The Defeat

The moment he was defeated was the greatest... a wonderful defeat- a hubris induced nemesis  outcome... irreversible legacy damage.  To a megalomaniac it would be the worst possible outcome... all the people jumping ship before the election... but you could only see you.  I actually wouldn't put it past you that the "all the blame for this lies with me and me alone" line you uttered was a support line should you ever throw your hat back in the ring.  You can hear the newsman say... "well by taking responsibility he has proved that he has changed"... right. I honestly don't doubt that this is a possibility... you will have to repair that legacy right?

Oddly enough you might have done the best possible thing for for the Country... put your party out of power against a majority government. 

Could have stepped away and the words "you have been an unbelievable Leader" as uttered by one of the great sellouts of all time.  Heck your Party might have even won again without you, the albatross, around it's neck.  Certainly a delicious irony for somebody who has suffered as a result of the cruel  and thoughtless policies that you imposed.

It's true the defeat was absolutely  because of you... everybody can now get out their dissection knives and carve up the Goat to show how it was you and only you that was wrong with this incompetent government.  Heck, the great foreign owned Newspapers might even run this stuff in an effort to purge the brand.  Isn't there some court case going on where you might face charges?  Who will lie for you now? If you were charged it could take the heat off others? It's just politics... nothing personal... every once in a while somebody has to get eaten by a shark, just to show how the game is not rigged

You can see why this gets better and better... Never poison the food chain for people that have things on you... most smart people know that, and I'm sure you did once too...  it's good to relearn life lessons... it's like enlightenment: it goes when you know you have it.

Aloha sucker

Robertson's voting in elections ideas

I always vote, i always loose, i have a long memory and a short fuse for bitter ironies... but this isn't about my disappointment in humanity, well i guess everything kind of is in a way.

- "it was a marvelous line, and it was written to blind, and now the end of the line... is ahead of it's time"
    Roadbed (Last dance at the Shockcenter 2004)

I was referring at the time to a line some loathsome cretin said about how Global Warming was some crazy left wing conspiracy meant to steal money from the economy.  Utter bullshit of course, but yet very effective in undermining scientific data for the good of partisan politics.  So yea we lost that one a long time ago and the bill is coming due, and nobody could have ever expected it... right.

So yes, i am disappointed in humanity and I'm sure I'll die with that grudge on my shoulder... but i still vote... it's like there is bad and worse, but as we know (or we don't) worse can be really fucking bad.

I can accept corrupt politicians... power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Lord Acton).  I would just hope that perhaps the corrupt person, just maybe every once in a while, if they had the chance might do something good for society.  That is basically my high bar of hope for humans in power.  I mean there have been corrupt Governments in power that at least left the Government in somewhat decent shape while serving themselves shamelessly.  You could argue that American President Bill Clinton and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien both had problems with corruption, but yet both left office with their respective countries in relatively decent shape on the thing consumers seem to care about... that being the economy of course.  Now don't get we wrong here... there is a lot of things that could have been done better in a lot of ways, but consumers.. i mean voters like a strong economy... 

Now following discontent for these 2 North American leaders contested elections landed Geroge W. Bush and Stephen Harper in Power respectively (now the timeline was different of course and in Canada a dithering PM held power for a short while) but what did we see... corruption went up exponentially, surpluses turned to deficits and regulations were stomped on... wars based on facts that were untrue, wars on reason, focus on religious freedoms for some while religious freedoms for others were scaled back... lets just say the Countries went into the gutter where opportunities declined, the economy failed and divisions escalated.  Now in the U.S.A. George W Bush's failure was so great that the country elected and eloquent speaking black man named Barack Hussein Obama on the hope for change ticket.  Now once again for sure, change didn't come fast enough or far enough for many who had great hopes, but the facts don't lie... the American economy is doing pretty good right now... remember the consumers, i mean the voters... that is their top issue.  Now considering he accomplished this while being opposed in every issue always as a matter of partisan politics every step of the way is kind of impressive.  Sure i would like to see no war, clean energy, zero waste more reforestation... and all of the other crazy left wing pinko commie tree hugging ideas that try to enable the planet to remain sustainable, and i would argue that those positions are more attainable under and Obama Presidency than they were under a Bush Presidency... probably a Bush supporter wouldn't even argue that because the idea of a sustainable planet may seem like a stupid idea to a Bush Supporter from all i can gather from what has been said.

On Monday we will find out what direction Canada will go... now it's a bit of a different story because there are three parties with a shot at the title, and a newly introduced election law called "the fair elections act" which would pit a wry grin on the face of the late great George Orwell... almost as good as the "responsible resource development initiative" which basically said just let international corporations gut the country and to hell with what happens because we stomped out all of the environmental protection laws and anybody who protests well fuck you you are now a terrorist and we have an new law for you... am i going off again?

So yes i voted... will i win, probably not although the particular member of Parliament i voted for probably will win.

I did vote against Vancouver B.C holding the Olympics, mainly because i didn't trust a blank check given to development and i also was offended at the idea that offering better transit to a city was on the condition of holding a 2 week party.  But in the end i had a good time during the Olympics and to the city's credit a fair bit of good did come out of it... clearly the affordable housing bait and switch was irritating, but i expected as much.

The thing i don't understand about elections is the run up to the elections... the political campaigning... it's asinine.  You see i pay attention to things, and i know where i stand... i know what political values are closest to mine (they never go far enough for me by the way).  Nothing anybody could have said  over the period of the campaign while they were on their best behaviour could sway me to the direction that i want my country to go in... I have worked as a civil servant, and artist and a stay home parent, and i have never lived paycheck to paycheck.  My time, the quality of the earths environment and the general human respect we have for one another are the things i care about the most.  No load of crap somebody can read from a prepared paper in a campaign could ever make me forget the issues somebody stood up for when the cards were on the table.

And what the fuck is a swing voter?  Some idiot that has no no fucking idea what is going on but at the 11th hour somebody says something that resonates with them so they go out and cast a vote for some idiot that really have no idea what they stand for and call it good?  Are you fucking kidding me... elections are decided by these morons?  I mean i would love to hear a really good rational argument on why i should vote for the person I'm not going to vote for... if it is a real argument and it makes real sense i will consider it... but "protect our economy" by an imbecile who has destroyed our economy is not one.

I'm all for putting your platform out on paper, people read the fucking thing and vote and if you don't carry out what you said you would you get publicly stoned to death.  Seems fair to me... anybody caught lobbying gets a free lobotomy as well under my plan.  At heart i don't think many people would disagree with that... but it might be considered a barbaric cultural practice.

 

It's not politics, it's sanity i strive for

Sometimes people say to me "Oh you are into politics"... the truth is i am into irony, as well as being fascinated by how fucking stupid human populations can be.   I should come clean here... i believe as humans living on this closed system that is Earth... well, we missed it.  I realize this is a depressing thought for some... like my wife for example who likes to think of herself as an "eternal optimist", and yes she is, and that's great... but i see it differently.  I'm just a fact kind of guy, not a positive or negative thing, it just is what it is.  So i believe the tipping point has been reached (a while back) and we are doomed... for some reason i am still able to get up and have good days and look forward to more good days.  It's a weird skill, and one i am thankful for... i even have kids... i hope for them, but you know we still have that massive patch of plastic garbage in the middle of the fucking Pacific Ocean and there is very little political will to ban plastic, or the climate is changing and our leaders are arguing over whether that is true or not, and that we can't possible hurt the economy by addressing that.

The way i see it;  the economy is bullshit, and the environment is the economy... i laugh as i realize this statement might make sure i never get elected should i ever make the mistake of running for public office.  Now if you can't grow an apple because you have no fucking water because you used all the water to extract petroleum products, or you dammed all of the rivers, or you cut down all of the forests disturbing the hydrologic cycle... well then you can't sell an apple.  If you can't make food because you killed all of the pollinators with insane management policies, then you can't sell food.  So you can't make money AND you can't feed yourself.

I believe it was a Cree Indian Prophecy

Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

That sums it up, but perhaps those with enough money and power will be able to survive longer, so our economic model might work still.  Clearly there might be a chance for the rural farming hermit provided he could avoid the state safety officer's visits to relieve him of his produce.

So the irony of course is these insipid political debates we have to suffer through, and these long vapid campaigns that focus on this "economy" where candidates  pledge "tax breaks" to stimulate growth and such.  Now quick question... have you ever tried to claim a "tax break"?  The forms make no fucking sense and then you have to hire an accountant and thus loose the money you made in the tax break.  Obviously the Government tax agencies can help... you just have to call them, wait on hold for a fucking hour and then get some suspect advise that has been proven to be wrong more than 50% of the time.  What's the problem here?

Now in Canada right now there is a thing called the Leap Manifesto which pretty much seems like the thing to do, however there is politics.  It was probably 8 years ago that Liberal leader Stephan Dion ran on a platform of altering Canada's economy to one with a Green future, and by investing in green jobs (8 years ago), Canada might be at the lead in the future when the green revolution hits... like right about now.  Now he was beaten like a mule at the polls as the Conservatives ran adds calling it the "green shaft" that would hurt Canada's economy, and was portrayed in attack ads as a weak leader.  Even my own parents, who in reality would support such an idea, had they been in their right minds, were swayed by the commercials and avoided supporting this "weak leader".   And here we are now. Will the Leap Manifesto help the most insane political party by adding to the fear of change with respect to the economy dialogue?  Hey we can't change something that is clearly not working, and perhaps if we reiterate how something that is not working is actually working enough times people might actually believe it.  Obviously it helps if you can limit real information that is gathered on how a society is doing and replace it with your own ideas no matter how baseless they may be.

Now this is the intrigue of politics fore me, how one can push off nonsense for fact and fact for nonsense to suit ones political needs.  Remember political parties are machines to be elected... it has nothing to do with good governance, it's about gaining power.  Obviously some are better than others, like the lesser of evils perhaps and the only victory is seeing some fucker go down, and on to some high corporate appointment.

My personal political affiliation was the Work less Party, but they fizzled out... apparently nobody is interested in a zero growth economy and more free time to spend with family and living life.  We prefer a negative growth economy where people work their life away, as long as it is called in the ads and the debates as a growth economy.

So for the comedy?  I mean it's not really funny, irony is a bitter pill best served cold... the talking points have grown stale and the result is old,  but people cling to the life they know... "How do i do better or stay the same for me?" Maybe i should vote for X because i might come out a few hundred dollars ahead... that's how we think.  Which of course is irrelevant if your government tanks the countries currency by 25% by making horrible decisions that nobody could have ever have predicted... except those that predicted it and were written off a lunatics.

The problem is that the lunatic never gets their day in the spotlight.... the person who said "this is an insane idea" never gets redeemed.   Even as somebody who believes we are doomed, there would be a certain satisfaction if we could at least consider addressing the problems we face... then perhaps i might change my mind and believe in the impossible... that we could collectively change the course of our destiny.  But of course reforesting the planet isn't even on the agenda when we need to deal with important things like Wars, clamping down on immigration, trade agreements, surveillance,  chemical pesticide development... you know smart stuff.

If you want to really ramp up the insanity check out the American Republican debates... #unfuckingbelievable

Sufjan Stevens Carrie & Lowell tour

Clearly I have been down on music for some time after a long period of locking antlers with the "what and why" with respect to my relationship with my music.  In fact I haven't made much effort to seek and see music in this period.

Well a few months ago my neighbour came down and asked me if i wanted to go see Sufjan Stevens, and being a big fan of the album Illinois and Michigan i sad yes and we bought some tickets and i kind of forgot about it.

Now a couple of days ago i was reminded of the show and checked out the new album "Carrie & Lowell".  I was actually painting that day and i hit the album about 4x in a row.  By about the third listen i was hooked,  you know that thing when you know you have a new favourite album, and you are going to get the chance to fall in love with it.   It's moments like this is why we seek music... that high one gets becoming obsessed with a spectacular piece of art.  I was warned that it is a "bummer"... but so is "Blue" by Joni Mitchell... i rest my case.  I make this comparison not casually... but I'll put it there.  Was i crying listening to it?... Yep, but it was a good cry, a beautiful cry, much like that time i was driving to the ferry on New Years eve listening to "river".

So i was primed for the show... the new album like a strong burning fire in my soul, and he played the whole thing.  He didn't just play it, he killed it... probably one of the best shows i have ever witnessed.  Clearly this show had special significance being that it was in Oregon, and that wasn't lost for a moment on the nearly three thousand absolutely enthralled audience members.  Spectacular Oregon images broadcast on church window like screen panels and a minimal yet very effective light show.  Five were on stage, but many times only Sufjan was playing ( basically any instrument and singing), and the others altered instruments and came in expertly when it was time for optimal effect.  It was one of those shows that will go down for the ages, i have no doubt about that. It's not something that is easy to describe because sometimes words fall short or define too singularly.

If i had to I'd say... it was a heavy "love in" that demonstrated in no uncertain terms the power of music, and the possibilities within.

So i played some music today and for a while rediscovered the soul that drives the engine... And what's a bummer about that?

Open stage

So i played open stage tonight... it was a good reminder to never do that again... will i heed my advice? Time is the hunter and it will show the truth.  Perhaps i met a person that i might play music with... time will tell.

What did i learn from this open stage? The Cavilers can't score in overtime, and the catcher from the Tampa Rays wears a hockey goalie mask.  Everything else i had already learned but needed to remind myself.  Nobody gives a shit about about any artistic creation you may have made... and in the end it's all just memories.... right Mule. 

It's unfortunate that music making has been turned into this 15 minutes of time to sell beers.  But that is the game, if you don't like it leave it, like i did years ago.  I needed to go back like salmon who spawns.  It's more like a  biological imperative... you have songs and you think you want to play them but in the end you are just a disturbance to the chaos that is happening in the bar.  Whatever, I am more of a scientist checking out the moment rather than a songwriter trying to create a big break.

One thing i know for sure is that it is the storybook parade tomorrow for the elementary school.  A chance to cheer the kids on in their costumes and everything will be OK.   If the storybook parade was an open stage then nobody would go home with a sense of importance because nobody gives a darn about anything that they they are doing... it's the beauty of elementary school... you get cheered on for having cat whiskers and walking down a road.

This is good don't get me wrong, i can get behind cat whiskers, as long as they are not in my garden taking s shit. 

I'm not a "this animal is cute" kind if guy... if the animal is a pain in the ass i hate it...  it's a big picture kind of thing.

Obviously not everybody see's it this way, as i have seen from being on social media, but i can live with that. 

There is a book out now called "your band sucks" by john fine... Smash sent me the link and Mule will soon review it... i haven't read it but it sounds like a book i am trying to write although i would shy away from the negative.   My attack is more on the idea of the struggle of being in a band rather than attack the idea of somebodies band sucking.  There is lot's of fodder there and as somebody who is less inclined to attack the notion of a band sucking but rather question the parameters of what a band is expected to do, I'll stick to my guns.

Imagine the idea of me hanging in a bar for 3 hours to play for 15 minutes to a crowd that has no interest in listening... and i did it to myself.

Leafs report 2014-2015 season... for JK

Fiasco

that's it.

It would probably be best to just stop there, for comedy and simplicity sake... a wise man once told me good writing is the most condensed version... i believe we were talking about poetry, and of course i had that saying once, that was kind of harsh and negative... it was "poetry is a jackass sport".  The saying itself came to me while suffering an insipid poetry night, where the contestants were trying to "one up" each other in over descriptive, flowery word monologues drawing pictures i couldn't really see, and when i did see them they made me angry.  Kind of like a pompous competition where everybody in the room is the loser and it just goes on forever... kind of like the Leafs season this year.

After an epic collapse in game 7, and then the following season where the "18 wheeler went off the cliff", there was hope that this season had to be better.  The good news is that the leafs are drafting 4th, and then i think 26th.  The other good news is that all of the scouts have been fired and Mark Hunter, an apparent scouting master is at the helm to rebuild the foundation of the drafting team.

Now there is a new coach, who comes with some excellent credentials: Mike Babcock is a trained sports psychologist and he has won a lot of things in his career.  Indeed he took Team Canada to back to back Olympic gold medals... sure a team loaded in talent, as were the Red Wings when the won the Cup, but we have seen plenty of talent loaded teams underachieve and not play like a team.

In Toronto you probably need a sports psychologist running the team, because you know if they lose the first game of the season the Toronto media will be calling for heads and replaying and dissecting mistakes made by the players and questioning their commitment to the city, their team and the game in general.

Fragile is the word one would use to describe the Leaf team's confidence over the last few years, and rumors are that players don't want to come to Toronto to play.  There is a saying in sports... there is always lots of room on the bandwagon... of course that's when things are going good.  I would say that there is always lots of room under the bus in Toronto when things are going bad.  They have this saying "he threw that player under the bus"...  If a someone were to say "well a bad effort from this player cost them the game"... that would be throwing that player under the bus.  In Toronto everybody is driving buses and there is like a big funnel in front of all of the buses trying to scoop up as many players to get under the bus.  Angry arrogant experts, many with "little man syndrome" selling copy or airtime with their views on what's wrong and who is to blame and constantly speculating on who needs to go, and who needs to come to save the day.  It's a whole other disease in itself, Toronto Maple Leaf-itus .  So of course i was pleased to hear Coach Babcock say that he was going to work to make it "safe" to play here, which is a tall task, but it speaks of a real culture shift with respect to a rebuild.  It appears also that the people running the show will be here to stay for the long haul, and they seem to be on the same page, and i would imagine they will bring in the people they want and have a real shot to build something.


The turnaround with respect to Leaf GM's, Coaches, Presidents... you name it has been far to rapid over the last  decade.  You can't build something and grow it if you keep replacing parts, mind you the parts they had didn't seem to be making things better.  Perhaps knowing that the guillotine is set to come down on your head made people make foolish decisions to "speed the rebuild".  We could list examples, but there is no point salting the wounds.

JK has been a solid addition to Leaf's Nation, even though Leaf's nation doesn't know about JK.  It's coming up on half a decade that JK has been coming up with opposition team metaphor heckles, and this year when heckles weren't working JK thought perhaps it was the heckles that were not working and changed to haiku's to see if that could work.  Given the considerable effort JK has made to the OMEN power one has to give JK some serious credit.  I never mentioned the heckles or the haiku's over the past few years because i thought it might be bad luck... but perhaps that was the problem in the first place.

JK could be the greatest unsung Californian Leafs fan... read em and weep.

Way to San Jose? 
Take 880, through that traffic. 
Really not worth it.

Kick them in the crown jewels. Burn their castles down. Revolt. Just some ideas.

Stuffed hawk for dinner, should be the plan Leafs. Poultry Tradition, X-MAS

Down the Flyers. Not The planes I'm on today please. The hockey team, Leafs. 

In Dallas, the leaves are still green. Thrive, Leafs in the warm sun of north Texas.

now for a JFK haiku:

Ask not what you team can do for you but what you can do for your team 

 

The Manifesto

Social media  has been around for some time and everybody has their own proverbial hornet's nest they step into every now and then... or all the time in many cases.  I kind of find that i am less likely to write things and put them on the Internet as a result of my relationship with social media.  I  ask myself... Why is this?  I'm not going to change social media, but i feel for my own reasons that i should spend more time at a computer working on conveying ideas than glossing tidbits of semi information.

When i first got a computer i refused to go on the Internet because i had things to do... i was trying to edit some Roadbed videos and didn't want to be taken off task.  I go to the Internet now as a kind of habit and I'm not convinced that it is a good thing to do.  You know the problem with community? It just takes one idiot to ruin everything and there is always at least seven.  This is a very good example of an insanely negative statement written by myself.  It was a joke.. but what does that mean?

let's take a dip into the paranoid pool by completely making up a scenario:

If i share [digital media] of my [insert something], it could be misunderstood,  this misunderstanding  might start some bizarre events, and then you change your perspective...  you check yourself, you are maintaining an image like it or not.  You run into people in real life that you also deal with in social media, which allows for a new layer of unwelcome introspection.   Next thing you know you are writing and  every sentence you write you start worrying about what something might trigger, who will think what. This is not a good perspective to write from... no it is not.

It's nice to know about things, sometimes, but knowing too much can be a harsher poison.  I found that with music... the more i was aware of what people were thinking, the less i believed in what i was thinking.  I promoted it so therefore i needed to hear people justify it for me so i could simmer that down into a one sheet that moved and conveyed my mission statement.  But hey who's keeping track... besides me of course... and therein lies the problem.

just making points... nothing to see here... forget everything and go back into your rhythm

I was going to add some weird ad lib poetry on the end of this manifesto but when the dice got rolled the subject that came up was the perspective of a clay garden gnome... and that didn't have a lot of game in my head... probably shouldn't have even mentioned it... am i apologizing?  I'm like 5 lines out of the manifesto and I'm already cowering like a ninny...

This might require therapy.

How to be happy, by a happy guy

Make good choices of course would be one of the key ingredients to happiness.  For example i was about to write this blog about some crazy stuff that went down at the school last week, but then i came to my senses and realized that i would just be offending a large group of people that take themselves too seriously and are hyper-prone to losing their shit over the things i would end up writing.  Why do that?  Sure points could be made, but in some cases wounds are better left alone to heal rather than to poke at and ridicule.

So by choosing to write about ways to be happy i have almost guaranteed a better fate for myself and my person while interacting among an important community i am part of... right.

Choosing positive thoughts surly must beget happiness more frequently than mocking emotional mistakes made by others would, even if the sentence is odd.  Which brings us nicely into another key to happiness.

It's OK to laugh at yourself, you are allowed to make mistakes and be foolish, and it's even better if you can see the error of your ways.  You can't change what you are not aware of so witnessing your folly is half the battle, and forgiving yourself will repair most of the damage, and if you can laugh at yourself then you might just turn it into a net positive. I know i know, i sound like some new age jackass, but don't worry nobody reads blogs anymore... i read that in a tweet.  Blogs are too wordy, we need to be on to our next packet of semi-information in under 10 seconds now... it's the new way.

I'll defend the blog format, for me right now i am not looking at the Internet searching mindlessly for something that i might find interesting... I'm in my head trying to articulate and understand what things i can do to be happy... some kind of interactive meditation practice.  It's kind of leading us into another point that i didn't know i was about to make until just now when i saw it clearly... as obvious as a black hockey puck on a clean white sheet of ice.  Why do you do things?  If i was worried about who was going to read this, or even worse "will this reach a growing target audience", i would be in a completely different head space... the word "stress" comes to mind.  Actually writing the words "growing target audience" took a bit of wind out of the sails, but then i remembered the context.

Doing things for the right reasons is a real big one...  it kind of falls under the opening category of making good choices.  Money is one of the bigger trip wires out there, because of course we all need money for sure.  I'd like to try a world where it didn't work that way,  and if everybody wants to give it a shot I'll give it my best 110%.   Now we have moved on to reality... a good thing to be aware of for sure.  Understanding reality has to be on a list of things to do to be happy... just don't take it too seriously, be willing to shift your reality, or perhaps corporate speak might coin a term "flexible reality"... almost tempted to Google that but that could send me on a wild goose chase that will have me watching legends of hockey on YouTube in 4 hours after another 15 beers... right. 

 On that note reality can be different depending on where you live so the "flexible reality" idea does have merit.   I live in Portland Oregon in one of those "keep it weird" neighbourhoods... of course I'm from Canada where we put a "u" in that word, but lets say i lived in Texas or Moscow or Palestine or Kingston Jamaica... well my reality would be very different. When possible i would suggest living in a place that you really like.  Often times people end up living in a place they don't enjoy and it's because of a job, or they are afraid to move, or they can't move, or they have some obligation.   Some people live in the suburbs of Cities because they can afford a bigger house and then they spend their life in a traffic jam...  their reality is constant commuting, which is a price i could never pay for a bigger house.

When i was 22 i taught Chemistry and Physics in a high school in downtown Toronto for the summer session (summer school) and i lived in my parents house in the suburbs (Scarborough).  Twice in one week the highway (401) was completely blocked because a tractor trailer overturned... luckily the last time the car behind me had a football so we ran some plays for a few hours.  But i remember that day very clearly where i said to myself I will never commute through a city in a car ever again... and i never have.  I commuted by bike from downtown Vancouver to Richmond for a number of years but on a bike one can always beat a traffic jam.  I don't commute, and i never will because i fucking HATE it... I'd almost rather hire a group of squirrels to leaf blow my yard than commute to a job as a matter of principle.  So in my life the option of commuting is off the table... i won't do it, so i look for another solution.  Now some people don't mind commuting, and that's good for them... their car is their happy place, with the music they love pumping away, and their little environment just the way they like it.  They have a different reality than myself and that's all good, if they are happy I am happy for them.

Hey there is another point... be happy for people.  It's amazing how infectious happiness can be... you could choose to be jealous of somebody who is set to fly off to Hawaii in January because you are stuck in winter, but then you are just jealous and that is kind of a  negative emotion, an emotion where you feel sorry for yourself.  How does feeling sorry for yourself help?  Feel happy for that person and you will find that you just accidentally tapped into happiness, open yourself up to other peoples joy... there is nothing wrong with vicarious living if the dream is good... hot damn that's a good tweet!  OK so i just tweeted that, but i didn't read any tweets and i got right back off the Internet to avoid distraction, cause this exercise is fun right... remember I'm talking to myself so no need to answer.

Sympathy... there is a time and a place for sympathy, but i think it's one of those things that kind of gets out of hand.  There is a whole type of person who is constantly trying to garner sympathy... most of the unhappy people i know are constantly playing an angle where people should feel sorry for them because something happened to them.  Never do i want somebody to feel bad for me because things went wrong.  I kind of come from a family of people who are often lobbying for sympathy... it kind of drives me crazy.  In truth i think it is rooted in the idea that somebody wants to be recognized for the amount of effort they feel that had to make, but like i said before if you are doing something with the idea of what people will think of you, then you are on the wrong track to happiness.  The sympathy seeker will always inject something that they had to do that they didn't want to do that has put them in the particular mood that they are in in the moment.  What kind of bullshit is that to lay on somebody... now you want me to feel bad for you? If i fill my being with sorrow you will feel better? Is that the deal? So if we are both unhappy then the field has been leveled?  Don't get me wrong... if somebody has suffered a tragic loss, i do want to help to try and absorb some of the pain, and i will gladly be honored to be chosen as a person who could provide that in a case where needed.  But i can't feel sorry for a person who is late because the got caught in a traffic jam coming back from a job they hate.   It's wasted sorrow... right!  My grieving can't solve the problem, because the problem is guaranteed to happen again based on the simple law of averages.   I might be willing to help lead an intervention to help identify the source of this unhappiness, but there needs to be a willingness on the sympathy seeker's behalf to work outside their known "box".  So lets put "Rejecting the need for sympathy" on the list of How to be Happy...  get out of that pattern.

How about this one... Be critical.  It doesn't have to embody the complete negative that is often associated with the word.  Critically analyze  things you are involved in with the mindset on how to make them better.  Often we avoid critical thinking because we don't want to be critical... did i just smell another tweet? Where was I?  Being sucked into the world of chaos against my stated better judgement due to lazy habits.


I got another one... Avoid Morons.  Avoiding irritating people is a huge boon to happiness... it's massive.  The curmudgeon may actually be a perfectly sane and happy person who just lost the will to suffer the tragedy of the human condition... did you ever think that?... i know i didn't before a few minutes ago when i thought it.  I might be towing an empty boat on that one... it's a trap of course... because the curmudgeon lost the way to deal with his reality and failed to change it... right.   I got a few more tweets out of this paragraph.   Is tweet blogging a thing? I feel like I'm on to something, but I've felt that before only to be stopped like a bad check (see my music "career").  Remember laughing at yourself is one of the keys.  Key...

A key will get you in
It's key what you give
Through a need to please
Honesty is the seed

Live life with the heart of a lover
Walk tall and you shall hover

Those are song lyrics i wrote... it's all the words of the song and it repeats 2x, the song is called "the key of 5" and it's on the 21 tandem repeats CD "No Junk Mail Please",  an album that got savagely thrashed in the Canadian Music press in around 2008.   It's good to release an album and take a beating in the press, it helps you develop a thick skin and challenges your resolve to do what you think is right for your reality, over what people might think of you.   I wouldn't consider myself a famous person, unless i was writing a song challenging the idea of fame, but i have been written about in the press a fair number of times... i have had scintillating reviews and i have been shish kabobed.   Neither praise nor flogging should affect one's will to pursue the path that they are on.

When i look back on one of the more negative reviews of that particular CD i recall something along the lines of "it would be nice if they pretended to care about enjoying playing music".   Now at that time it's true we were focused on playing slower tempos... and i believe it was a reaction to others playing faster and faster to really "rock it".  It takes a lot of focus to not to speed up when playing music... i needed to understand that dynamic.   It's punk attitude going slow and soft in a town of loud and fast, which is ironic at best and shitty at worst.  In the end i learned to play restrained in a scene where people had to play loud and fast to compete with the audience talking.  If you are fast and loud you don't hear the audience talking, so it's an easy sell... but then you are part of the system... the one you are tying to break.  Breaking things is great too... breaking rules is highly liberating, if it's a stupid rule all the better... stupid rules should be broken... it erodes their authority. But don't get that confused with fucking up people's shit, a rebel and an ass hole are different beings... don't be the latter because it will affect your happiness.

These are some things that might help with general happiness, don't thank me, i spent the last few hours thinking i was doing something i was involved in, and that's what i set out to do.

Superbowl review... for those with attention deficit disorder

So we were on our way back from clam digging in Long Beach Washington, and i had promised John some clams... and since we hit the mother load and they were fresh we decided to drop them off on our way through town as he lives on the way.  I had heard the game started at 3:30pm and it was about that time... it was a pretty safe bet that the game would be on and a bag of clams would buy our way into the party.  Our arrival was timed perfectly as a batch of wings just came out of the oven... I don't watch a lot of football, but when i watch sports i get into the games.

I was rooting for Seattle on the basis of the geography rule and it looked like they were in tough... this New England team was moving the ball with precision but still not really scoring too much.  Seems like the kind of sport where you want to get your points when you can (to state the obvious).

The Seattle attack was based on letting that beast guy run the ball or throw a long bomb and all in all the teams were matched point for point going into halftime.

The halftime show was reasonable for a lip sync effort making use of pretty decent graphics and dancing sharks... not really my bag but reasonably inoffensive and family friendly.   One of my kids asked what lip syncing is and why they did that, and i explained that the artist doesn't have a choice... you have to lip sync at a show like that because they can't afford anything going wrong with respect to dancing timing, audio equipment, or god forbid some artist losing their mind and trying to go on some anti capitalism or anti war rant... imagine that!  All in all good deal for the artist as they get some ace promotion and can sell sell sell!

Speaking of selling, i thought the commercials were to be really good in the Superbowl... I kind of thought for the most part they all really sucked pretty bad... no edge, nothing really funny.  There was that real long bummer one that used "Cat's in the cradle" that must have gone on forever... i think the point was that if you miss you child's childhood because you are a race car driver then it's all OK if you pick him up from high school one day in a particular brand of car.  It's true i don't watch TV so when i do and people talk about these "hyped commercials" i am sure to be left wondering what the hell is going on.

In the 2nd half it looked like Seattle had found it's mojo... they went up by 10 and seemed to be able to slow down New England's offence.  In fact it looked like they were going to get another when the football slipped between a wider receivers hands putting an end to a drive that could have put a choke hold on the game.  New England then smelt blood and poured it on bolting ahead so that in the final 2 minutes Seattle had to score a touchdown or lose.  The QB threw to the beast guy and he made some yards and then the patented Seattle Hail Mary long bomb that looked to be incomplete but then bounced off a knee up in the air and into the arms of the receiver lying on his back.  It was the kind of ridiculous play the the Seahawks won the last game on... i even used the "horseshoes up the ass" analogy... it was now their game to win.  So they have the ball with a few plays to burn and under a minute left in the game... i was saying might be a good idea to give it to the beast guy as he seems pretty capable of running the ball in for a touchdown, but instead they threw a short interception and that was the game... lady luck left the building one play to early.

But then there was a fight... i take it some of the players were feeling a little frustrated.  A note on concussions... smacking the side of a guy's helmet is a better way to give a concussion than punching somebody in the head straight on with a fist... i remember reading that very clearly on time.  You rattle the whole head and more chance of the brain hitting the skull, as with a punch most of the trauma occurs on the bone at the site of contact... i noticed the  hits the the helmet were very effective in this manor, almost exactly as the study i read demonstrated.

The QB for New England won the MVP, and that was probably the right call.

Leaf report for JK... midseason

I take it you are starting to see a pattern when following the Leafs.  Period of high hopes, perhaps some overachieving... followed by some mediocre results and then the proverbial "18 wheeler off a cliff" section that wipes most of the hope for the season off the board.

You get the media all witty and negative and the talk turns to how to "blow up the team".    It's important to note that last time they blew up the team for the sake of blowing up the team they gave away Alex Steen, who seems to be a pretty decent player for the St. Louis Blues... cause they had to blow up the team... right. 

Always a tough spot for the management... pressure to make moves makes one easy prey when the frenzy comes.  Now there are a few players, if the right return were to come back, i would say do it... but you can't trade as a result of pressure.  Some say trade and bomb and get a chance to get one of the top upcoming prospects (which are very good this year), but i never understood this logic.  We are bombing just fine as we are... why risk changing a promising vector.  Simple physics right?

Now you have probably heard about this "jerseygate"... fool fans with more money to waste than brains to access.  First of all can we knock off this "gate" bullshit.  Watergate was a crime who's wake might have altered the course of America for the worse, not some chuckle head throwing a $300 hunk of blue polyester on the ice.  The real thing that i don't see mentioned a lot is that this time some idiot threw the jersey on the ice WHILE THE PLAY WAS GOING ON.  There is a big fucking difference between throwing a sweater (as we call it in Canada, unless you are in TO you call it a jersey for some reason) on the ice while the play is going on.  If you step on that while skating in the play you could get seriously hurt. Why our clever and alert media is not hammering that point is beyond me. 

A sweater is like a flag... it shouldn't touch the ground, so yes it is disrespectful.  But you can throw hats on the ice as part of a tradition if somebody were to score a hat trick... AFTER THE PLAY.   If you are in Detroit in a playoff game an octopus might end up on the ice... and that is a good omen apparently.  Clearly i don't have to sell Omens to you JK... you know what time it is.

Throwing a sweater on the ice is classless they say... people are always telling others that they have no class and it's this big insult.  Humanity has so much class right... use to mean you were perceived to be higher than somebody else and therefore had a greater worth in society and were allowed more social graces... now if you feel you have been wronged you tell your opponent that they lack class.

Lets face it; Humans are a classy civilization... we rape the planet that gives us life and stomp on the necks of those that try to get in the way.  People who's life work is to bring awareness to the dangers of the Planets declining ability to sustain life, are labelled terrorists by classy politicians who run commercials paid for by the people, all while espousing "working family values" in the commercials of HOCKEY GAMES.  Yes Yes, we had to get back to hockey sooner or later... right after the propaganda piece we need a couple of alpha male sportscasters standing in suits against glittering backdrops yelling over each other on the virtues of class and what Leaf player should be run out of town for a bag of pucks.

Sports to me is a "hometown" gig... Dad taught me that one.  When it was time for the Grey Cup, he would cheer for the team that was geographically the closest... unless of course it was a team in Quebec where the byline was that Quebec got more Federal tax money on account that they were threatening to separate which sort of put a burr in the side of the people in my parents generation generating an anti-Quebec sentiment, which was probably a well played hand by those leading the separatist movement.  Anyhoo, my point earlier was that the way they market the NHL now is that everybody in the family is free to cheer for their favourite team and of course they can watch all their games on their own viewing devices... which is kind of odd, because Hockey Night in Canada was what use to bring us together.  But since that swine bastard undermined the CBC cutting the funding so they they couldn't retain the rights (which will further impair them... good political move for sure) we have to put up with this glossy standing version where everybody can follow their favourite team.

I delivered Mail with a guy who grew up in Edmonton but was a  Calgary Flames fan... i asked him "How did that happen?"... he said my Dad was a Flames fan so you follow that... it made total sense to me.  What kind of a family pulls for different teams? Is that Classy? Maybe the NHL gets more money so they push that, but i would like to quote Burning Spear "My roots i never forget, i always remember the road i traveled"... cause that's class baby.