I not know I was gay. I'm still pissed I didn't get that hat.

Anyway, when the cream coloured hat was new I treated it with utmost care, so for a couple of months it continued to look like it had just been pulled from the box.

That disturbed those of my friends who were of the school that white running shoes need to be scuffed fast and cowboy hats need look like they've been worn. The roommate, Steve, was of that camp and was continually trying to ruffle the hat. At a major outdoor drinking binge, er, I mean, a music festival called Boggey Creek the hat assumed its real character. When a light rain began to fall I whimpered something about my hat getting wet, fearing for the felt. That was enough for Steve who grabbed it from my head, threw the hat into the dust and began to dance his 250 pound filled cowboy boots all over the hat. To many cheers, I'll point out. Steven had this mock Indian dance he'd do complete with hoop hooping whenever he was drunk and my hat provided the dance floor. He then, in front of hundreds of folks -- we're in the campground section of the music festival -- proceeded to piss on my hat. Finished, he kicked dust all over it and proceeded to dance again. He then picked up the Stetson, walked it to the nearby creek of music festival name, soaked it thoroughly ("a rinse" he said) and plopped it on my head. The hat no longer assuming the shape of a cowboy hat, I looked (for there is a picture)like the hillbilly kid held back a year for stupidity in grade 7. (I believe in the photo I have, in magic marker, a vest painted on my shirtless upper body -- but that's another story from that festival.)

I still have the hat. It's been professionally cleaned a couple of times since then. I suspect, although in a box, it will need steamed and starched into some shape again if ever to be worn. The dark hat will remain as crisp as plywood.

That all popped into my head as I waited for blogger to load so I could blog about Brokeback Mountain the movie, which I'm thinking is gonna prompt some sort of Urban Cowboy thing soon and I might have reason to wear the hats at costume parties or the like soon.

It is with dismay, perhaps (I can't decide) that Brokeback Mountain is getting such critical acclaim. Not because it's a bad movie ('cause it's not, exactly) and not because of anything to do with its gayness or non-gayness or that political bullshit, but because it's simply not the best movie of the year, by any stretch. Not from a movie making viewpoint, least.

My disappointment was not there while actually watching, but the director fails in so many substantial ways with the film that it leaves one wishing upon reflection for what could have been with such a good story and instances of profoundly remarkable acting (in a couple of cases). I'm wondering if maybe I should blame the editor too.

But, I'm outta space to go on about the film, so all you get is the story of a pissed on hat.

SRIII -- The Sci-Fi Version

He Who Lives Over There But Will Soon Be Here had a dream last night.

In the dream, aliens invaded the earth and were shooting people as sport, killing everyone. Except me. I was kidnapped and taken aboard the UFO. (I figure because I'm so darn cute and would be needed for sex experiments, but I digress away from the actual dream plot.)

This angered He Who Lives Over There and he went into the ship and declared "He's Mine!"

The dream involved such antics as me crying and shouting "save me!", him hiding under a bed from the aliens, and He Who Lives Over There with the ability to fly. Once the aliens left the room and he could come from under the bed and fly out of the ship with me under his arm, He Who Lives Over There dropped me and had to swoop down and catch me before I hit the street.

The dream ends with my limp body being lowered gently to the street and the hero (er, He Who Lives Over There) giving me a kiss to revive me.

AND, oh, the dream was in English!

(PS -- He Who Lives There's grasp of English is improving. He just asked me about copyright royalties for stealing his dream for this blog. Sheesh!)

The Empire Strikes II

The world's oldest company is to be no more (except in name, perhaps).

Chartered in 1670(some 200 years before Canada was a country), and granted economic dominion basically over much of present day Canada, and beyond, the Hudson Bay Company was born.

Today an American offered $1billion cash and the HBC board suggested to shareholders they accept the offer.

Even worst fucking service than Holts, but still the blow to the historical knackers is more than a bit painful.

The Empire Strikes

Just learned today that S. Korea has a quota system for its movie industry, which has for the past 40 years, required that cinemas play Korean films for 146 days of the year.

That explains why Korea has such a great movie output of very good films (and a raft of movie shit, but good shit generally and at least Korean-talking-to-Korean movie shit).

I learned of this today as Korea will halve the number of days as a result of trade negotiation pressure (Korea and the U.S. are poised to sign a free trade deal) in which he U.S. was demanding the quota be removed totally.

Kiss the Korean film industry good bye I'd say.

But, gee, to paraphrase the U.S. trade negotiator, it's good news for Korean movie lovers who will finally have access to better films.

How sad.

Haggis

It's Robbie Burns day.

Eat sheep guts.

Drink (the only real) whiskey.

Die well before your time clutching at your chest (one of the more famous Scottish pastimes!).

Read a Burns poem with a bad Scottish accent.

Just to prove a poem can be about anything (and who better than to use Burns who even has a poem for reciting after eating meat) here's a wee poem that's about potholes, really. And then there's, as always, Burns' joyous competence with rhythm:

Epigram On Rough Roads

I'm now arrived-thanks to the gods!-
Thro' pathways rough and muddy,
A certain sign that makin roads
Is no this people's study:
Altho' Im not wi' Scripture cram'd,
I'm sure the Bible says
That heedless sinners shall be damn'd,
Unless they mend their ways.

Robbie Burns

A good wipe of this day!

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

A blah, er I mean, blog

A friend once blogged that one should never blog while depressed. Good advice pretty much (see my last blog), but I'll ignore the advice, briefly.

What makes waking up this morning full of bit..., er, disdain for the world was only made worse by remembering that some Scottish psychologist named today as 2005's most depressing day in the northern hemisphere (he's got a neat wee formula for determining the date; last year is was the 24th). Gee, even my depression follows the cliched.

My iPod selection this morning did little to help -- FM rock tunes filled me with grief (more than the usual grief I feel for musical art with FM tunes) and the even the dance mixes (I don't fill my own iPod)made me sneer not bounce my step.

And now I gotta spend the day/week/month/year(s) on Bay Street.

Happy Monday.

PS -- don't forget to vote (gee, nothing more uplifting than the empty democratic process).

Response

A response to my previous post I've discovered has left me a tad livid, so I respond to the response here:

No where in my previous blog was there a suggestion that anything, that lead me to conclude that the life of that young girl has been made tragic, had anything to do with the media's particular account, or that her state in the world might be awful simply, or somehow measurably more awful, 'cause it is made in a news media frenzy to seem that it happens a lot (see below for more on that).

Secondly, children are not as "the rest of us," if by that the responder meant adults. Sure, to over idealize even children serves no real purpose, but to respond a a child's tortured death--and yes a child versus an adult since children DO require and rely on adult care and protection (children are not miniature adults and moving from childhood to adulthood is not about simple socialization but about real psychological and psyiological maturation)--is boldly misdirected and should be rethought.

As for that part of the response dealing with news media theory, specifically "anxietyculture.com," I would suggest instead reading Chomsky for a general critique of the news media's manipulation of events, and creation of psuedo crises and the so-called culture of fear. As for the suggestion that the horror I expressed in an 11 year old being beaten into a coma by her caregivers was deemed horrific due to that same media manipulation, is further misguided. The ONLY story I've seen on this particular 11 year old beaten into a coma by her stepfather was absent of (minus it being covered at all by the media at all, of course) the broader "sky if falling, all our children are at risk, keep them at home" media bullshit (which I admit exists).

Certainly, that beaming smile in the photo was likely chosen in much part because it might pull at heartstrings. And indeed, that it did with me -- it personalized the story and made me feel pain for a wee lass I don't and won't ever know except through the 150 word news brief and photo. Yes, (thanks Chomsky) that created an unreal context for me. But once in a while, and most certainly perhaps in this type of incident, a bit of de-contextualized sadness for someone I don't know just might be a fucking good thing.

While getting dragged into a media theory discussion is utterly, emotionally counter to my initial response to a young girl being left a vegetable at violent adult hands, I will, however, also point the responder to two books that might provide more depth (although I've never been to the website) than anxietyculture.com. 1) "It Ain't Necessarily So: How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality" by Murry Schwartz and Lichter. 2) "Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians and Activists" by Best. One is considerably longer than the other, but reading both will allow the reader to avoid thinking about those kids whose lives suck, generally, or about one particular 11 year old lying in a coma.

Surely 9/11 confirmed that the culture of fear is rigorously manufactured -- whether it's fear of terrorists or letting our children play alone in a park. But telling the world that a kid is likely to die when doctors yank her breathing tube doesn't always get reported with an agenda to whip up fear that every kid is at risk for ending up like that. Sometimes the news media remains about sharing our community stories. When bad people do things to our most vulnerable we need to know about it -- not in sickening vivid detail, but to better protect ourselves and our vulnerable, and for the non-cynical to believe that society can mature to a point where 11 year old girls with beaming smiles won't get those smiles wiped off their faces.

Smiles

Haleigh Poutre is 11 years old and has been beaten into a vegetable by her stepfather, with assistance from her aunt/adoptive mother.

Despite this, the photograph that accompanies the article about her vegetative state reveals not a wee lass whose life was unbearable beyond comprehension but one beaming a smile filled with glee and wonder.

Similarly, the last couple of horrid cases of child abuse leading to death in Toronto revealed the victims in photographs smiling happily.

The disconnect between the reality of these children's situations and what the camera captures (which absolutely can be totally divorced from reality) is very disturbing. It is overwhelming to consider that despite Dad fucking you, or Grandma making you drink from the toilet, or Mom using a broken-off coffee table leg to smash bits of your very own skull into your brain, you have the capacity, the resilience to experience enough fun to smile.

I hope desperately that's the case -- that they are real smiles, that in those brief smiling moments there is an erasure, no matter how short in time, of the torture filled, painful, slave-to-monsters existence of these children.

In a sick bit of humour, the man, who puffed up his manhood by knocking an 11-year-old around and who will face murder charges if Haleigh dies, has legally sought to keep her on life-support. A high court actually had to rule that he has no say in her medical care.

God help us all.

1348 All Over Again

The Black Plague which killed as much as 50% of Europe's population over three years in the mid-1300s popped to mind today as the grand despair, which will become complete with Harper warming his toes before the fire at 24 Sussex, gave a first appearance in my psyche.

Clearly I share fucking little with my fellow citizens. Mike Harris, Ralph Klein, Brian Mulroney. Their mean-spirited approach to governing is about to be unleashed again on the nation. But that's just it, isn't it -- it ain't going to be unleashed, it's being invited in the front door and offered a welcoming cuppa...

This nation was fundamentally changed by the Mulroney regime. Changed in a way that made my cynicism complete. It was then I went from a highly active participant in the political goings on of the country, from a total current events junkie, to someone who could give a flying fuck. The pain was too much and then I lived under Mike Harris and watched hospitals and schools fail because they were meant to fit a private business paradigm of operations. I lived to see the complete transformation of Politics away from leadership and governing to utter fiscal management.

By the very fact they have a chance of taking power, those parties capable of taking power are, indeed, all the same ultimately. That's not cynicism, that's simple and plain real fact. Where differences rest are with the tone and competence of governing in the interests of the ruling class (and that class cares not for tone or competence only to be left unfettered).

Yes, yes, yes, people can and do change. Stephen Harper, however, has changed substantively not a bit. His tone will be set by his policies, which will lean hungrily to a fiscally centred world, where people and art and thinking and sharing and building a better society had fucking better well not get in the way.

Here's the warm and fuzzies in our neo-Cons own words:

Ralph Klein:

"The critics say you can't run government like a business. I respond, well, we can't run government like a government any more."

"I believe in free speech as long as you say the right thing."

Mike Harris:

"It's time for game week. Let's get ready to hit someone else.”

Stephen Harper:

"Now 'pay equity' has everything to do with pay and nothing to do with equity. It’s based on the vague notion of 'equal pay for work of equal value,' which is not the same as equal pay for the same job."

"You have to remember that west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from Eastern Canada; people who live in ghettos and are not integrated into Western Canadian society."

I can't wait to see Harper giving George W. a hand job on the lawn of the White House during the official visit.

I feel buboes at my throat and groin. The plague is soon to be upon us again.

Leadership

Today is Martin Luther King Day.

CBC Radio One, bless it's wee heart, played the famous few minutes of MLK's "dream" speech as I laid in bed this morning.

We've all heard the speech before, but it was great to hear some of it again.

One thing is boldly evident with each stunning "I have a dream...". The man was an incredible threat to the ruling class of the United States of America -- an oratory skill in a leader of the most real kind, that would surely have, if not cancelled early, changed history. Some slopey-headed cracker mighta pulled the trigger, but there were surely an awful lot of white, status quo fingers on the trigger. I'm not saying MLK was killed by the CIA or FBI (although I believe it), I'm just saying if James Earl Ray hadn't of done it, I think another killer would have come along.

If you've got a spell, you might also read this letter MLK wrote while in jail for peaceful protesting: http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf


During a federal election campaign here, listening to Martin Luther King, reading him, just makes a soul yearn that much more for leadership from among a group of wannabe CFO/Prime Ministers.

Oh yah!

It's now official.

He Who Is There will be here in barely more than one month's time! The airline ticket has been purchased, and a little bit of Korea, and a big part of my heart, will be arriving in Toronto on February 22!

Whoohoooo!

Savasana

Last night, I experienced my first runner's high in at least 4 years -- when last I did any serious running whatsoever; more like 5 or 6 years, likely.

And I didn't run a step.

First, I'm not sure the once much vaulted "runner's high" exists -- the idea that the flood of endorphins into yer brain during long periods of running produces a physiological "high." Don't know anyone who has experienced any true physiological buzz from running, but I do know legions, me included, who have clearly experienced a kind of euphoria or psychological well being (in the moment, I mean) as a result of running.

And last night I had that giddiness, that total sense of well being, that physical space where the body feels open, the joints are working and unrestrictive, where one is actually aware of soft tissue working to propel the body. And I actually laughed out loud, alone, on a busy Toronto street corner.

But, I didn't run a step.

I did 70 minutes of yoga.

I had muscles shaking, begging me to just rest but I resisted and won (let's not talk about how much "cheating" I did in some of the more, ahem, challenging postures). The final 10 minutes, spent in the corpse pose, was nice icing. This included the rubbing of scented oil on my forehead and temples by the yoga leader as I lay in the total relaxed state of the final posture. It was 70 minutes of peace in mind and body.

It was when I was walking home that I realized I was feeling exactly as I used to following a 3 hour run -- "could lay down on the sidewalk and sleep" physical and mental fatigue, but still mentally energetic at the same time, along with a profound sense of accomplishment (is the best way to describe it).

In any case I absolutely found some bliss at yoga last night. Sadly the instructor teaches but once a week. It was also my first Ashtanga session since starting yoga again and its particular emphasis on physical work appeals to me. It was wild to sweat that profusely and to not be obviously "working."

Good and Evil

Two deaths recently occurred that I only today learned of. There are no absolutes, of course, but one of those who died was evil, the other good.

1) Evil
Yao Wenyuan -- Evil Son Of A Bitch; member of the Chinese Group of Four; credited with starting the Cultural Revolution. Died of diabetes, aged 74.

I was amazed this guy was still alive, but turns out he was the baby of the Group. He was, not surprisingly perhaps if one thinks of Nazi Germany, the Group's propagandist. (My profession has such opportunity for evil.) An article he wrote denouncing a play, about an ancient Chinese emperor, written by the deputy mayor of Beijing (a play originally prompted and sanctioned by Mao himself, but seen by Wenyuan as intellectual sneakery that covertly questioned Mao's rule) was later described by Mao as the launching point of the Cultural Revolution.

He was jailed for 20 years after Mao's death following the famous trial. Silly, really, if you consider how cheap life can be in China with its record of executions for things far less serious than being a mastermind of the Cultural Revolution, one of the most systematic dismantlings of any society; one in which millions died and tens of millions knew unthinkable conditions.

2) Good
Hugh Thompson Jr. -- Hero (in the real sense of the word) of the My Lai masacre; Vietnam U.S. Helicopter pilot; human. Died of cancer, age 62.

Mr. Thompson set his helicopter down between American troops shooting their guns at fleeing civilians and those civilians after flying into the middle of what we now know as the My Lai masacre. He and his crew then turned their guns at their fellow soldiers and ordered the shooting to stop. He also helped pull survivors(including children) out of a ditch where civilians had been marched before being shot. Three times Mr. Thompson had set his chopper down to report to "friendly forces" on the whereabouts of civilian Vietnamese in need of help only to take off and see his information used to find and exterminate the civilians. From testimony he gave:

We saw another lady that was wounded. We got on the radio and called for some help and marked her with smoke. A few minutes later up walks a captain, steps up to her, nudges her with his foot, steps back and blows her away.

We came across a ditch that had, I don't know, a lot of bodies in it, a lot of movement in it. I landed, asked a sergeant there if he could help them out, these wounded people down there. He said he'd help them out, help them out of their misery, I believe. I was . . . shocked, I guess, I don't know. I thought he was joking; I took it as a joke, I guess. We took off and broke away from them and my gunner, I guess it was, said, "My God, he's firing into the ditch."

He was, of course, called unpatriotic -- a congressman once said he should be the only serviceman punished for My Lai.

I think the real description of the man is summed up by Author Seymour Hersh (who won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for book on the massacre in 1969).

Said Hersh: "[Thompson was]one of the good guys. You can't imagine what courage it took to do what he did."

Dead Poet

Irving Layton died, as you'll know if you've seen the papers.

A friend on another blog said he doesn't like Layton's work, which is a bit, ah, all encompassing considering the man's temporal span and canon. Layton's "collected" and "uncollected" works (that, I learned in an article today, involved a fight with an editor as to what should be included in a collected works and what should not and Layton's response of going to a second publisher so it was ALL published in the end )equals some 600 pages of poetry.

His scope is huge, his sense of epic strong, yet I've always loved this poem in its simplicity of form, ferocity of tone, and sharp reflection of Layton's famous sense of (rightfully earned) self importance:
___________________

To a Young Girl Sunbathing

By Irving Layton

The bare-breasted young girl
doesn’t even try to hide
her disappointment
when I lie down beside her
to get my share of the Greek sun

Is it my fault
she can't perceive wild genius
under the greying locks of hair
or that my bronzed loins
are more supple than her own?

Chakra

While many large firms such as the one I work for have bonus plans which help "share the wealth" of the organization beyond salary remuneration, the firm I work for has other, ahem, benefits instead. One of these is a formal program to track weight and %bodyfat of employees. Participants even get a regular bar graph emailed to them to show progress (or failure). Sure beats a few thousand or tens of thousands of dollars each fiscal year end, yes?

My %bodyfat is more than 15% higher than it was when I was a runner. The new reading remains just inside the "healthy" range. Luckily the forgiveness factor increases as one ages (that is, one is 'allowed' to carry more fat because it grows more difficult to burn calories/fat as one ages given a slowed metabolism). I'm well within the "overweight" range for the age I was when I last ran a marathon, but that is to deny aging, so I'll take the new range category I'm in.

I did a yoga class for the first time in years on the weekend. I rediscovered my perineum -- there's a chakra there (Hui Yin). Actually what I rediscovered were my hip flexors -- I realized I haven't stretched my hip flexors since I was a runner, out of laziness and from the fact most such stretches are resisted by knees containing torn meniscal cartilidge. That resitance usually takes the sound of "holy fucking bejeebus that hurts," when trying to assume any of the seated postures in yoga.

Positively, it has been nearly 3 months since I returned to the gym and I have gone very regularly, even going when I was on holiday in Calgary. Results are becoming evident, although I still look like shit naked -- which is the utlimate test. Fitness used to be the outcome of something I yearned and loved to do -- run. I have needed to adjust my thinking, with looking better now the goal -- in that Trojan Horse will come the fitness and health benefits. The challenge is to find activities that won't bore me into a sedentary flabby mess on the road to personal-aesthetic accomplishment.

My lifting is coming along (benching half my body weight -- which is pathetic, I know, but well above the "unable to do the barbell alone in October" level), but deep cardio fitness eludes me 'cause I'm finding that trying to work as hard as one needs to in order to achieve arrogant levels of cardiovascular fitness is bloody impossible when one is bored to near fucking death by any of the stationary vehicles offered up for the chore in any gym...

Oh, and I am a little more than 15 (okay, okay, nearly 17) pounds heavier than when I was running, as well. Note, the added bulk is NOT the result of major muscle development.

And the phrase of the week is: perineal chakra!

PS -- sorry to bore you with this pointless ramble, but it works as motivation, and it's not like I have a wad of bonus cash to spend on something about which I could blog.

Happy New Year!

[the political cartoon is from the Globe & Mail -- ain't it a doozy!]