titles can be so akward when you don't know what the post will contain

But none the less follow the procedure my man, the only question left us why?  This exact question was posed to me years ago as Carl Fatman and John "the blueberry butler" left artworks to go see the string cheese incident.  Could have just gone to the show but then Carl and King Dinosaur wouldn't have had that conversation that went to tape, only to be snatched by security later in the evening... i blame a bad back and a dwindling decline in the passion for the job at hand.  My fault, one should never get beaten by security as a matter of principle.. always stay ahead of the game, or don't play it.

Clearly i hadn't fully thought through the "why" portion of the evening... i was in more than most people would have been, but not to the level i come to expect of myself.

I wake up and make the calls on what i do in my life, every failure is on me.  And in the end it's all just memories, many kinds.  Who knows where my path will lead... sometimes i have dreams...

Dreams are a weird thing... sometimes you could call them anchors... you hold so tight to every single one of them you are never open to the possibility of something great that comes along.  My dream is to be happy, and i hit it most of the time... i should note that as a rage hero i can be happy in a rage... you just need to be on the right side of a rage.  You need to ride the rage like a pro surfer and not be knocked over pulled underwater thrust and turned around.   Like playing hockey angry.. some times you play better... if you can find the line.  Funny i just zapped into a sequence in last nights game where i got into it with an opposing defense man... i took a savage jab on the back of the legs and gave one back... my intention was to hurt at the time.   We both got penalties... it's not my style to take penalties like that... i was on the wrong side of a rage.  Should have let him take the penalty and then used my rage to score on the power play.  the only thing i really fee bad about is missing on my shot to injure his leg... he did it again to another teammate late in the game and was ejected from the game.

But back to dreams... dreams are like trees in the forest, you can't hold on to all of them all of the time if you want to live in the forest.  Sometimes you have to pass them a thousand times before you are ready to climb them.  Perhaps dreams give purpose, a mission, or even more dangerous... an identity.

I remember tree planting, and i had a good friend Holgate, who was involved in a few moments that changed my perspective in life.  Anyhoo at the time i told him my dream was to live in a warehouse and play in a rock and roll band with the gear set up by my bed...  Later i had achieved that and actually forgot that i had stated  that earlier in life.  At the time i was stewing with the probelms associated with living in a warehouse that doubled as a common live space and music studio, but i ran into Holgate and he was overjoyed that i was living my dream.. i just forgot that it was my dream.  Fickle we humans are... it is what it is.  Luckily i learned another lesson... have dreams but don't make them all inclusive.  I remember dreaming of having a CD out... it would be a CD i made and it would sit with my collection of commercial CD's... well i think i have 13 out now, and who gives a shit.  In the end it's about the process, making things happen, and thinking you are doing something... feeling good with progress.

Since i moved here i have really being enjoying seeing music played live.  i haven't played live here, I'm involved in no "music scene", and i think that's the trick.  When i go to a show, i'm looking for something good, and i can usually find it... perhaps something lost on me in my old town.  Watching a show with a bunch of other used car salesman waiting for their chance to pitch their product... maybe talk up some people, perhaps during the show... the ironies are heavy.  I wouldn't say that one town is better than the other, but perhaps my mindset in this town is more structured to the life i lead now rather than the life i lead for a long time in the other town that grew like a vine, snaking all over the place.

For sure I'm a bit different,  one of the hallmarks of my existence id that i fail to see eye to eye with the people in the same boat as me.  Think of the failed postal strikes, or the "there is no place to play music in this no fun city" rant... the whiny parents throwing their kids in front of the TV so they can have some "time".... I never fit in.

When i tell postal workers you will get killed if you strike, they get hostile with me... my info comes from being on strike and then being ordered back to work at a worse contract than what was offered in the first place... we end up in arguments and i come off as the corporate lackee when my point is that in this day and age when you go on strike against a company owned by the government who has the power to force you back to work then yes you are fucked... not meaning to be an asshole, just a fact realizer.  It's not a right or wrong thing... it's a game plan thing. There are of course other ways to fight but one would need a coordinated effort, and not just arguments of fair and unfair.  The world ain't fair... fight to win.

When musicians complain about not being able to make money, i think of farmers... they are actually providing something we need and they can't break even.  Don't get me wrong, we need music but there is tonnes of shit out there and you know the person complaing about not bing able to make money has it in their head that they will become a "rock star".  They have rock star camps for kids... ask me that's a horrible idea... don't learn to love music, learn to become a self important demigod as a carbon cutout of what has become promoted as successful.

Put your kids in font of the TV... yea maybe my daughters can learn to become princesses... if only they are beautiful enough then one day a prince will come along and marry them, completing them and they can live happily ever after.

Alien sex fiend has a great song called Smells like shit well, they have a lot of great songs.

i smell the roses now

I fucking hate fireworks

The best time i ever had watching fireworks was up at the cottage on the may 24 weekend... long time ago.  It was at my parents first cottage @ 15 Balsam road, Woodland beach Ontario.  We were all heading to the corner store, Whitfield's pharmacy, for ice cream when we stopped to see a pathetic display of fireworks on some lawn, and some yahoo in a really lame voice kept saying a long protracted "WOW" after each poping display.  My sister and I, being hyper critical people, had a big laugh over how "gay" (that was the word used at the time and it meant, in this instance... weak, feeble and lame) this dude sounded with respect to this event.  I feel weird using that word now, but that's the way it was... hey we were raised in Scarborough and right or wrong that's the way things rolled.

Anyway it was the most fun i ever had with fireworks... making fun of some feeble chump's celebration.  Actually come to think of it there was other fun with fireworks...  Going down to the park where the kids made out in cars with roman candles on the end of hockey sticks and firebombing steamy parked automobiles.  As each flare hit the windshield a shocked couple scrambled and perhaps if you were lucky you could see a girls naked breasts.  It was the closest i could ever get to seeing naked breasts, and being a fan of surprise chaos... it hit the spot.

Then there was the firebombing of a good friends house that begat this song. And than i guess there was the time there was that scavenger  hunt in high school where i somehow accidentally let off a bakers dozen roman candle in Vern's parents car.  It was a rather innocent event to start with... you see we were going down the 401 and i needed to try to get the rival car away from the exit they needed to take to win the scavenger hunt so i thought a little firebombing might prune them back a bit... but old butterfingers me dropped the silly thing and next thing you know hot embers were flying all over the place.

I don't know if they were good memories, but they were strong ones for sure and if i could touch a button and erase fireworks from the conscience of humanity i would hit it in a second... even if it cost me a song.

Loud, annoying, polluting, stupid, non participatory, expensive and bone head drawing.  Apparently it drives dogs insane... if it does the same for squirrels i guess i can call that a positive, but it's can't be good for birds at night in their state of torpor.

Swimming in English bay in Vancouver after a million dollar fireworks celebration one is swamped with discarded firework garbage, and living in a human society where we are always crying poor when it comes to having money for the right things, it just seems insane to blow up all this money on some momentary culturally created celebration of noise and light. I guess i could say it brings people together, like religion, to a common focus, but really is it that exciting? Give me some good music and a buffet, and perhaps a water cannon and see the smiles on the faces of the people.

In a country where we can't even afford to send our children, the future of out nation, to full day kindergarden, we find the money to explode things all night long, a great cost, shipped from a communist nation overseas, to celebrate independence?

Dad

There is a song that never got finished, back in the old Knockin' Dog days, It started "sooner or later we all turn into our fathers", maybe it just needed to be an instrumental piece with that as a title, or maybe one day down the road it will roll, who knows, hopefully it rocks.

I guess it's in our nature to emulate the people who raised us; I know I think I had the best father ever. I think everybody should think that about his or her father, it means they loved you and it came through.  I'm glad I can't understand any other way, and I hope when my time comes my children think the same for me.

I guess that's why we have to become our fathers... perhaps the paranoia gets translated in other ways, or the systems applied on other grids, but the root values manage to find a way through.

Dad was my gardening guru... somewhere there is a photograph of me knee high to a grasshopper standing in the garden with dad working a rake.  He was what I might call a "method" or "production" gardener... if he produced 87 squash he might gleefully announce "Darn right, you go to the store and start pricing squash you will see".  At the time I was more horrified at the concept that we had enough squash to eat every night until next years harvest.  Did I mention putting butter, brown sugar or salt on squash was a non starter?  The experts claimed butter was bad for the heart, sugar would bring on diabetes, and salt would raise your blood pressure and stress your kidneys?  Dad would always be very liberal in pointing that out, every night, as a matter of routine, and he is correct... plain baked squash is better for your body than squash soaked in flavour enhancers.  It wasn't until much later in life that I realized that most families didn't have an overzealous health conscious roll model to analyze every decision with regard to what is better for your long-term health.  Truth be told, I don't always take the correct path when given the choice but having this encyclopedia of food health knowledge as part of my being, I at least know what I'm doing right or wrong.

I was pushing for a peach tree, but at that time Toronto didn't have the climate for peaches, and the two old apple trees didn't really produce eating apples but were more wasp attractants, I'm sure those facts had dad waffling over whether or not to get another fruit tree. He liked cherry trees but was worried about fighting birds for the cherries.  I get it now... now that I have become him...  he was so focused on all of these other factors he went and bought a Damson plum rather than the Italian prune plum tree his heart desired.  I don't really know what happened that day at the nursery... maybe they were out of Italian prune plum's but he was all geared up to plant a plum tree... he had a head of steam... this was going to happen.  So he bought the Damson tree and we went home and put it in the ground. Next thing you know we stood around it all proud... a fine family moment of positive unity.  It was good… perhaps it was too good!  This is how it works... you feel great, you have something great, then the paranoia kicks in. whoa this is so good somebody might want it... want it so bad they might steal it... and then he notices we are all standing around glowing at this tree, so he says under his breath "we should stop staring at it, we are going to draw attention to it, and I don't want somebody back here stealing plums".  For the next decade the bloody tree barely produced an eating plum until finally dad "cut the damn thing down", cursing the fact that he didn't put in an Italian prune plum tree.  He gave up fruit farming after that, claiming it wasn't worth the effort... if you are stressing it, then no it's not worth the effort, well played.

Nothing was better than getting dad laughing:

I remember those as two of his favourite cartoons, there were others, the Herman series really hit home with dad, he really liked the expressions on the characters in light of the situations.  Sometimes I would pull out a Herman book and ask dad if he wanted to read it with me rather than study. He was a strict authoritarian always study hard school teacher but once you got dad going it was all gasping, tears and repeating punch lines...  Soon the glasses would come off and the tears would need to be wiped, sometimes we would even need to take a break, so dad could rest up for the next round.  Laughter is the best medicine, readers digest says, it's always worked for me. 

I think one of the greatest attributes of my father was that he did what he did because he thought it was right... it wasn't because other people were doing it or it was cool it was because he thought it was right.  The 60's movement missed dad, I think it did anyway... he was doing his thing and it wasn't at Woodstock if you know what I mean.

Dad was composting in the 60's, his focus being "free organic soil".  My whole life it was unconscionable to put table scraps into the garbage... that was free fertilizer, and there were systems to deal with any garden pest that wanted to try and get some.  The system, for the record, was cinder blocks on an old wire gate with the compost just dug in a hole in the ground... in the end it would be a mound... a squash mound... a very productive squash mound.

Dad was ruing bird habitat loss in the 70's, he liked bird watching, he liked science and nature, and he liked to be out in it walking, breathing fresh air, and observing what was there.  He actually kept bee's up the street when it was just a field, but as the highway 401 expended he felt his bees were getting slaughtered crossing the highway, and it was at that time people were against bees, because they stung... only 4 decades later are progressive cities now trying to encourage beekeeping for obvious reasons. 

In the 80's he became a master of selective hearing... probably a child rearing issue.  My sister and I were in high school in the 80's. You could ask him a question at point blank range and get nothing, but yet if you were whispering upstairs his hawk ear would pick it off and dismantle the effort.  Clearly if you were whispering it was important... I see that now, when it grows quiet you know you might have problems.

In the 90's he was retired and thus started a new era of the laid back dad... he never missed working that's for sure, there was a short time he had a part time job but once he found out that gas company's are swindlers he lost his appetite for work altogether, which is good.  He always lived within his means, perhaps a few notches under for safe keeping... who needs more things and more money when you are actually happy?

We had lots of good times visiting a couple of times per year, as I had moved out west around 93.  I mentioned Dad missed Woodstock but he did catch Knockin' Dog at Localpolluza at the Samoo pub, Roadbed at the Railway club and the Cottage Bistro, and he even made it to a couple of Super Robertson Supper Shows... just saying he had some indie credibility.

Now my father is gone, but he lives in me, the good he had, I have taken and tried to make my own.  Always the same, just be that guy and people will learn how to deal with you.  Be interesting, and be interested in what others are doing, after all they might be on to something.  Learning how to do things better is better than doing things the same.  Get out and walk, probably the best habit I inherited from dad, exercise and a chance to think and mumble to oneself.  Eat well, love nature, grow food, laugh, be honest, care, respect and enjoy your life while you can.

Dad, you did that for me, thanks

Bruce Gordon Robertson 1933-2012

Open letter to Adele

Greetings Adele,

Now i imagine that a person in your position probably has every jackass and his brother trying to pitch songs to you by the truckload.  I think the words "no unsolicited material accepted" make a good point. And of course you seem to be coming up with some pretty good material so "why fix what isn't broken"?

Well songs are songs, and i have this song called "Never wanted to be anyone".  I started writing it years ago when i got into music and we were all sitting around and the discussion was "Who do you want to be?", as in "Do you want to be the next Keith Richards, or the next Robert Plant...?".  My answer was that i wanted to be the first me, i didn't want to spend my life trying to fit into somebodies image of what i should be.

It appears that you are doing that, under what i can only imagine, would be incredible pressure... Well done!  From my vantage point you are the best singer going and would surly kill the song.  In fact driving back from the beach today one of your songs came on the radio and as we were grooving one of my daughters suggested i get you to sing... i mentioned you might be a bit busy, but hey, if you never ask you will never receive... so they say.

So here is the song, if it can't speak for itself then this whole conversation is for nothing.

Never Wanted to Be Anyone

These are the best years of our life
You got to live them while you can
While your a young woman
you got to live good
you got to sing good
you got to feel good

I never wanted to be anyone
Just want to be like myself

These are the strange and significant years
And I'm not shedding tears
You got to get what you can, while you can
you got to live good
you got to sing good
you got to be good

I never wanted to be anyone
Just want to be like myself

My first open letter, let the mocking begin.

sincerely,

Super Robertson

Clarification... and blurring the lines

I was hoping to clarify a few points i had made earlier, but it's hard to find the time when you are so busy having fun... it's a hard life but somebody has to live it.  For the record it is about perspective and not luck, luck is a fork in the road, and the ones who took the wrong turn yell at the others that they are lucky.  In reality i am lucky i wasn't born in some part of the world where some other lunatic decided that my town needed to be bombed for the greater good of mankind.  I don't even mean that as a joke, but more a serious reflection of reality.  The country i was born in has a lot of natural resources, but the governments have always been very free to give unlimited access to international corporations and hence are a friendly nation, thus classified.

my point was more.. well when i started... i was thinking of of trying to work the one armed lunatic who was forcibly removed from the bus the other night in a totally bizarre sequence... no no no, sorry it was about the hockey post.  yes indeed, that was it.

Since i tarred and feathered our team leadership and perhaps made it appear that they deployed me improperly, i think i should mention  this rather excellent turn of events. 

First of all, i didn't mean to sound like the only good player on the team, in fact there are a few.  I think i was just frustrated with the fact that this thing that occurs on hockey teams happened again.  You show up, play with some people, it goes really well, people assess your value and then decide you are valuable... then they start thinking  now "how to deploy you",  you are then taken out of a role you were successful in and put in a new one with more expectation that you can help save the team but with no chance.

I played on this one team years ago, and i was fast so they put me with this other fast guy, but his main play was to take off for a break away pass every time and if you were able to hit him on this low percentage play he was sure to take a slap shot high and wide... for some reason we didn't put up the numbers that were expected, given our collective speed.

But hey, it's a new season, and i have to give our leadership credit where credit is due... we lost 3 slugs and picked up 3 good players and it's nothing but smiles on the bench.  On hockey teams, bad team players tend to linger, but after our first season, changes have been made and the problems are solved.  A clear cut case of a cancerous dressing room... once insanity and negativity take over the game the leadership is making calls from a distorted perspective.

But the right calls were made, however they were made, i don't know... all i know was that it was all smiles on the bench and it didn't matter where or who you were playing with, cause they did what they were suppose to do, and that's what you need when you are dealing with a team.  As they say, there is no I in team.

internetting

Twitter- trending today is #DefineObamaInOneWord which turns into a really ugly mess of stupid people trying to show how stupid they really are.  Why would you define any human in one word?  We are multi dimensional, i mean I'm all for hate, but make it make sense... and I'm pretty sure it was the President before him that flushed the country down the jimi john.

News- Oil spill in Alberta- accidents happen, as long as it's only simple people and clean lakes and rivers decimated it probably won't hurt the companies.  Did you hear there is a solar and clean energy revolution going on? If you were a politician in the pocket of an oil company you might just look like a mighty jackass in a few short years... hell you might even now.  If it was my land that was ruined i think I'd just walk away, cause fighting it is a guaranteed loss.  I remember seeing a Nature of things episode on a decade after the Exxon Valdez spill... it's a brutal watch, and the lesson is Oil Companies don't pay... and those who fight them end up penny less and insane.  They destroy renewable food resources and deny doing so, destroy people, families and a way of life.

Phoenix Coyotes - They had an owner who was in a shithole lease and was going broke losing millions per year... nobody gave a shit.  It wasn't their money.  So the owner tried to pull a fast one on the NHL ans sell the team to a Billionaire REM mogul who wanted to move the team to Hamilton Canada.  The league went ape shit cause nobody tells the boss what to do, and it all collapsed but it came down to the wire and he was offering millions to all kinds of people who were losing money by the truckload.  Fast forward to now... the league has owned the team for a few years losing a paltry 25 million or so per year, and now they found a "potential buyer" who is getting a sweetheart deal on the leasing and management fees, and things are coming down to the wire again with taxpayer watchdog groups threatening to sue and trying to block votes.  If they only could have given the first guy this lease deal.

Facebook- looks like i was tagged in a "groin photo"... it is what it is.

More riots in  Montreal-  When are these people going to get it?  Don't you know Money calls the shots!  Got to like the spirit, at least they don't roll over like the rest of the stiffs in the country.  That European spirit that says "fuck you we are shutting this one down cause it's bullshit".   So people are getting hit with rubber bullets and pepper spray.  You see students have been protesting for 4 months over tuition increases, and this weekend there is a Grand Prix F1 motorcar race that they are not to happy about.  Some thing about city takeover, noise pollution, the glamorization of fossil fuel waste and the exploitation of the sexualization of women.  When they had the Grand Prix in Vancouver years ago before we kicked it out of town, due largely in part because the land was too valuable to exploit to build overpriced condos of questionable construction quality.  I met some of the workers as a mailman... they would wait by the mailbox to see if a cheque came for them and if it didn't then they would go into work to try to pry an advance from their boss because they worked a few days last week... totally serious.  And they still had a job.  Hey guys you reinforced this concrete right... oh yea man... cause it would be really bad if you just slacked off and threw the rebar back in the pile and poured the concrete anyways because doing rebar is a lot of hard work... no fuck no man we did it.  OK.  Weird tangent.

And this one i like:  A little dose of reality for  a routine ceremony for sure, i think it's great.  And in other news a high school physics teacher has been suspended and might lose his job for giving out zeros to students who failed to hand in assignments and missed exams.  Buy the ticket take the ride.  Did i ever mention i taught Physics and Chemistry in high school in Toronto years ago... it was a private school who were ahead of the curve when it came to doctoring marks to keep the studens paying the fees.  I caught a kid cheating in the final, and the kid knew nothing about chemistry so i failed her, and the school just changed the mark i gave her, no discussion no acknologment... just carry on.  I thought it was funny, never let integrity get in the way of good comedy.  And in the end they offered me the job full time because apparently i was the best science teacher they had had in a long time.  I passed on the job, cause i felt i would have just stayed there and stagnated... i had eyes to come out west and play some music and change the world with rock and roll... well that didn't work out either, but we had some King Hell times.  And here we are.

My website - Speaking of me... no really, enough about me  i really want to know... What do you think of me?  Derailing my points here going for the cheap laughs. But seriously my website came in handy today... a clear victory.  I'm not sure any website of mine has ever come in handy before?  They are usually just a massive pain in the ass for me... a grand waffle between what i think i understand people think i should do, and between what i think i want to do given the various insanities i have caged myself in. You see the twins turn five on June 11, so we are having a party tomorrow for them, so i had to bake 2 cakes, and i needed to fine my mothers chocolate fudge cake recipe which was on a recipe card that had suffered some decay... but then i remembered i put the damn recipe in the recipe section of my website and i saved the day for myself.  i even have to say i distilled it down quite nicely, and in the end i aced it... i baked the cakes to perfection... i was so proud of myself.  Getting them out of the pan in one piece is another game in itself... a game i am batting .333 in.  Not a bad average for a pro baseball hitter i might add in an effort to put some positive into the situation.  Classic science experiment... every time you get over one hurdle and you are there celebrating to yourself how well you did that's when you slam into the next hurdle.  Like a video game, learn all the moves in sequence.

Plastic bags.

The city i live in has banned plastic bags... you get a paper bag.  Believe it or not you can put garbage in a paper bag, easily done when the city will collect all of your food waste in the green yard waste bin. Only question is why do we still create garbage? Kind of a no brainer when you think of it... but who thinks now a days.  Thinking is old fashioned... no, sorry, make that "radical".  Old fashioned is when you have some clearly bigoted opinion on some progressive issue, and rather than see the light you call yourself "old fashioned".  Old fashion people believe what they read in a paper owned by some jackass who has other business interests and when questioned on the clear disparity just claim to be "old Fashioned"... kind of like "born again"... hey I'm "born again" and i oppose you for your radical views and anything i did that was totally fucked is now nullified because i am "born again".

My hometown of Toronto just passed this ... a plastic bag ban coming 2013, and the lunatic mayor calls it a disaster and BLAMES "the people"... are these the people you were elected to serve?  There is this other issue, a little one that some "old fashioned" people perhaps don't believe in...  it's a scientific fact, if you believe in science that is... I'm not talking about the science that makes it possible for steel fighter jets to fly and shoot bombs with great accuracy... cause that's undeniable... Go War Go!... I'm talking about the more debatable science that has shown plastic doesn't break down but will rather stay in our living environment causing all kinds of problems for living organisms.  It might be debatable if humans are living organisms... hell why not, just deny it make the fuckers prove it and when they do just say we don't believe it.. we believe in something else.  We believe in the economy, and oil powers the economy, cause we built it that way, and good old plastic bags are a side industry of oil, so it's all good.

Did i mention that apparently banning plastic bags in B.C is not possible?  I have to ask, How can i live in a city that has banned plastic bags and yet hear it is not possible?  It means some fool is making money and will find some "legal" way to stop it.  Now didn't 7 heads of tobacco companies years ago step up in the grand court of life and plead that, as God ad their witness, they didn't know tobacco was addictive.  And it turned out to be all cool...OK they didn't know, which was odd given the companies had spent all that money on how to make it more addictive and how to lure more people int the vice.  Perhaps they became "born again" and in some grand spiritual awaking forgot and were cleared of all of their misdeeds for their former life.

Write and wrong, legal or illegal, shit sandwich or rose... it's just a series of letters strung together.

There is that Great Pacific Garbage patch the size of... well even that is now being debated.. the size of Texas was the common measuring stick for a few years, but as awareness and that blasted Internet (which we need to control for the safety of the citizens) has increased many studies are coming out that are saying "hey it ain't that bad"... wonder who is funding those studies.

Believe it or not... depending on what your pre-conceived beliefs are... the plastic does break down into tiny pieces that will end up in fish and ultimately humans.  So to all the whiners out there in the comment sections of the news stories saying things like "if they ban plastic bags then I will have to buy them!"... which is really an incredibly selfish and short sighted angle to have on this issue...  hey rather than change my sloth habits i will have to do something that will cost me to buy something that has no chance of ever reintegrating into the planet that's environment supports my life.

It's unbelievable but yet a more popular "old fashioned " belief.

Why we have throw away packaging, and plastic waste is a question i'm sure people will one day just shake their head at.  Hopefully in the future they can invent a time machine and come back and groin kick all the fuckers who stood for quick profit over sustainable development... but that ain't gonna happen.

Robertson logic

So i bought some fire hot sauce the other day and I'm hitting my food with it like a badman.  As a result i have been punching the air and drinking lots of water.  The key is in the water... i don't drink enough of it even though i try to tell myself to do more, so i have done what Robertson logic would allow and come up with this masterful plan.  CT was a bit more negative on the whole issue, claiming i am going to change my stomach pH and run into a whole other mess of problems... but i like my chances.

For those just joining the journey, i would like to point out the nature of "Robertson Logic"... take one segment of life and over analyze it... then work up a mighty paranoia with regard to the issue... then take up a secondary habit that will help lead you in a direction to lessen the paranoia of the initial infraction.

One time, Dad, who is and always will remain the most health conscious person i have ever known, was fixing the tub, and so he had the shower door in the hallway one night, and i guess he got up to use the washroom and slammed his toe into the shower door on the way to the can.  My sister happened to be a "candy stripier" (person who volunteers in the hospital to pad a resume for future medical school consideration), and was working the next day... the same day Dad went to the hospital to have his foot X-Rayed that found a hairline fracture in his toe.  But the killer was that Dad was smoking in the waiting room (you could do that back then) and when my sister saw him he replied "I'm smoking to calm my nerves".  You see Dad has always been very nervous with regard to health related issues, and pain tolerance was not his strong suit, so in that situation, he managed to talk himself into his greatest bad idea Smoking!  Because apparently it calms peoples nerves... I'm not saying it doesn't... it does all kinds of things, many of them are most excellent, and some of them are totally unacceptable.  When you are an extremest it's hard to ride the middle ground.


Me, I'm a hitting the hot sauce for good or ill.  I like the idea of over doing things, it's funny and comedy is king in a world full of idiot voters who would gladly vote for their own death penalty if somebody on a TV add called it a rose.

When Robertson logic becomes absolute, which it is by it's definition you can accomplish some significant things.  It comes in handy in long term lifestyle grooves.. it's a handy force to have against consumer impulses, passing fads and it's good for saving money. I used Robertson logic to avoid taking taxi's for years and years saving me money and of course earning interest on the money i saved.  I would always walk home... good exercise and a chance to sober up before hitting the bed.

Robertson logic can harm you in other ways... you can miss a lot of experiences in life by staying true to some slight tangent in the grand scheme of things.  Often times you are misunderstood because people see an action and think the action is a reaction rather than a reflex as determined under the laws of "Robertson logic".

Mom had some classic Robertson logic the other day... as per usual there was a theft paranoia where she was sure somebody came into her room and stole a bracelet she had, but then when we went over the scenario we noticed that she was wearing the bracelet when she thought the crime had occurred, but she didn't miss a beat... the only question was...  How did they steal it off her wrist without her knowing?  So fixated on the paranoia that any other solution is irrelevant.

One time dad developed a system for vacuuming rugs.  You vacuum the rug then you flip it over and vacuum the bottom side and the bristles that beat the rug knock a fine dust on the floor so you sweep that up and then you flip the rug, and vacuum it again, and then you flip it again and vacuum the back side, and then... you get more fine dust... now you are getting serious.  Around the 9th flipping you need to remind Dad that he is probably personally breathing in a lot of harmful fine dust, and then one of 2 things will happen.  1) we will spend the rest of the day in dust masks vacuuming the rug or 2) we will stop and go outside... once outside you could easily lobby for a nice long healthy walk.

It's the way we roll.

the economy and a fly

I had this nice little point i was going to make but then by the time i had signed out of one account and into another a pesky fly started zooming around my head space and landed on the computer screen.  Apparently you shouldn't kill other things, so i catch them and put them outside.  When i was a kid i would catch grasshoppers and put them in a spider web and then watch the excitement as a spider raced out on the web and rolled up that "cling" as we called them and then bite the fucker causing one final kick of the hind leg.

My Dad thought that was great, he loves biology and hates garden menace insects, and has the common sense to not use poison on vegetables he wanted to eat.  In fact years ago i offered to make a "railway tie" retaining wall for a mound up at the cottage, and after careful consideration he declined because he didn't want the toxic tar from the railway ties to seep into the well water.

How did we get from online shopping to well water?  Serendipity i believe, because the point is about the local economy.  CT bought some shoes online and they arrived in the mail today, they were a real deal but then she mentioned how she was reading how when you buy things online you are "hurting " the local economy.  Now i get that, and on principle i agree, it's just that i disagree with the word "economy", perhaps disagree is the wrong word.  I just don't think economy really works... the word has kind of been ruined, having been used as a fear tool to motivate sheeple, and then collapsed, only to be propped up again by sheeple, and now we need to worry about it again.

So if i buy my shoes down the street the guy can pay his rent to somebody who lives where and then he can have more shoes shipped in from some where far away...  I have had similar arguments with many "working musicians" or "aspiring artists" just to put the ball back in my court.  They say you need to make and sell CD's to survive, and that people should support the buying of CD's.  I mean if anybody wants to buy some CD's i have plenty of sealed pressed cd's i can cut you a deal on... but really when you get to the point where you are justifying making a piece of plastic is your only avenue for survival then you know for sure that you have hit the zone we like to refer to as "INSANE".  I'm insane, i put out a CD last year... i went without the shrink wrap and printed on a recycled cardboard sleeve, but i still produced a plastic CD that is essentially an undesirable piece of crap to most of the population of the neighbourhood.  Is it better for me to set out a stand in front of the house and try to "sell" my plastic to people, or is it better for me to find a better way to be happy stable and sharing music.

The answer is as obvious as it is clouded.  It is not acceptable to buy into a system that creates unnecessary waste, even if that waste could benefit you in the short term.

when the system brings you down
when the system changes how you feel
its is time to change the system
it is time to bring it down
             -"fuck the system" Sons of Freedom

hockey

Time is the weirdest thing, it's apparently eternal but there is never enough of it for all of us self important humans who think we are overwhelmed and lost but yet don't have the spine to collectively stand up and work together to do something about it... is the word spine or intelligence?

Sorry old sport, i was too busy looking at a manufactured screen for multiple hours today  to be able to make a difference... I should note that i did "like" various social media posts that had to do with saving the environment as my personal effort to change the world.

I just got on a weird mind tangent.  Probably be best not to get into it, but i have never been a fan of "what would be best".  What would be best is how we ended up with a thick stack of shit hole cookie cutter popular music songs, and shitty movies that have part 3 in their title.  Hey this will sell,  those fucking idiots will buy it, get it out there.  It was a Hockey thing actually, as are many things in my life... you see our team was defeated in the semi finals the other night by a score of 3-1... i happen to be the leading scorer on the team by a fair margin, and for this game, our fearless, or avant-garde thinking leader decided to put me on defense, much to the horror of my former line mates and the team in general. The problem with hockey teams is that somebody puts them together and then, for some reason, they become the voice of the team, no matter how insane that voice is.  They told me i played very well on defense, i made a few good plays breaking up  some stuff and chasing down a few breakaways, but apparently they needed more offense from me.  Looking at the stats, when i play right wing/center with my 2 regular line mates we are good for about 4-5 points per night... oddly enough i was paired with my regular left winger on defense, and then the wingers were never on the boards for the breakout.  Strange stuff for sure... everybody on the bench whispering to me "why are you on defense?".

Why was i on defense?  cause we have a couple of floaters and a guy who wants lots of ice time, well a number of them actually, but one of the main guys was playing defense and he didn't want to put a floater on defense to rob him of his ice time so he put the hustlers on defense opting to go with 5 defense and 2 complete forward lines.  Have you ever been in a situation where somebody has made some insane call and you just try to make it work against all odds.  That was us in the semi finals, somebody thinking outside the box but stuck in a triangle.

Pretty much anybody i have ever played hockey with would state emphatically that I should play forward.  It's true, I'm getting older and slower and in these coming years i should be evolving my game to transition to that position, and in all honesty i worked hard trying to think the game in that way.  I did play defense for a few years on the pylons back in Vancouver, but that was a division 10 team and i got the roll because i was one of the few that could actually fluently skate backwards.

I hate losing, bottom line, and i hate insanity.. the combo ain't good.

Hopefully the team reacts to the speech i will give at the start of the summer season.  You see it's odd being in my situation... I am the main offense of the team, so they are very keen to have me stay on the team, but yet they are insane giving into singular selfish desires.  Hockey is a strange gamet, nothing better than winning and coming together as a team, but yet everybody wants to play center and score, even if they couldn't win a face off to save their lives.  In hockey there are systems... but a system is useless if everybody isn't doing their part... hockey is a reactionary sport.  Meaning a unique situation just occurred, what do i do? and i have a second to make that decision... some get it better than others.  My basic mentality on that is that you need you wingers on the hash marks for the breakout and if you can't do that then good fucking luck.

Is this insane?  Can't be worse than my "what if all art in the world was destroyed tangent", which had merit, but didn't really apply in the grand scheme of things.

It should also be noted that i had many chances including a late game breakaway in which i managed to Goat up a storm.  I was a braying in the oat field... there were times as a defense man where i was rushing the point... there were times when i was screening the opposition's goalie.  I could have won it, but i failed to do it because my shot failed me... or maybe it was the stick... that cursed stick... with it's omen forever scarred into it's history.

What if all of the art in the world was destroyed?

What if all of the art in the world was destroyed?  Everything lost… gone are the paintings, the music, the sculptures, the films, the photos, the plays the dances… the collections gone.

What would that mean?  I sort of got on this idea on one of my daily, man vs. environment mind numbing sequences. Because of course, without a proper functioning environment it will be increasingly difficult to sustain human life… I realize some people don’t get that concept, and then I got thinking about art, and how art is one of those left wing commie pinko causes much like caring for the planet that sustains your life.  So what if Art just one day up and disappeared, we wake up and it’s all gone?  Dare I suggest this could actually be an interesting turn of events?  All of the artists out there would suddenly have a purpose… they could create things people need without having to worry about appearing to pay homage to one of the great artists that came before them… for a moment there would be no genres, and there might be a time, a brief period, where art might truly be appreciated.

When the forest is gone and there are no trees, and the only seeds left are mutant corn plants, and the soil has eroded into the sea, you won’t just be able to create a new forest, you will just be heat baked on barren land free of water and shade.  But if art was gone, it would give way to human ingenuity and a wild period of abundant creativity might exist… perhaps some would be put to work rehashing great works from memory, or is that even part of the scenario… I guess I need to define they hypothetical scenario… maybe you should just do that if you want to play the game in your own mind.

Now I don’t mean to suggest all the art ever made is meaningless, but more the idea on how rapidly artists of the world if given a chance could repopulate the world art supply, and I bet you they could do a damn good job.  I think art often falls prey to “human hype disorder”, as I call it, some believe that the classics are the classics and that’s all that matters, others believe that the latest is the greatest, some will only sip certain styles, others rue rubbish refusing to recognize it as art…  How bout a blank slate, an open filed… millions of artists lined up at the starting line and the pistol fires… what do you have for me tiger?  Probably wouldn’t be quite like that, but in some ways, despite the loss it might be not be the worst thing ever.

Imagine there was no music online or anywhere, how many new songs would be posted on day one, week one, and month one… one might create a major “art economy”, whatever the hell that means.  On paper it seems like one couldn’t create such a diverse filed, but it would be interesting to see the human art spirit react to a scenario like this.  I wonder what would really soar if people had nothing and then choices pouring in, how would entrepreneurs position themselves to help direct and divert the flow of this newfound art to the right places?  It would probably be smarter (human term synonymous with making more money) to not do art but invest in online art distribution.  Funny how even in a light hearted wondering exercise we teeter on the brink of talking about advertising.

Competition is a great motivator in art. I remember posting on the wall of the shockcenter “we are required by special pact to inspire each other with displays of productivity”.

I saw something a while back and I believe it was C.K. Louis talking about George Carlin, and how George taught him that every year he just comes up with new jokes rather than telling the same jokes over and over.  He started doing it, and clearly it worked for him, cause if what’s gone is gone then there is only the new beginning.

What about teaching Art?  Could you teach art if there was no Art? Perhaps it might be better to teach art… you could focus on teaching what you need to do rather than confuse the student with all of the history that came before.

If we had to re-create art is it possible that human priorities might change, teaching us something about losing things, leading to a more caring balanced society? 

just thinking

Perhaps it's not me who has a rage problem, but rather society that has a stupidity problem.

A new idea will firstly become denounced as being ridiculous

Secondly there are many fights against it

And finally all people were in favour of that from the early beginning

-Some guy explaining Arthur Schopenhauer in a film

You see I have always felt ridiculous, and even got confused with the "coolness" of being weird, and all of the gross intangibles in which that operation encompasses.  My mother always said I was very logical and over the years I have developed a major distrust of the establishment... all of it warranted I believe.

Basically, I do wish we could all get along and do the right thing for each other... live in harmony so to say, but that would be bad for business, and business is good for society, so we all innately know, and the most important thing is tax breaks and taking away things from other people that we don't have, and using force to make people think the way we think they ought to... Did I just go off the deep end?  I don't think I did actually, I think I'm calling it like it is actually.

We live in strange times, we are the generation, "they say" who's standard of living will be less than our parents...  I think one still has choices and the word "standard of living" is more than number on a graph.  For example, one's standard of not watching television and engaging in events with like minded community members that require physical and mental participation is something perhaps not seen on a graph.  I mean I don't want to get all positive and ruin a good rage, if you know what I mean... who knows what anybody means in this mosaic of regurgitated catchphrases... what does that mean? My point being is that some of the happiest people i know, and the funnest to be around, don't have a lot of money, and the wealthiest people i know, i can't say the same about.

Legions of registered voters want to kill science and let GOD show us the way as they drive air conditioned cars to church, perhaps never thinking about the feat of mechanical engineering that made it all possible.  It's like thinking in a vacuume... remember when the first people attempting flight were in bird suits... lets do a search... fucking killer check this:

This is awesome and shows the point... notice how the student of the pro has to leap off the platform while the pro shouts advise:

You see, it didn't work and it never will, and no prayer can ever make it.  Now I’m not saying prayer has no use at all... probably good for focusing and reminding one on what's important as they live out their day, or at least what they think is important.  The point being, it was science... recording what is, checking that data, and coming up with a new plan that made flight for humans possible.

(actually is should be noted that technology has now developed a suit where you can dive off a mountain top and glide down at top speed... just don't make a mistake)

When I was a kid I remember praying, but mostly I was trying to get something I didn't deserve, and since knelling closing my eyes and putting a few words out to some being it was believed could make or break your flow, was an easy few minute job, I felt the rewards could possibly be worth the minimal effort.

The argument is probably along the lines. For a prayer to work you need to mean it.  I actually believe that... but in my world it's more a matter of living life to a certain standard in how you treat people and how you do things, and why, and you will end up in a situation where you are blessed.  I imagine a wonderful religious person praying for happiness for all, and then greeting all with a sense of happiness and having that reciprocated back... warm happy people are fun to be around.

I love the fact that I have a video of a gullible sucker in a bird suit jumping off a platform and accelerating towards the ground at 9.81 m/s2  . The real problem is that our populations of “consumers” are in that bird suit and we are standing at the edge of a very tall cliff and the people in charge are saying... OK you go now.

When you break down arguments it's really insane to see what people are against and why, and in most of the cases it's because they don't really know what the fuck they are talking about... just air going over lips.  If there was a science political party, with the right funding I’m sure you could have somebody explain that 5x5 is indeed 26, and you could probably get enough supporters to in one way or another affect the outcome of an election thus giving way to all manor of debate.  All the while people in power might decide going to school is too dangerous so instead of educating children we need armed solders on every street corner, and in an unrelated bill it appears that meetings of 4 or more people are now banned and any solider that see's such a thing is authorized to use maximum force to enforce the law.  Did I go off the deep end there... perhaps time will tell.

been poking around at employment options...

The reality is, i might actually be totally unemployable... what can i say, I'm a "glass half empty" kind of guy. It's odd because every job i have ever done people loved me in it. I taught high school Chemistry and Physics at a private school and they asked me to stay on over more qualified applicants because apparently my class was excellent. At the post office I actually got some people phone in and do the opposite of complain about my service. Tree planting and landscape jobs always wanted me back calling me "top shelf all the way". I have an Honours degree from a University and my wife, a world class researcher, picked me to stay home and mind her children. I was once voted Strata Council President ! As a musician i was always welcome back to establishments or events that i had played before...

Sure sure, this is me pumping my tires... usually i like to deflate my tires and then steal my rims which of course is the point of this exercise. Looking pro is not my bag... I find myself thinking "are you fucking kidding me! You really want me to write a resume for that shitty job... you don't think i could do that... i could do that and care for a few infants, prepare for a dinner party and write a song about how stupid your dumb job is".

My problem is probably that i am an expert cheater and swindler... it's not my style anymore, but there was a time in my life where i cheated and swindled my way into pretty much anything. In the end it created a religiously philosophical attitude where i learned you get what you give out of life, so i changed my ways. Since then life has been very good for me, I do what i do, cover my end of the bargains and then a bit extra to keep the karma flowing and all is good. I guess it's about the resume, it's just horse shit... years ago when i needed to find a job i just hired a guy to write the resume and boom i got into the interview... it was as easy as using old exams to study for University exams... just know the answers, who gives a fuck if you know or can do anything. Comes down to my main beef with society... far too many incompetent chuckelheads in positions of employment just gobbling away pecking at their seed and the ball is moved down the field.

It's the B.S. courtship game I'm not too crazy about... hey i just had an idea! I should just contact these bastards and say why don't i come and work for you for a little bit for free, and if your job doesn't irritate the shit out of me and you think i can do it in a competent manner, then lets do this. You see the problem is that i find engaging in phony behaviour hard on the soul, and of course the other problem is that i really have no skills... I can take care of kids, but I'd rather be harpooned than take care of some fools whiny brat... the parent would come and pick up the kid with a list of special treatment items they think their kid deserves, and i would have to tell them that their shitty parenting has created this ass hole child and so now their first order of business is to park their stupid ego and do what's right... I'll just pass.

I guess the thing is to stay away from classified job adds: You read them and you just want to give up automatically. I think about the world today... I just went on leave from a job, cancelled my phone, my gas and my hydro and in every one of these situations there was a major fuck up where somebody or some system was in place to over bill and then under bill and then refund, and then pay and then want money back, and I'm thinking all these people have jobs and nothing works, but maybe at one time their resumes danced to the right tune and they sounded competent. How can everything be fucked but yet resumes are shining somewhere? You can take a course on how to write a resume, but i haven't seen a course on how to be a good employee. Catch my drift?

I can't program a computer, i don't see that ever happening. but i have done things with computers that made people say "wow you are really good at computers, you should teach people" which made me think that "wow you really have no idea what you are talking about". I mean i could talk shit and pretend i know but for sure sooner or later i will be shown as the fool i am. I'm kind of at the stage in my life where I'm not interested in bullshitting... it's just kind of a life value. That's why i think the idea job for me would be a farmer... work real hard and use what you have, when and where you have and be judged on your product... except of course society is set up to punish farmers and favour corporate farms. Perhaps i mentioned before i was a useless salesman... somewhere in this blogoshpere there is probably a few stories about how i worked as a stereo salesman, and it turned out badly.

The problem is I'm not skilled enough to work on the high end of the corporate ladder and many people i know are... they are paid quite well and so insanity is part of the gig.. I would then be on the bottom end of the pay scale where suffering the lunacy is not as ideal. Insufferable perhaps... I think i want to be a farmer... maybe i can propagate blueberries and sell them to somebody who gives a damn.

one of the flaws of politics

OK so in Canada, the party that is the official opposition just chose a new leader due to a very unfortunate occurrence, but hey, that's what happens. It happens to be the left wing leaning party and the guy who won is a more central character... whatever the hell that means. You see these politicians have this ability to claim beliefs but then when in power their beliefs often wane in the face of corporate dollars... for some reason.

So the party that is in charge of the country, is actually a coalition of the two former right wing parties who were called the Conservatives and the Reform party... you see , what they figured out was that they couldn't win if they were splitting the vote all the time so they joined into a coalition and became one party. Then they won government and somehow manage to paint the idea that forming a coalition is an evil and savage game plan that will throw the country into sure peril, and a dangerous thing for democracy. Of course the idiot central and left wing party buy into this line of malarkey and spend all campaigns trying to reiterate that no, they will not in fact form a coalition in an effort to beat a coalition in the grand game of politics... only in humanity would things get so strange.

So the new guy from the left wing party gets elected and his first statement is that they will not form a coalition with the other party. I mean, fuck me up the ass with a rake backwards if that sounds like a good opening line. Let me open by giving my savage and wily political opponent some ammunition... perhaps there will be a new commercial out tomorrow with me beaking off on that clip, cause you have to know they will. Why not just take a moment to remind Canadians that the party in power is in fact a coalition and then just let that drift out there? Isn't the idea of a political party a group of people set to win an election? Remember the goal is to win the election, and once you get in you just serve your circle on the spoils, right?

You see it's important to win the election and when your first statement is the same statement that has been used to harpoon the last few opponents, you think you might learn. Why make that statement? Are you trying to say you are a politician of principle?

There was a guy who ran a few years ago and his platform was to get away from fossil fuel use and turn Canada into a leader in "green" technology... the idea being that eventually the world will have to turn that direction so Canada should be a leader at that time. From my perspective it was easily the most sane position i have ever heard a politician speak, and as so he was beaten like a rented mule... fell prey to "weak leader" ads and coalition fear mongering.

Is not is.

That statement makes more sense than the idea that political parties are set to serve Canadian taxpayer interests. To be honest i don't know much about this guy, who will now lead the opposition, but if his first statement is the same statement that has cost election losses to a coalition government, that forgot it was a coalition, but managed two times in a row to defeat the other parties by demonizing the concept of a coalition, because they know that if the other parties form a coalition as they did then they are surely doomed.

Kind of like playing chess and getting beaten by the same 7 step move to checkmate time and time again... How do you get that job? You get elected to lead and your first statement is a weak pass up the middle of the ice to a potent offensive player... a la Schneps to Mike Bossy in game one of the Stanley Cup final, overtime 1982.

It's kind of odd

When i start an old blogaroo, i don't know what the hell I'm going to chicken peck about... i think most people would have a plan. I'm OK with not having as plan... we need fluid boundaries, like a good jam that just finds a pocket nobody was expecting and stays there and explores the options. Either that or flips like a large mouthed bass in a canoe a few minutes after thinking "yea I'm eating that frog".

OK

So I was going up Mt. Tabor and i ran into a few neighbours... multiple sets and the word on the street was that it was cold up there and i was under dressed. I scoffed off that nonsense pointing out i had a sweater and a Scarb jacket... not to mention a Man orange long sleeve shirt... but you know the Americans always trying to be helpful, concerned i might get up there and change my tune. It kind of got to the point where i had to say "listen here, I'm Canadian and your sissy Yankee Chinook can't chill me"... things grew serious. I then pointed out that i have 4 inch sideburns, perhaps rather obvious, and that those sideburns would direct the wind like an experienced air traffic controller might guide a jumbo 757 to its approved path... more confusion... my point about my handle bar moustache hovering like a couple of imperial guards protecting my neck region never even really got made before i had to let them know this was my attempt at humour, or humor for that matter. Then we were Yucking it up... the old me would have parted and had that interaction coat our future relationship like a bad fungus.

In the end there was no cold... I'm from the old school, if it's cold walk faster, if it's still cold start air drumming... still cold air drum metal circus beats... still cold do it with leg kicks. In a consumer society we rely on gadgets too often... gadgets allow flawed minds to create excuses to fail to see what is right. Yes... this gadget will solve your problem... i didn't know i had one...

Then again i don't have a cell phone. 1) too cheap, 2) can't really work the damn things, 3) always break down when i need them, 4) don't want to be contacted when I'm on a mission.

My problem with the cell phone culture is the fact that people now have an excuse to be flaky on plans. I'll be there in Wednesday @ 7:20PM... well man give me your cell number and I'll call you at around 7 and see where I'm at... me I'm like, well I'll be there... I don't need to check in @ 7 because at that time i will be in transit, and to pay a company to dose myself with radiation to give somebody an out seems insane. If you can't make it, don't be there, i don't need to be on a phone hearing an excuse that is going to enrage me. I do see that i am one of "those" people that will never really be understood on issues like this.

Example: I don't watch T.V. , well i did watch "Hockey Night in Canada" until it stopped broadcasting an analogue signal... you can stream it now, provided you live in Canada. Not watching TV was a conscious decision... My wife felt the same way... one of our core values. This has been going on for over a decade, close to two actually, but yet every time I phone home, some family member asks me if i have seen a certain show, to which i reply "I don't watch TV", to which they reply "oh well you should because this show is really good"... maybe it is, but the point is i have consciously decided to live free of television programming, which is the key problem for me, and the docile sloth mentality of the average TV consumer. But it's like every fucking time somebody telling me what show i am missing... it's like it never registered in the first place and we just go back and have the same conversation over and over again... me calling watching TV bullshit, and them urging me to get with the program... I don't go over to vegetarians houses and cook up pans of bacon and say things like "you should try this it's really good", even though i do believe bacon is really good... i mean i know it's a shit food... bad fat, ridiculous sodium content... but i like the taste. Actually i did go to a vegetarian party one time and cook up a pile of sausages, but it was really funny, and i only did it once.

It's a human problem, when you don't do something that everybody does you become a weirdo, but the truth is i have probably replaced time wasting hours on television with time wasting hours on this blasted Internet... what do i think? I think if you have a purpose the Internet is great, if your are looking for purpose the Internet is a black hole. i have been both persons on many a nights, hear my hit song "internetting on chatroulette" by SR Jones for comedy if you want... it is what it is. The waitress at the bar down the street doesn't like that saying, neither did one of my former band mates. To me "it is what it is" means you are still in the process of observing. I find too often people try to define things before they know what the hell they are talking about, but perhaps they are just trying to shot those watching that they have things under control. We like control for some reason, perhaps it's ownership of the situation we strive for.

just another fork in the road, bed time in the city of fallen heroes

I watch running with the bulls...

I watch it because i think it's funny to see people gored because they wanted to prove that they were invincible. Dad and i would always watch the news highlights of the running with the bulls... just the vision of my father laughing and tears running down his cheeks made me note when it would happen so we could catch it on the news... and then of course catch it again on the late news.

I guess it's easy now, you just type in a search and voila you are lead to some bull running sales sites, a bunch of garbage sites, but if you know your way around the Internet you can view some good gores. Hey if you get in the ring and challenge a bull i have the right to laugh at you should you take a sever goring. Would i do it? I would say no, but then i could see my natural insanity moving me to a moment in time, a critical error, a hijacked line of judgement, a misinterpretation of manhood, or just a plain mental mistake throwing me in there should i be in the right spot at the right time. A couple bottles of wine with the wrong fellows in the wrong town, with the wrong conversations i could see myself getting all "shocked up" and leading the charge. I think if i got in there i would just go like hell from the get go to get to the finish line, but who knows i might think my wits and my reflexes are invincible, leading to some comedy for some sedentary slob to chuckle and cluck at looking at as computer screen.

Never been a big fan of puncture wounds on my own body, not to mention with non sterile compact animal keratin. But who knows in this world you could probably sell it... homeopathic organic keratin stimulation therapy... for only 80$ a session SR Jones is willing to clear you mind and body with this revolutionary keratin therapy. The α-helix and β-sheet motifs of the Keratin therapy provide basal stimulation to the pituitary and other essential organs, releasing adrenal hormones common to shock and regeneration.

With a simple regimented 40 session therapy you will find life a simple joy when it's all over... nursing your wounds from the comfort of a Robertson 6000 patented hospital home bed with rotating bed pan. Order now and get a free conservaphone... your only trusted line to vote. The conservaphone, attached to the Robertson 6000 patented hospital home bed allows you to enter your voting preference, and then it will direct you to when and where you should vote... a vital tool for any great countries blossoming democracy.

Am I off topic again? It's hard to know these days, what is right and what is wrong... well it's easy to know if you think, but that's not really a common human trait, makes you look like a weirdo, or a paranoid, as some like to put it. You go through school to learn how to learn but then when you start learning the truth you are dismissed as irrelevant, and then you notice that the education system is being consciously disassembled... why would that be? It's best if you have a short memory, or even better if you failed to digest it in the first place. Then you can just repeat your slogans and look the next hour of life in the face and survive it thinking you did OK.

People don't like to think they didn't do OK... it's like driving, nobody likes to admit they are a shitty driver, but yet clearly the road is full of them. I saw a story in the news about some school teaching failure, and the comments were all totally negative, as comments are... but i think that's a real good idea. I wrote a song called "i am a failure", released also as "failure" , that caused some controversy in certain circles of my life, but my point was exactly this. If i do something and fail to excel in the most important aspect (that being ,of course commerce, when thinking in modern human terms) then i have failed. The point is i still had fun, learned a lot, and did something working with people (band mates), to finish something... but i failed cause i didn't lay the golden goose, or it hasn't hatched yet.. but you need a good PR campaign for a hatching these days. None the less it is failure, and should be recognized as that, and celebrated.. The story goes that "Thomas Edison failed more than 1000 times when trying to create the light bulb... we are so fickle.

anyhoo, I'm looking for a job, and anybody who needs organic keratin stimulation therapy, i would be more than happy to gore into your schedule.

Thanks for tuning in to another scintillating episode of the SR Chronicles II

Not worth reading...

The amount of correspondence I have had with work, benefits and medical forms lately are absolutely mind-boggling. For the record there is nothing really wrong with me... besides the obvious... that being I do what I do because I think it is a good idea based on multiple factors having to do with my state of mind and what it is I want to learn. If I were a natural consumer, I would have an easier go of it... riding the highs of new products and buffered with the comfort of minimum credit card payments. Where was I... oh yes my point was to do with the insane bureaucracy of a few simple claims, THAT ARE LEGITIMATE IN THEIR ENTIRETY. It is my belief that we have spent far more man-hours on this issue than would justify in the claim in the first place. It's just an old-fashioned chess match now with the opposition believing “well perhaps we can just stall this into eternity by requesting other more irrelevant information, one letter at a time”, and the home team now believing "Fuck you! You are paying cause that's the deal". It's true that an incompetent supervisor who can't punch 4 digits into a computer correctly may have opened the window for denial, but right is right and wrong is wrong, probably why they hire supervisors who are dumb as a post. Somewhere in this shithole I have a plaque for perfect attendance, which apparently recognizes my ability to put my work ahead of other things... there were many a nights when I stayed a few pitcher of beers too late at the SRSS, but who the fuck was at work the next morning @ 6:30 taking care of business so the company wouldn't lose... it was the guy with hundreds of hours of sick time. For the record I don't think anybody should ever call in sick if they "do it to themselves", you should call in sick when you are sick so you don't go breathing on your goddamn co-workers fucking up their rhythm. It's no wonder people go mad, you hold up your end of the bargain, and then when it is your turn to be re-inbursed, new rules are added, quaint phrases are recited, lines blur, and your resolve is tested.

I can almost see it in the board room "OK boys, just go out and fuck everybody and we figure 40% won't even push back... and that's pure profit right there". Sure it's well known, but it's also mentally taxing, and it really fucks with one's ability to achieve completion, as well as having any faith in the system we live in.

I was reading in the news that we are just too damn stupid, as people, for democracy to work. This is something I have been telling anybody who will listen, and others who won't for years... When you have an analyst on television breaking down an election and they say things like "well so and so just talked too intelligently, which alienated the voters who felt more comfortable voting for somebody who talked like they did"... at the level of a grade 4 student, you have to wonder. If you were in a spaceship going to the moon and the guy driving the thing said a bunch of things that seemed intelligent and knowledgeable, you wouldn't say... hey wait a minute can we get that slang talking son of a bitch in her to drive this puppy. No you wouldn't, you would take comfort in the fact that the person with your life in their hands has a solid grasp on the issues that could spell an end.

I mean as a society we still argue over whether humans are in fact impacting the planet in a way that will make it difficult to sustain life, even though you can measure man made toxins in a fetus... and here we thought fetuses were worth protecting at all costs. Or is it protecting control of decisions... apparently there will be a "modernized" environmental assessment agency, that will do away with all of these nasty little problems that happen when man efficiently extracts valuable natural resources. Are we going to solve the problems, or just pass a rule that says you can ignore them? I think we know the answer... how are you to stay sane? You can't take drugs, that will cost you time in a prison paid for by the taxpayers, and essentially ruining your employability forever, not to mention other problems. Speaking of that, I think if you are going to make drug policy they you should have to experiment with the drug... just so you actually know, for sure what the hell you are talking about... Just an idea. It just seems like there are an incredible amount of people, working people, useful people, tax paying people, that smoke grass... and so to criminalize and jail all those people, it kind of seems bad for the economy. I was thinking, like if you let good people who smoke grass grow a few plants then they will have all the grass they need, you will solve your crime money problem, and you won't need to jail good people. Is it about the drug, or the choice? I mean I don't know, I have never smoked grass because it's illegal and I am afraid of the penalty, but I seems like some of the people who do aren't out to harm... yadda yadda

I guess I need a new point.

Then there is the guy running Canada at this moment... clearly not an idiot... not dumb at all, highly intelligent actually, but yet has been a leader on the climate change denying front for many years, he is swiftly progressing his agenda... but who for? Is there some chance that he and his children won't have to live in this planet? Or is there some weird guarantee that if you act in totally corporate interests then you will be promised the last glass of fresh water.

I don't know, perhaps I’m just totally insane, this human path we are on make no sense to me. Everything I have learned from listening and watching is essentially the same as some bizarre language rule... yes I always comes before e... oh but there is a c there... sorry you are Shit out of luck this time.

Oh yea and on the robocall issue- If you are dumb enough not to vote in 2011 because some automated call phoned you to tell you your polling station had changed, then you don’t deserve to vote. The idiot Conservative party won because it formed a coalition with the idiot Reform party, meanwhile the idiot Liberal party and the idiot NDP party refused to do so and got outfoxed on the issue. The also did well to deliver the senile vote.

In the end it’s all just memories, and deficits, and irreversible environmental catastrophes, and the elimination of the middle class consumers buying power, and the dumbing of society as a whole… just don’t smoke grass it will make you a dumb criminal.

I'll take a blog over a tweet any day

Of course blogs are long and boring, you actually have to read paragraphs... like it say's in the music marketing emails: Make lists, stick to "bullet points"... feeling the rage... calm down and stay on task.

OK, I was reading about the start of twitter and apparently it happened that it was invented and then at a conference a bunch of people got up and left a lecture to go see another lecture. You see through twitter people found out instantly that there was something really interesting going on in another lecture, so they went to check it out. Clearly that was a key human tool in its infancy used as a tool to let people know about something happening. Sounds good to me, I guess it's a matter of who's doing the telling and why.

Unfortunately now it has become a standard marketing tool flooded with millions of yelps from millions of Who's working to push their product... always a bad combo. Me, I follow hockey writers, music folk, politics, news and a few other various science related folks. Tweet comedy or links to blogs or sites with interesting material are my favourite... incessant gig notices, sports franchise "tweet ups", and non-comical self suffering dreck are things that annoy me. I'm sure I annoy others, but I don't give a rat’s ass if people "follow me". If you don't want to hear what I have to say and you are not hearing it I think that's awesome, it helps the both of us.

I was actually about to go to bed, when I saw a news story that read

Flames post controversial tweet on Hemsky

Hemsky plays for the rival Oilers and has displayed the skills of an offensive player but is having an off year in terms of goal production... I think he has about 4 goals this year, but he was just resigned to a fairly healthy contract for 2 years... so somebody tweeted a mockery of that signing, and then the tweet was taken down, and now it's news... important enough to have a title and a story.

So let me get this straight. There is etiquette for short 140 character blurbs written in non-English, that are flooding a virtual world at an apparent rate of 2 million per day, and one of them is real news for real humans in a real world with real problems.

It's a good thing I'm not famous, it wouldn't go very well.