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Thursday, October 25, 2007
Rob Zombie and Ozzy Osbourne
Ahhh, that concert was great! We stood from the time Rob showed up till we left at the end. Going in was frustrating as they were doing full security searches, looking in purses, legislating fashion, and patting down the men. I had to remove the chain from my nose to my ear and take my spiked collar and my can of diet Dr. Pepper back to the car. I wound up standing in an increasingly long line for each one when I returned. Very frustrating and my neck felt naked. I thought they were really going overboard. As it was nobody was in a mood to act like jerks, there was no mosh pit, and they needn't have been so worried about objects that could be weapons. Besides which, they missed my nastiest accessory, the heavy chain I use for a purse strap! I grumbled my way through the opening act, In This Moment. My seat-neighbours didn't care for the lead vocalist's screaming delivery but I thought she was amazing. I loved her presentation and I was inspired by her constant volume delivery and being able to go from shriek to melody and back again without losing a beat.
After a short interval for people to line up at the overloaded concessions Rob Zombie blasted into view. Fire balls flew into the air from a row of flame throwers blasting straight up like the fires of hell. The center of the 3 headed monster drum riser split to admit Rob in a cloud of smoke and flame and the video screens delivered raucous, racy and ridiculous in equal measure with horror, including at the end of his set, the final scenes from his movie The Devil's Rejects from 2005, a nasty bit of blood and gore and cannibalism, as he played the track used for the movie credits. During Living Dead Girl and Dragula it turned into a sing-a-long with the audience happily supplying the lyrics in remarkable volume. A powerful spectacle to say the least!
Again we had a long wait as they changed the sets around, a giant sheet hiding the secrets from our eyes. No less than six techs hung in the rigging for the show with countless more techs walking around the catwalks and manning the complicated equipment in the middle of the arena.
Finally the lights went down, the capacity crowd went wild and a series of very entertaining video spoofs played out for us as we got more and more excited about seeing our idol. (I was there for Rob but Ozzy is just as cool.) Ozzy rocked the house, taking us to new levels of rocker frenzy and sing-a-long. I thought it was amusing to note that at his level of fame he can let the audience do the singing on many of his songs, like Crazy Train when he let us supply the key lines. Lighters glowed, devil sign hands pumped, people clapped and stamped, and the fireballs shot skyward. He even had a giant cross of fire that periodically bloomed above. The lead guitarist demonstrated his own star-power with technical skill and showmanship flare and while I sat out his solo, finding it interminable and irritating, the folks around me were rapt with pleasure at it. Hey, I don't like heavy metal guitar solos, that's just me. Dan enjoyed it enough for us both and I appreciated a rest after standing and dancing and jumping and waving for the last two hours.
The finale included fireworks, and, Dan says, a 15 gun salute. Oh, and Ozzy couldn't remember the name of the town he was in. Who can blame him? For many americans we are synonymous with Timbucktoo and the Lost World. The guy is ancient for a rocker and how he survived his own depravity is a mystery even to him. A little memory trouble is forgiveable.
We didn't try to leave right away but sat in the parking lot with the stereo on letting our ears settle down and drinking the pop that was rejected at the door while people demonstrated how short sighted and foolish they are by trying to find that magical secret fast exit and avoid smacking fenders, or sitting idling producing fumes and wasting gas for nothing.
Yeah, it was fun. I didn't drink but I got a hangover anyway! Oh, and the smell of pot in there was maddening!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
comment: Islam and threats to the west
The following is a letter I've written commenting on the article at The biggest threat to the West lies within itself, not with Islam Please read this article before reading my post.
Hello Mr. Jenkins.
I quite enjoyed your writing. I hadn't heard of the letter drafted by important muslims and sent to christian church leaders. Your interpretation of it was very astute and I quite agree with it in the main. What I don't agree with, however, is your assessment of Western Leaders. I think you give them far too much credit for honesty or genuine political intent.
Where is the 20hr work week we were promised when machines would free us for more intellectual pursuits? Why is it that with all our technology we are instead desperate for a dollar and seeing our jobs outsourced to ever more desperate populations with far fewer human rights? Then, to ensure we do not stop and think about it, we have cheap entertainment and terrifying world events to distract us and keep us quiet. Americans regularily express an unwillingness to address the issues. They cite concerns such as being arrested for having unacceptable ideas. They worry about being ostracized by their communities. They say frequently that they don't want to be taken for terrorists. Instead they quietly break safe laws like copywrite piracy and narcotics, traffic laws and social laws of courtesy and respect, venting their frustration thereby. Canadians are not so frustrated or stifled but we are an apathetic lot preferring to keep our heads down and focus on our day. We percieve politics and world concerns, generally, as too large to be affected by our efforts unless we give over our lives to those efforts. So we make no efforts.
This perception of powerlessness plays, again, into the hands of those whose lobbyists and bribe money direct our governments and restrict our power still further.
The true threat to our way of life lies in our own cowardice, as you much more diplomatically implied. Until we either lose enough comfort to have nothing to lose, or see a need greater than our desire for comfort, I fear it will continue to slide.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
How long till I can give up without failing?
There's a group of people involved in environmentalism who get together
once a month to drink beer and socialize. Every time I find myself
twiddling my thumbs while other people converse around me, leaving me
out of the loop. I keep going back wanting to give it a fair chance
before I get fed up, but it's not getting better.
Last night is pissing me off terribly. I tried so hard too. For
example, this woman invites her sister and brother in law to meet her.
Leaves these two ordinary suburbanites with a group of strangers with
whom they have nothing in common, for 2 hours. We chatted a while, that
was nice, I enjoyed it. I tried to remember to ask them questions and
let them do yapping. I think I did alright. So miss missy and her
hubby show up. I recognize them from last time. She outright snubs me,
hubby just offhand towards me. She's kinda in charge and she doesn't
want me chatting with him maybe? I dunno. Well I try and start talking
with people at the other end of the table. It goes ok, they finally
leave and I'm left nobody again, but I have nearly a whole beer in front
of me. I engage the husband fellow on the issue of the One Laptop Per
Child initiative. Hey, something we can both talk about, we're both
excited, it interests us. Wifey pipes up saying the whole thing is
stupid, that kids who are starving don't need laptops. I try and draw
her out. No, she doesn't want to talk about it, just wants to assert
it's stupid without actually discussing it. She cuts me off. I try and
get her to tell me more about this business. I say "hey, I don't care
WHAT we discuss, I just want to have a conversation, so lets discuss
what you're bringing up!" At one point she referenced herself as a
bitch to her brother in law even as she cut me ruthlessly out of the
conversation. Then the woman next to me starts discussing her job
search with hubby across my head. I tried to pay attention but I simply
don't know either person well enough to follow. Again, cut off and
discarded.
Don't they care how rude they're being? Don't I rate? Why not? Why
would you treat me so shabby? What, am I chopped liver? I gratefully
swallowed the last of my beer, freeing me to fuck off as I so
desperately wanted, after sitting at this table reading a book for
awhile. I didn't say a word, just got up and left. Not once did anyone
bother to stand up where i was paying my bill and say "hey, don't go
without saying goodbye" or anything.
I went to another bar and had another beer, sitting alone brooding in a
corner with my book. i was gonna get a bit drunk goddamn them and do it
where I don't have to feel like a fucking loser! I was almost done that
beer when an old university friend turned up and dragged me to her table
full of wonderfully sociable and polite and friendly people and I had a
4th pint, got shit faced, we all had a fine time yapping, and then we
went home.
So, is it time to give up on the environmentalist snobs, or maybe I
should show up and ignore them a few times?
Yeah. I'll go next time, fuckin' right, and I'll sit there with my beer
and my ebook and just sit and read. Maybe it's time to stop being
polite with rude people and see how they handle that?
In reiterating this experience, and recalling how similar the previous
meetings have gone, I think the truth is, they're fucking snobs. They
don't see any value in me but they're too full of themselves to admit it
and actually tell me to go away, so they dismiss me right in person.
Waste of my time I guess.
Friday, October 12, 2007
certainty
After having another dialog with a friend in which I expound my
opinion of the universe, I recalled criticisms I've recieved so
often. People get mad at me for stating these things as facts,
definite and final.They say I could be wrong and in consideration of
others must always qualify my statements with uncertain words like
"maybe" and "could be" and so forth. Yet I don't want to! I have had
trouble finding a way to deal with this. Today I realized I have
been going about it all wrong. Sure I know I can't claim to be a
prophet. I think I am, mind you, but I think anyone could be, so I
don't think I'm somehow exhalted, better than the others, or
deserving of better treatment. However, I do think I speak truths
delivered from God on High. Really, I do. When I say a thing like
"there is no such thing as distance, it's all relative and the
measures are arbitrary." I don't want to say "I think" or "it could
be" because I truly am stating what I understand to be a fact,
delivered to me straight from the Highest Authority. It doesn't
matter to me that I could be crazy or just mistaken, or that you
disagree. In fact it doesn't matter to me that you have other ideas
about it. If you want to help flesh out my idea that's fine, but I
am not open to alternatives because I am not getting my ideas from
philosophy texts, dead men, or common ideas. I'm getting them from
my spiritual connection. Call it meditating if that helps you out,
but I don't sit for umpteen hours chanting or humming with my eyes
closed and my body posed. I do go into an altered mind state, but I
do this as easily as slipping into a chair or opening the door to
your house. So for me, it's not meditating, it's just a part of me
that I have always accessed where the line to God is always open and
I often get answers. I don't always. Sometimes I am too busy to
listen. Sometimes I am too fearful to hear. Other times I just don't
like the answer and it may take awhile to accept it, during which I
taste alternatives to see if I can get around it, negate it, or
prove it's just my silly mind being overwrought. Inevitably I know
when I'm fooling myself.
So, I think from now on I have a different approach when criticized
for making these statements. I think I am going to stand firm. I
am sure that Jesus and Mohammed, Ba'hualla and Zoroaster, perhaps
even Buddha, all faced these problems. People who took offense.
People who didn't like being taught in every damn conversation.
People who wanted to discuss questions, not hear answers. People
who internalized it and took it as a personal slight, a comment on
their own intellect, when someone made finite statements about
philosophy and spirituality.
It's funny though, were I an ordained whatever who'd tolerated years
of conformity doing predictable spiritual exercises they would not
only allow my style of speech, but they would seek me out and
organize meetins to hear it! They'd even pay to hear it! It isn't
about the message, therefor, nor even the delivery, but the respect
accorded by other humans. I lack that. I will always lack that,
it's my personal cross. It's there to keep me humble, because I
could very quickly lose control of my ego were I treated as more
than a whacko or annoyance. I know that too, because God also told
me that. I am to continue speaking these truths but recieve no
benefit from them nor even see any belief attested. Apparently some
day, some when, my words will be resurrected and understood and
bring understanding and comfort to others, and yet my name won't be
attached to them. For me there is no posterity.
I can't say I'm ok with it, but I also can say I accept it and that
I don't really see a problem with it. Again, it's my ego that
doesn't like it. The sensible part of me is fine and knows it
doesn't matter. I am warm, I am fed, I do not hurt. Nothing else
really counts, right? Oh, and now, I can also say I am loved and
cared for. No greater gift was ever given me. I really won't ask
for more, for all I want more. Heck, I want everything. Don't you?
We'll get over it.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
It matters, it doesn't matter.
Sitting in a coffee shop stuck between
acknowledging my feelings, and putting them away as a hindrance. I want
to socialize, to have friends, to be a friend. Yet it's such a chore
and a trial to actually negotiate.
So, first I"ll acknowlege it. I feel slighted, ignored, and usurped. I
came here to discuss something with my friend. We were engaged in said
discussion, about half way through. Not terribly important, but
exciting and interesting. One person after another interrupted us.
Annoyance. Ok, they're gone, back at it. Then came one with a lot of
interruption. I like this woman, she's a wonderful person. I'd love to
have her drop into my world more often! Only thing, today she
completely took over the visit, practically shut me out, and used up all
the time. My first friend ran out of time and what we came here for
never got finished. He wandered off to do something else. During this
woman's interruption I kept trying to make the best of it and insert
myself into the conversation but I was unsuccessful. Polite
acknowlegement that I said something happened occasionally but mostly my
voice was run over and ignored, my sentence cut off half way, my
statement irrelevant. She ran on and on. He chatted with her steadily.
So here I am, feeling negatively. I don't WANT to feel this way,
because I want to be glad of the time spent, to enjoy the opportunity to
share, to interact, to be with others. But I wasn't really part of it.
I wonder if it's because I wasn't sufficiently fascinated with her
subject matter and her presence, yet I still feel cast off. I feel
angry. I want to just enjoy my moment, and I need to put away this
anger, repudiate it, drop it and move on. So I'm putting it here, into
this text, where it can be expressed, respected, and rested.
After all, none of this is serous or important, except that I feel this
way, and my feelings are my problem, not theirs. One might say they did
this or that wrong, that they disregarded my feelings, but they too had
feelings, she has been on an exciting adventure and bursts to tell the
story. Being willing to set myself aside to give her that is perfectly
reasonable. It's what I want to do. So I need to let go. I'd like to
think I can pick up where we left off with friend #1 but he's not
returning. So I guess not. That's the part that pisses me off
actually. I really want to finish telling him about the One Laptop Per
Child computer and program! Dammit. Hours have passed now too. She
used up a whole hour. I was SO fucking bored too. I get bored if I
play no part in a conversation. I'm told it's a flaw to need to be
talking about myself to some degree to maintain an interest. Somehow
I'm supposed to exorcise this from my nature. I can't imagine how to
change that. I don't even know what I'd do to start. I can't think of
even the first technique to apply. I mean, telling myself to pay
attention, to listen, to hear what she's saying, I do that. I'm still
bored. I still feel excluded and annoyed and it's all so damn tedious,
even though I know it's exciting to her! Why are other people so
fascinated with each other? Are you? Are you all faking it as a
courtesy to each other? Is it okay to get bored and fake it and try not
to show my boredom? Is that enough to satisfy? I mean, if it is, ok, I
can pay that price, but damn, if that's what you are all doing, isn't it
a bit silly to expect that from each other? Furthermore, to expect me
to actually initiate your stream of babble with appropriate context
questions???? Why can't I just be nice and let you babble on without
complaining or leaving prematurely? Why isn't that enough? It's all I
ask of you.
Addendum: My friend did return and finish the examination of the nifty
laptop we were viewing. I inquired about his impressions of the long
visit and in fact he felt pretty much as I. He agreed that I had been
put off rudely, that she had been inconsiderate, and that it was only
fair to be tolerant and give her the joy of sharing her adventure, as
we'd done. So I feel a great deal better about the whole business and
my resentment is cooled. He also warned me that this woman might at
times be a little unpredictable in temper. I will keep that in mind but
generally people know better than to behave so childishly with me. I'm
not very good at ennabling hysterics and drama. I told him I wish I could have been allowed to amuse myself while she went on, that it was an awful shame people didn't let you just set back and do something other than pay attention them yet still share the space with them. I rather just have them around, not have to attend them or amuse them or stroke their egos! I wonder if it would be better if we still played parlour games in groups?
Monday, October 01, 2007
rant: marathon fundraisers
I'm pissed with all these fucking marathon fund raisers and how they're advertised. "Come on out and run for a cure!" Come ON! The running doesn't do a thing for the cause, it's the money you collect, ostensibly because you're running. However, your friends and such would have given you that money just to help you win "biggest fundraiser" awards too, wouldn't they? Or just because you begged eloquently, right? The running really hasn't got anything to do with it! Yet the media tell me, on my tv, that showing up to run is all I have to do!!!! Bull Fucking Shit! I could show up, I could say "give me an application, I'd like to run for the cause" and they'd say "ok, who are your sponsors?" "Sponsors?" "Yes, people who've pledged to give you money for the cause." Well for fuck's sake, why don't I just fucking give you the $20 I *might* be able to collect???? It ain't about running, it's about having friends with disposable income! So there they throw all this guilt tripping around with "all you have to do is show up and run!" But what they really want is for you to go around begging for them. It's not the fact that they want you to collect money that pisses me off, but that they're so covert about it. They sell it as a run but it isn't, it's a fund raiser. Your value as a runner is entirely wrapped up in the pledges you collect. Oh, and last night they were reporting on it and the tv anchorwoman says "We just kind of decided to particpate at the last minute. We weren't really prepared, but we thought we'd just show up and run anyway. It wasn't really about the money but about showing support." Are you fucking kidding me? You showed up to run but didn't have any sponsors and you won't even have the decency to say it out loud, that if your audience all did the same thing the run would be a fucking JOKE!!!
I hate these things. They're so sneaky and dishonest in how they go on and on about how much fun everyone had, how everyone should participate and not telling you till you try to join that you're supposed to spend a couple weeks begging for money from whomever. And WHO would I beg? Shall I go knocking door-to-door in my "inner city" neighborhood asking for a portion of people's welfare and pension cheques? Ohhhh, don't forget, you also have to collect it after. You get to be the muscle that makes the pledges pony up. Yah, that'd go over well around here.... I just wish these fuckers would discuss the pledging aspect more often, more openly, more clearly. Be clear. Your runners got money, that's what makes the thing work, that's how the funds are raised, and that's what you expect from people. After all, if you didn't complete the run, you know your valid pledges would give the total anyway. Who are you kidding?
