Ramble

It's a slick, tarry job, I'm thinkin'. You get it all, you know? The things people usually think of as 'underground' are more or less phantoms and reveries, but that doesn't mean that the grain of salt that the myths represent is any less incredible than the fallacies. The funny thing about it all is that when you contact these giants of pop culture, they're just 'struggling artists' who want to have fun. I always wondered about the too-cool-for-school stereotype of DJs and bandmembers, but to date I haven't gotten any guff off of anyone. That says something, too, seeing as I use an alias for publications. The reality is, of course, that while these people usually have less attitude than the scenesters themselves, they do party really hard. The lesson really, is come on in and have fun, because the cooler the happenings, usually the less pretentious the people there...

Racist media fun! Wheeee!

Ridiculous quotes from the BBC and my ridiculous reactions to them:

“At UK airports on Thursday - with the country on its highest terror alert of "critical" - bottles of water were taken from passengers and mothers asked to taste their babies' milk before it could be taken on to flights.”

Quick: Were on high alert! We need as many babies crying and paranoid bystanders as possible! Get out the ether, fire up the cattle prods! Civil liberties are running rampant over our democratic* society!

“Sources told the BBC the "principal characters" suspected of being involved in the plot were British-born, some with links to Pakistan.”

They’ll really say anything to reassure the public that these are no ordinary, white citizens. Look out: they have suspected ties to Pakistan. Pakistan’s over there! It ends with the suffix –stan! They must be Al-Qaeda Terror Death Muslims!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111111111111111111111111111oneoneone

*Democracy is a registered trademark of Newscorp. Any unauthorized transmission or reproduction of Democracy is copyright infringement and thus punishable by Antiterrorism.

Flood 'em with Ersatz

When I was 16, my mom presented me with the complete works of Che Guevera, copies of all his transcripted speeches, and a bright red Che T-shirt, bearing that familiar, empathetic silhouette. When I was your age, she said, Che was my hero. As an adult, my parents’ incessant advice to me, somewhat of a road-worn cat in my own right, is always, Boy, you gotta go to Cuba before Fidel Castro dies and the friggin’ Americans flood the place with new cars and consumer junk. They’re from a generation that adored Trudeau and maintained reasonable hopes of a system recalibrated to suit the needs of the many. They’re not communists. Au contraire, my mom spent over a decade as a politician here in Canada and my dad votes conservative. But they, like their progeny, are politicized socialists in the extreme.
So now Fidel’s on the way out, as far as anyone cares to extrapolate, and his brother’s not the man of the people that this unflappable stalwart of populism was, in an age of elitism. You can almost see the froth at the corner of the mouths of all the Yankee businessmen at the prospect of filling one more little niche economy with monocultural garbage in hopes of causing a miniscule spike in the growth of a market that is in the process of eating itself. Just one more little hit of dirty skag at the ass end of a junkie’s bell curve. Soon they’ll be in there proclaiming the victory of ‘democracy’, bulldozing villages to create opulent beach resorts, broadcasting any kind of advertisement that an analyst decided was a hit, and just generally sucking out the place’s soul through a vacuum called development.
Fidel, I’m not a communist; I don’t agree with half of the things you say; regardless, our sincerest thanks for being one of the only people on this goddamned planet to keep the wolves at bay until now. We love you. Get well soon.
Gracias. Que te vayas con Dios.

Fuckin' Tories

We were strolling St. Catherine this morning when we noticed the kafuffle of several thousand protesters from the Lebanese community and beyond responding to the Qanas Massacre and Stephen Harper’s support of Israel’s invasion. Naturally we joined in, despite our disdain at the presence of the odd bit of vaguely pro-Hezbollah paraphernalia. Rotten apples, I say. Regardless, the numerous Lebanese flags flown and chants of “Vive le Liban” were quite heartening. Later on in the evening, we cycled off to the village to see the Pride parade. I’m not Lebanese, nor am I gay, but you gotta join in your support. If the right can unite, so should we. Therein, however, may be the problem. For, you see, in the Pride parade there was a great and laudable presence from the Lebanese community, fags and otherwise. Not to mention a major Anti-Harper tone (in fact, the first float was accompanied by a banner that stated, “Harper: L’Union Civil. Un droit, un choix”). So is it sides, then? Are the fags pro-peace and the Conservatives anti-Lebanon by role?
Gilles Duceppe was there. The NDP was there. Heck, the Liberals were probably slinking around there somewhere, too. They’re the ones who legalized same-sex marriage, after all. It wouldn’t’ve hurt Harper to at least give the damn thing a shout out. The inaugural edition of the World Outgames: ‘So what’s the big deal about a bunch of fags playing professional sports?’ you might think. ‘Why snub it?’ you might say. Well, Stephen Harper has a reason or two. First of all he’s a homophobe. Even he doesn’t deny that. So along with that comes the Conservatives’ pending challenge of the constitutionality of gay marriage. One of my professors always said that civil struggles go two steps forward, one backward. He doesn’t speak French, either. You’re potentially wondering what the hell French has to do with gays and Lebanese. Well, nearly the entire Canadian Lebanese community is francophone, and I don’t imagine anyone’s about to argue against Quebec being more tolerant of homosexuality than the rest of Canada (maybe even the world, according to certain members of the local gay community I’ve encountered, but that’s tough to say).
Maybe I should see the silver lining here. Most countries probably don’t have enough queers and peaceniks in the left camp to represent the occasional majority government. This is on the backslide, I’m afraid. Canada’s not the bastion of socialism it was when I was a child. And it shows in the language, conduct, and political affiliations of our PM.