It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; etcetera, etcetera. Thanks to the WordPress helper monkeys for providing this handy little summary.
Here’s an excerpt:
4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 28,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 6 Film Festivals
On a personal note, I want to thank everyone who stopped by to read my ramblings, whether you came here accidentally in search of naked pictures of Carice van Houten (a very popular search engine hit, and sorry to disappoint – although you should follow her on Twitter, she’s funny), you decided to browse further because of my contributions to The Huffington Post, or you’re a personal acquaintance and you feel obligated out of guilt to click that link that shows up in your Facebook news feed. A special thank you to Justin Trudeau and Emilie-Claire Barlow for using their celebrity clout to send more than a few readers my way. A very special thank you to the Fabulous Five (you wonderful folks know who you are) and three in particular for proving that friendship in the digital age doesn’t require face-to-face meetings, although some day it sure would be nice to shake your hand and buy you a drink. Who knows, maybe 2013 will offer up that chance. An extra special thank you to my father-in-law, whose comments have done much to bolster my confidence, and who’s unfortunately spending New Year’s Eve in the ER. Faigh go maith go luath, Dave. Copious thanks to his daughter, my better half, without whom this wild and unpredictable enterprise never would have begun.
As I look to “lucky” 2013, I look forward to a year of chances taken, opportunities seized, fortunes made, friendships solidified and most importantly, words written. Hope everyone out there has a very happy New Year. As one of my favorite singers, Richard Ashcroft, once opined, see you in the next one, have a good time.
What is the most annoying trend in popular music? With YouTube and Auto-Tune making celebrities out of individuals who should never have come anywhere near a microphone, and genuinely talented singers continuing to struggle for any semblance of a break that doesn’t require an uncle in a senior management position with a record company, how could we possibly distil popular music’s faults down to the most egregious offender? It’s ultimately a matter of opinion, but if I had to pick a single irritant that most damages my appreciation for today’s sound, it’s musicians recording multiple versions of their songs for different markets. Nothing is more insulting to listeners than this shameless pandering to commercial interests. Every time you hear one of these bowdlerized abominations oozing through your speakers, you can feel the greasy fingerprints of the Armani-suited marketing committee as they scrape at your eardrums. Worse though are singers and bands bringing material to the studio they know they’ll have to re-record to ensure maximum market penetration (an apt metaphor if there ever was one). It speaks of greed, cynicism, contempt for the fans and a fundamental lack of anything resembling artistic integrity. And the worst part is, it’s totally unnecessary.
One of the big hits of the summer is Maroon 5’s “Payphone.” Maroon 5 was every mother’s favourite band for their teenage daughters: catchy and inoffensive with an easy-on-the-eyes lead singer. They faded away somewhat after their initial explosion onto the scene but are experiencing a resurgent popularity with Adam Levine’s judging NBC’s The Voice and their infectious smash “Moves Like Jagger.” But “Payphone” is an embarrassment. It’s whiny emo nonsense that rings completely false – the complaints of a fifteen-year-old upset that his crush doesn’t love him anymore, with no more depth than a chewing gum wrapper. Most irritating about the song, though, are the final two lines of the chorus: “All those fairytales are full of shit, one more fucking love song I’ll be sick.” What’s that, you say? I must be making this up, you haven’t heard that? Of course not – the radio version, the one you’ve heard, goes “All those fairytales are full of it, one more stupid love song I’ll be sick.” And it isn’t Godzilla-esque bad dubbing either – Maroon 5 deliberately recorded two different versions of this line. The reason? They knew the line as originally written wouldn’t be played on adult contemporary radio, and that’s a huge audience to forfeit for the sake of some naughty words. But that’s the thing – why did those words need to be in there in the first place? The song isn’t great, but at least the message gets across without the potty mouth. And don’t tell me it’s to express the depth of the singer’s anger; Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” is a much more honest scream of contempt at the woman who’s left him and contains absolutely no profanity (depending on your opinion of the weight of the word “screwed.”) “Payphone” is juvenile, a kid giggling at the dirty picture he drew on his school desk, and Adam Levine et al. should know better. And I say this as someone who admired Levine for telling off Fox News on Twitter after they used a Maroon 5 song in one of their promos. However, swearing in their songs is just making the case for the likes of L. Brent Bozell and whatever suspiciously well-funded “Parents” group wants to fundraise for the evangelical right on the backs of those evil Hollywood liberals corrupting your children again, and the willingness to record and release a sanitized version for mainstream radio play is evidence of the emptiness of their commitment to branding themselves as rebels, badasses or whatever the point of dropping the F-bomb in the original version was.
“Payphone” contains another example of what pop songs do to try and broaden their customer base: include a guest rapper in the middle eight. A few of the singles from Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream contain rap: “California Gurls” features Snoop Dogg and “E.T.” features Kanye West. Not that you’d know it if you’ve only heard these on the radio – they play the version where, like with profanity, the rap section has been neatly sutured out for popular consumption, in the studio long before your local DJ gets his hands on it. I have nothing against rap or the blending of genres (Aerosmith and Run-DMC’s “Walk This Way” collaboration continues to be awesome twenty-five years on), but these aren’t it. These are stitch jobs. In all likelihood the rapper and the main performer aren’t even in the studio at the same time – the result is a Frankenstein’s monster of a track where disjointed parts are cobbled together for commercial appeal rather than coherent performance. The fact that usually the rap can be lifted out without any significant effect (or even notice – it was months after I first heard “E.T.” that I discovered Kanye was on the original version) speaks to the argument that forcing it in to bubblegum pop is misguided, cynical marketing at its most insidious – a way to ensure that even though we’ve got the white kids, let’s make sure there’s something for the black kids too. More to the point – if the artists know they’re going to have to cut the rap for full radio exposure, why include it in the first place? The other reason you know this whole phenomenon is marketing B.S. is that it’s never done the other way; sorry for those of you eager for that Jay-Z featuring One Direction number. Here’s a radical thought – why not just write a better song that can appeal across color lines without pandering to them?
Since there is so much cross-pollination and cross-promotion of entertainment products these days, why not take pop music philosophy and apply it to novels? (Oh wait, they’re already doing that – witness Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.) But how ridiculous would it be if, for example, George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones came in both regular and sanitized versions, the latter where anything potentially offensive to Aunt Ethel was eliminated, so that Cersei and Jaime Lannister are just good friends, Bran fell out the window on his own and Eddard Stark died offstage due to a nasty throat infection? Or if somewhere about two thirds of the way in we had a guest chapter authored by Stephenie Meyer where Sansa mopes over the sparkly Tyrion, because we have to make sure to get the youth vampire audience in as well. Better yet, let’s do this in movies. Let’s have the second act of The Dark Knight Rises directed by Brett Ratner featuring Chris Tucker as a wise-cracking Gotham City police officer and Jackie Chan as his kung fu master partner taking on Bane (“When you touch my goddamn radio, y’all have my permission to die!”) Does that sound like anything we’d want to read or see? Then why do we let musicians get away with it? Chopped up, bastardized and sewn together alternate versions of songs ultimately please no one and only embarrass the artist.
In the end, quality is quality, and it begins from the ground and proceeds organically – piling stuff on top after the fact, or half-assing out a different version, is a sign of a last-minute lack of confidence fueled by focus groups and marketing gurus who need to look up from their spreadsheets. Like books and movies, there should be one song, and one song only. Putting out multiple versions for different demographic markets only reinforces the concept of music as product – the last thing I suspect anyone who fancies themselves an artist wants to admit.
Last fall I wrote for The Toronto Star during the Ontario provincial election. Their Speak Your Mind program invited two bloggers from each riding to act as “local reporters” focusing on the issues that mattered most to their individual communities. In addition, each registered blogger was invited to participate in a members-only forum where we could bounce ideas off each other and chat about how it was going. For the most part it was a positive, encouraging group, except for one angry young prat, let’s call him “Frank,” who had nothing but bile for anyone who didn’t agree with his political views. The only article Frank ever posted during the course of the campaign contained libellous accusations against members of the government, alleging criminal activity without a shred of proof. Less than 24 hours after it was posted, the article was deleted and Frank was given the boot from the community (not that his contributions were missed very much). By coincidence I happened to see this same guy’s name pop up in my Twitter feed recently and it seems he’s still at it. He looks to be about 20 and for whatever reason has a pathological hate-on for everything and everyone to the left of Mussolini. I talked the other day about the dichotomy between how we are in person and how we choose to act online, but I suspect Frank isn’t any different when you meet him on the street, and it would probably be difficult to restrain yourself from delivering him a Pete Campbell-esque punch in the face.
Less extreme perhaps, but cut from the same cloth are a majority of op-ed writers in today’s news climate. You know the ones, you can probably name a few off the top of your head – they have a regular feature in your favourite weekly where they snipe, cajole, mock and otherwise belittle everything that doesn’t fit their deeply jaded worldview, then in the same paragraph congratulate themselves for their singular, incisive, insightful wit, as if they are the wise shaman gazing down from the mountain of enlightenment at the foolish mortals below. It’s schadenfreude taken to its most extreme, the perpetual cries of the never-weres choking on their sour grapes, nourishing a weakened ego on the scraps of the achievements of others. Political columnists are some of the worst offenders in this regard. As those of you who read me regularly are aware, I have no love for conservatives, particularly those in elected office, but I can acknowledge that at least those people had the balls to get out there and run, to put their names up for consideration and accept the responsibility of serving their communities, regardless of how competent they may or may not be to execute that duty. Everyone knows it’s much easier to be the overeager parent on the sidelines screaming at the ref because Junior was called offside. Monday morning quarterbacking has no consequences. It also has no lasting impact on anyone or anything. Think about those same sarcastic op-ed writers and try to recall the last time they penned something that really resonated with you, that you can’t stop thinking about and which continues to inspire you. I’ll wait.
::crickets::
Figured as much.
We can be honest – it’s difficult to be an idealist in a cynical age, when we watch democracy being trampled on the news each night. There’s also a tendency among a large percentage of the aforementioned media wisenheimers to dismiss optimism as tragically naïve. But if idealism were easy, it wouldn’t be idealism, just like principles are only principles if you stand by them when they’re inconvenient. But to sit back smugly and join in the chorus of misanthropy is the coward’s way out. It also ensures beyond doubt that things won’t get better. The main reason public debate languishes in an all-time abyss is because we’re choosing to approach it from the gutter, figuring that it’s better to be a smartass commenter than a genuine contributor. So we can wallow in our sheer, unfathomable awesomeness as we watch the world burn. What unbelievable, face-punch-worthy arrogance. I don’t know about you, but I have no time for that sort of thing. Life is just too goddamn short.
Some friends of my sister’s are engaged in a charity venture for Africa and asked if I could help promote them. Happy to, said I. These are two people who see what is happening in the world and instead of sipping bellinis and wearily moaning about their ennui have decided to get involved – and not just by absent-mindedly cutting a cheque or tweeting about it. The reaction to their work proves, again, that there is a hunger out there for light and hope, and every downbeat op-ed wasting trees and gigawatts is missing the point (and a potentially huge audience to boot). More to that same point, I’m unable to find an example of where ceaselessly carping about how things suck and will never get better has succeeded in actually making those things better. The same goes for how we choose to approach life. What do we look back on at the end if we spend our limited time on this earth the way “Frank” and I’m ashamed to say some of my fellow HuffPosters do – have we made the most of our lives? Have we touched anyone else’s?
Listen for those same crickets.
I’m reminded of that famous Jean Sibelius quote that “A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.” To me, it comes down to this – if everyone goes around crapping on everything all the time, are we that surprised at what our world is covered in?
The quote kind of says it all, doesn’t it? There are days when the sheer mass of dumb zipping gap-mouthed through cyberspace makes one long for the days when the reach of a person’s stupidity could be contained to his immediate family and circle of friends (or, if he was a politician, to his discouraged constituency). For a sobering majority, Internet access has emboldened us to act like the digital equivalent of a chimpanzee flinging his diaper against the wall. I suppose certain individuals can be so incredibly lonely and frustrated that negative attention can provide a temporary relief from the emptiness – that someone acknowledged their existence, even if it was solely with four-letter words. Trying to picture oneself in that position, one tends to wonder why it wouldn’t be more productive and ultimately satisfying to seek positive reinforcement? Wiccans believe in the principle that whatever you put out into the world you get back threefold – accepting that as a starting point, does the aforementioned chimpanzee relish the prospect of three times the volume of excrement flying back at him?
It’s been observed that in the 21st Century we are all living two lives: our “real” life and our digital one. Employers are keen to evaluate the online activity of potential hires as an equal measure of a person’s character (if a promising, experienced and brilliantly-credentialed candidate interviews well but spends his nights harassing celebrities on Twitter, is that someone you want as a representative of your company?) I don’t see the distinction in how we should act in one or the other. We are both – why do we want to be a jackass in one of them? The digital life gives you the chance to create a strong identity for yourself, particularly since we are all much wittier when we have the chance to think about what we’re typing before we post it. The digital life must be lived consciously, and as a result lets you simply be, free of the hesitations, embarrassments, second-guessing and split-second gaffes that can accompany real-life interactions. You can be clearer, more erudite, more thoughtful and more engaging. You have a clean slate, especially when you choose to be anonymous. My blogging friend East Bay Writer doesn’t post her name or any details of who she is, and tales of her workplace are related with clever pseudonyms. You’d think that without the burden of identity, she has license to be as brutally snarky as she wants, cutting enemies down left and right and railing against the world with little fear of consequence. But she doesn’t. She still crafts a thoughtful, engaging and positive persona, and readers respond to this positivity in kind. Blogging pals Tele, Samir, Pat and Evan use their real names like I do but still, like EBW, remain true to the goal of creating a positive online identity. Contrast this approach to that of any number of anonymous Internet trolls who opt for the darker path and then think about who you’d rather spend time with – I guarantee it won’t take longer than a second to decide.
Our society has come to measure success in decibels, resulting in a level of discourse that makes Beavis and Butt-head look like Rhodes scholars in comparison. The example being set by many of those in the spotlight is that you need not be correct, learned or even particularly interesting, so long as you can yell insults at just the right moment. Naturally, people who don’t have nationally syndicated television shows want a piece of this action too, even if it’s as “trollguy69” on an obscure message board devoted to the third season of Stargate: Atlantis. The trouble is, a flurry of “LOL” responses are the most fleeting of acclaim, forgotten the instant they are posted, and certainly not anything you can build on. Ideas resonate and linger; background noise is just that. Given the option I’d rather try to put something out there that raises the bar, even if it’s to a limited audience, and even if I’m occasionally just wrong. If people are going to hate my guts for what I have to say, I’d rather they hate me for a reasonable point I articulated with intelligence instead of being able to dismiss me because my grammar was all over the map or I mistook a basic fact of existence (otherwise known as the “OMG Lord of the Rings is a total rip-off of Harry Potter!!!” fail).
The world simply would not function if the level of idiocy represented in the digital space was an accurate measure of the intellectual capacity of our entire species. Somehow the trains still manage to run on time and people still live healthy, productive lives. The only conclusion one can draw is that what we see online is certain people acting out of character, indulging their id for some unfathomable sense of gratification. What is somewhat reassuring is that in the grand scheme the Internet is still a technological baby, and accordingly, we tend to act like babies on it. Eventually what amused us as babies is embarrassing to us as teens and positively unthinkable as adults. We will grow, and graduate, and get better at using it to advance our collective humanity. Isn’t it preferable to be one of the ones leading the way? Nothing to LMAO about that.
I’m no fan of Rob Ford. I find him to be a regressive, rude, bullying, half-witted right-wing douchebag I wouldn’t trust to have my back in a bar fight, let alone as the mayor of one of the most progressive cities in the world. Yet this uproar over his recent purchase of some fried chicken at a local KFC, dutifully recorded and uploaded to the Internet for the digital world’s derision, is a step too far. I recall a conversation with a guy I used to work with, when we were talking about Ford and I was relating my less than favourable opinion of him. This fellow said to me, “I appreciate that you don’t ever talk about his weight.” My response was, why should I? He could be a 98-pound beanpole and still advance policies that make my stomach turn. Ford’s physical condition has absolutely nothing to do with how he conducts himself or how he performs as a public official, which are the only things we should be judging him on.
The counter-argument is that Ford made his weight an issue ripe for public scrutiny by politicizing his “Cut the Waist” challenge. Contrast this with the response to Vic Toews and his infamous “child pornographers” comment. There were two major initiatives on Twitter: the @vikileaks feed, which posted publicly available records of Toews’ divorce, and the spontaneous #TellVicEverything campaign, in which users overwhelmed Toews’ Twitter feed with the mundane details of their lives – what they ate for breakfast, what was playing on their iPod, how many pigeons there were in the park and so on. The former was disgraceful, because it made political hay of Toews’ family problems. The latter was hysterically funny, because it mocked Toews’ boneheaded political stance. It made the policy a laughingstock, without belittling the man’s private life. That’s what the other guys do.
Imagine if Rob Ford were a liberal titan, boldly advancing green initiatives and progressive social policies and vowing to make Toronto car-free and overgrown with trees by 2020 – would we on the left side of the spectrum be so inclined to laugh about a lapse in his diet? Anyone who’s ever dieted knows how hard it is, how bad the cravings can get, even when you’re not under the 24-hour stress of leading a city of millions. We’ve all had our weak moments where we reach for the ice cream. That’s not a criticism of Rob Ford; if nothing else, it humanizes the guy a little, and reminds you that under all the bloviating and bluster there is in fact a very vulnerable soul. Which I would still never vote for.
The past few elections in Canada, and the upcoming American presidential contest, have brought to the forefront of the public consciousness a hideous scorched earth form of political campaign where nothing is off limits. Effective government leadership demands that the best people step forward, and how will we encourage those folks to step out into the spotlight when the mere public rumination of a run for office can spark the filthiest invective from the opposition in response? The silent demographic who do not vote because they cannot abide the cynicism of politics are not silent without cause. They have been systematically alienated from a public debate that operates on the intellectual level of a high school cat fight. It’s all too tempting for liberals to want to get down into the mud and fight just as dirty as their conservative counterparts, but doing that only accomplishes two things – it accepts with resignation the premise that government and public service is the realm of savages, and often engenders sympathy for the opponent (and by accidental consequence, the opponent’s argument). It takes more courage to stand up to a bully with words instead of fists. But sometimes, a victory won with words – the right words – can be all the more decisive. Canadian and American progressives may dream of a day when right-wing parties are a nausea-inducing anathema to the voting public, but we won’t get there by calling Conservatives and Republicans fatty-Mcfat-fats.
A comedian whose name I can’t recall once opined that it was stupid to be a racist, because if you got to know the person really well you could find a much better reason to hate their guts. Likewise, it’s ridiculous to go after Rob Ford because of his weight. He could be the most drool-worthy, sculpted embodiment of Adonis on the planet and still be a lousy mayor. Call him misguided, call his policies ludicrous, call his approach to governing positively inept, but if the guy wants a bucket of extra crispy chicken for dinner after a bad day, leave him the frack alone.
A dear writer friend who passed away a few years ago used to send out regular emails every Monday morning with this title. They’d consist of a few witty observations on life, stuff that happened on the weekend, what her cats were up to and would often close with a cheesy joke. Her initials were M.E.S. so she’d sign off with “Jst a Mes.” In my first writing critique group, she was the first of us to be published – sadly, only posthumously, but she remains an inspiration. She was one of the guests at my wedding almost five years ago, and it occurred to me that since that day, three of the 64 guests in attendance at our celebration have since departed our company, my dear grandfather among them. Although, there have been at least three, if not more, babies born to that same group of people as well since that day, so, as the Stranger opines at the end of The Big Lebowski, “I guess that’s how the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuating itself.”
Speaking of my wedding, my better half noticed online the other day that the first house we lived in together was up for sale, and had an open viewing this past weekend. We had only lived there for one year – we were renting, and while we weren’t asked to go we did get the sense that our landlady was keen to sell, and we were fine to find something a little more affordable. And, although relatively unspoken at the time, there were some troubled memories associated with the house that we were anxious to leave behind. We had moved in as boyfriend and girlfriend, run the proverbial emotional gauntlet but emerged triumphant as husband and wife. Anyway, we had to drop by and see how the old gal was getting on. What struck us most was how small it felt – not that where we live now is a McMansion, but we were boxed in by a peculiar sense of confinement and constriction as we wandered through the rooms. Perhaps it was an appropriate metaphor for what we were going through at the time, a concentration of emotion and event into limited space from which a stronger bond is eventually forged. It had been renovated substantially since we lived there, the ubiquitous pink carpet that neither of us cared for replaced with hardwood. But I still felt a bit of a chill as I stood in the exact spot that five years ago Valentine’s Day, I knelt, opened my hand to reveal a cheap Lord of the Rings replica One Ring – all I could afford at the time – and asked her to marry me. She has a much nicer one now, and we have a home that feels very open and free, where we can relax and just be – or at the least, plenty of rooms to run and hide in when we (i.e. me) forget to take the chicken out to defrost for dinner.
I’ve talked about this before, in the context of Twitter, but one of the wonderful things about modern communication is the reduction in distance and increase in intimacy between the artist and the audience, and not, at least when it is used responsibly, in a scary stalker kind of way. Emilie-Claire Barlow was kind enough to retweet my review of her show to her followers. Very cool – and just reinforces my point about how awesome she is. Thanks, Ms. Barlow! Hmm… Emilie-Claire Barlow, Rob Lowe… I’m sensing a rhyming pattern here. I should write something about Gwyneth Paltrow and see what happens.
On a completely different note, I think it’s time to do away with Daylight Savings Time. A few years ago, it was decided to advance it a month in the calendar, the end result being that as soon as you feel like you’re turning the corner of having to wake up and go to work in the darkness every morning, you get slapped back into it for another month and a half of exhaustion and caffeine injections. As I understand it, DST was invented to assist farmers in making the most of their daylight hours – given that we are no longer as agrarian a society, perhaps this tradition too can go the way of the telegraph and the wax cylinder recording. I always feel more tired during the eight-odd months of DST hours than I do on Standard Time – my body really misses that extra hour and never quite adjusts to it. I guess I probably wouldn’t do very well living in Maine or New Brunswick.
On a final, hopefully amusing note before we embark on this week’s adventures, a few more of the wacky search engine terms people are finding me with. Again, not that I mind the site traffic – far from it. The more the merrier; I just imagine, as U2 would put it, that you still haven’t found what you’re looking for.
apollo crackers – Not quite sure what these are, perhaps crunchy space food eaten by Armstrong and Aldrin, or a very ironic euphemism for white people who enjoy Harlem jazz.
long psychedelic jams – Groovy, baby! “They call ’em fingers, but I’ve never seen ’em fing… oh, there they go.”
render anime boy – I don’t even know what to say about this one. It strikes me as vaguely creepy.
Canadians are funny people – we do not and never have taken ourselves seriously. You would never hear true Canadians bellowing vainglorious pronouncements of superiority and boasting of Canadian exceptionalism and the divine right to apologize to no one. Certainly we consider many things sacrosanct: public health care being the most notable, and lately, what we do online.
In a deeply cynical move marked by paranoia and shameless political calculation (par for the course from our feds lately), Vic Toews, the Minister for Public Safety, has introduced legislation that will allow police to spy on your Internet activities without a warrant. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, indeed; one does not need to have read Orwell to understand the implications. The legislation has been given the Helen Lovejoy-esque moniker of the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, and the Minister himself raised the discourse to the highest echelons of intellectual debate by accusing those who didn’t support his draconian measures as supporters of child pornography. I’m forced to question once again, as with the late Senator Ted Stevens and his infamous “series of tubes” comment, why it seems that those with the least knowledge of the Internet always seem to be the ones placed in charge of regulating it.
The response to this act of political dumbassery has been swift. Rather than rising up in anger, Canadians have responded in the way that is so uniquely their own – with biting wit. A Twitter hashtag, #TellVicEverything, is trending as Canadian tweeps take to the popular microblogger to advise Vic Toews, since he seems so obsessed, of every mundane detail of their lives: what they’re eating for breakfast, what shirt they decided to wear today, local weather updates, the weird look that teenager just gave them and even movie spoilers. (Sheesh – Darth Vader is Luke’s father??? Damn you anonymous Tweeter!) There is no weapon more lethal to a purveyor of anger than a good joke at their expense; as it says in my bio here, a belly laugh is more powerful than a hateful scream. To the angry brain, laughter does not compute. They are so resentful of the idea than anyone is allowed to be happy instead of them, that their souls have literally lost the capacity to process humour. I would find it cause for pity were not so many of these people in positions of nation-wide leadership and influence, instead of where they belong: in therapy.
Why, if Canadians are such funny people, do we keep choosing the angriest among us to be our leaders? Check out Wikipedia’s list of Canadian comedians, and then look at the list of members of the House of Commons and the Senate – you’ve never seen a dourer herd of sourpusses in your life. You could suggest that national problems require a serious approach, and serious people. I’m not questioning that – I just don’t think seriousness and the ability to laugh at oneself are mutually exclusive. With the latter quality comes a sense of humility and appreciation for the weight of responsibility of the office; at least it does in every politician, every person, I’ve ever admired. Whereas a complete lacking in the ability to recognize and find humour in one’s failings is a common trait held by every dictator in human history. What remains frustrating is how the angry candidate wins and then everyone acts surprised when he gets into office and continues behaving like a sociopath.
How wonderful would it be if the funniest candidate won for a change? If we chose someone who reflected our actual laugh-loving values, instead of those of the embittered loner pissed off that he was picked last for gym? At the risk of invoking a Bush-era campaign tactic here, if you wouldn’t invite the guy over for a beer because his silent brooding and inflammatory blog posts hating on everyone and everything that didn’t agree with his worldview creeped you out, why on earth would you assume he’d be a good leader? I’d much rather have the guy who knows the airspeed velocity of an unladen African or European swallow. One thing is for sure – they’d be a lot more fun to watch.
Anyway, in case Vic is looking in, and in the spirit of being Canadian, I had chicken à la king without the noodles for lunch today, I’m trying to avoid carbs. Kevin Spacey was Keyser Söze, Soylent Green is people, and Bruce Willis was dead the whole time.
When Shakespeare’s Lord Polonius intoned “brevity is the soul of wit,” he could have well been talking about Twitter – a most grandiose leap given the 400 years separating the publication of Hamlet and the launch of the Internet’s most popular micro-blogging site. The restrictions of Twitter are part of its charm, and a large part of why it continues to be successful. It feeds our seemingly insatiable appetite for news, gossip and humour in the form of quick, easily digestible snacks in lieu of full word banquets. For someone like myself who can tend towards long-windedness, it forces us to compress our thoughts down to the salient details – it mandates the economy of language favoured by Ernest Hemingway, particularly if one harbours as much (well-documented here) contempt for textspeak as I do.
Someone wiser than I opined that sending a tweet is like crying out into the darkness hoping that someone else will hear it and respond. If one can forgive a foray into existentialism, that is more or less life in a nutshell, isn’t it? Human beings are by nature solitary creatures craving community by any means necessary – at the most basic, genetic level, life must bond with life to create more life. So must ideas be expressed and countered with other ideas to create new ideas, lest they stagnate and die off. A social media concept of which I have recently become aware is ambient awareness; this is the idea that you can have a fairly comprehensive knowledge of what is going on in the life of a friend through periodic exchanges of short bursts of information, that is, texts and status updates, without ever sitting down for a full face-to-face conversation. I have never met most of the people I follow on Twitter, but I have still developed a rudimentary sense of who they are through reading what they have to say, even in 140-character increments – I imagine some of those strangers who follow me may also have gleaned an awareness Graham from my shared thoughts and more-than-frequent smartass remarks (at least the followers who aren’t spambots trying to get me to click on dubious links with the promise of the glimpse of silicone breasts).
There is a purity to Twitter that Facebook doesn’t have, because Facebook is a closed, invitation-only club based on who you are and who you know (and all those pictures of your kids and status updates about their eating habits). Twitter, by contrast, allows you to interact with anyone, regardless of their status, physical location or social strata, based only on your words. It’s loquar ergo sum – I speak, therefore I am. You are defined by what you say, how you say it and also, what you choose not to say or respond to. In an age when it is increasingly difficult to separate art from our perceptions of the artist, Twitter’s constraints allow your words to stand on their own, on equal footing with people of renown and infamy. I think of it as carving one’s thoughts upon the blank slate of the public consciousness. It can be argued that by acting as a leveller of opinions, Twitter equates the statements of both the learned and the ignorant. But the choice of the Twitter user of who to follow and who to ignore ensures that you are the one deciding who gets your attention – not some anonymous producer with ratings and ad revenue on his mind rather than the enhancement of our collective conversation. It’s raw communication – and as multiple visits to Epcot’s Spaceship Earth have reminded me, finding new ways to communicate has been the epicentre of humanity’s greatest achievements.
I don’t want to believe that on the whole, people are stupid. As I get older and grumpier though I’m finding it more difficult to reconcile my liberalism and my faith in the eventual betterment of humanity with the evidence. We are a week and a half away from closing the book on a year that saw the merits of wealth and greed extolled over the virtues of altruism, self-sacrifice and the understanding that we are all in this together. We have seen science demonized, facts ignored and truthiness become the guiding principle of government – as Asimov feared, brazen ignorance treated at the same level as expertise. Being right is not enough. Loud, not love, conquers all. And the worst part is, we all know better, but we let the bad guys win anyway. Why? Are we just too lazy? Has humanity just collectively decided to not give a rat’s hind parts?
Dennis Miller, with whom I agree on absolutely nothing, had a great line on one of his specials back in the 90’s, the last time I remember when optimism ruled the day. He asked, “Why have we become so quick to exalt the banal, and so begrudging of the truly consequential?” Who’d have thought that fifteen years later, it would only get worse? The most famous family in the world right now is so not for their charitable work or their noble contributions to their fellow citizens, but because they are vapid, shallow and fundamentally useless seekers of celebrity. It would benefit us all if we paid greater attention to the tribulations of our own families (which, ironically, has no financial cost) than forking out cash and felling acres of forest to keep up with the talent-bereft Kardashians. And ridding ourselves of this scourge can be as simple as tuning them out and asking a friend to do the same. If countless videos of adorable cats can go viral, why not also a campaign to raise our collective intellect? As a start, I promise that this is the last time you will see that name on this blog. They will no longer take up rent-free space on Graham’s Crackers.
What else can we do to step up our game in 2012? Why not make this the year that we cease endorsing bullies or the use of bullying tactics in any form, be it in the high school halls, the pursuit of elected office or government itself? If repeated viewings of The Karate Kid have taught me anything, it’s that nobody really likes the Cobra-Kai douchebags or wants to see them win. Similarly, we should stop rewarding the political equivalents of Johnny and Sensei Kreese with our vote and consequently the right to mooch off the tax dollars that we entrust to them to ensure we are healthy, safe and free of fear. Let’s demand maturity, tolerance and intelligent debate from all parties and stop electing or otherwise supporting hormone-juiced frat boys who honed their diplomatic skills playing Call of Duty while high on Red Bull and vodka coolers. Our governments, like our schools, really can Get Better.
Other things to do in 2012 to enrich yourself and stem the tide of dumbing-down:
Read books that do not have vampires in them, and at least one that is over 100 years old.
See more live theatre and local musicians.
Go for long walks amidst the trees.
Instead of just posting what you’re doing on Facebook, ask your friends what they’re doing. Make plans to see them more often.
Unfollow Charlie Sheen, Snooki and any other famous-for-being-train-wrecks on Twitter and encourage a friend to do the same.
Try more local restaurants.
Never use LOL or OMG again. Learn a few phrases in Latin to pepper your status updates with instead.
Support your local conservation authorities by exploring your neighbourhood parks.
Listen to music made by people who are not supermodel-attractive.
Write something – a blog, a book, a haiku, it doesn’t matter which.
Don’t vote for the guy who’s angry all the time. He has issues, and none of them involve making your life better.
Do something friendly for a neighbour you barely know.
Don’t buy Us Weekly, People or any other tabloid magazine devoted to celebrities. If you must, then plant one tree, bush or shrub for every issue you just can’t live without.
Hug a puppy, kitten, bunny, lamb, pony or any suitable baby animal.
Make your own list of suggestions like this and pass them on.
Keep reading Graham’s Crackers! (Sorry.)
Start with the little things. You’ll be surprised how much you like them and how much you don’t miss the other noise. Maybe together we can start, very slowly, turning this behemoth called civilization away from the shoals of ignorance and back toward the heights of what it is within our capability as human beings to achieve, absent only the decision to realize that potential. I promise it’ll be worth it.
Graham's Crackers 