Shoulda Woulda Coulda

I'm tired of people ragging on Canada and the Olympic organizers for everything that goes wrong. "Their opening ceremony hydraulics didn't work and that one arm didn't go up!" Guess what? It's fucking Canada. It's cold. Things break. It worked a hundred times before when they were testing it, but on that night it didn't work. Grow up and move on.

"They should have moved the pillars!"
"They should have put in a wall!"
"They shouldn't make the luge track so fast!"
"They shouldn't even have pillars!"
"They should just make a track that you can't get hurt on!"

Shut the fuck up. Seriously. An athlete died. You don't know him. You never even knew his fucking name before he died. Hell you, wouldn't know his name if he hadn't died. He could have won the Gold Medal and you wouldn't remember his name two weeks after the event. It's hard, but that's the fucking truth.

I'm not saying it isn't sad; it is sad. I'm saying that all these people are picking their battles and they're picking the wrong ones. People die in accidents all the time. People die in war even more. And still even more people die from preventable diseases when they have no access to treatment. So who is the bad guy? The Vancouver Olympic construction and engineering team for their malicious use of pillars, or you for not giving a shit about thousands of lives you could save if you bought your purse at Sears instead of Loius Vuitton and donated the difference to a worthy cause.

Self-righteous? You betcha. But I'm not the one pointing the finger of blame when it comes to an accident.

Yes, it's sad that he died. If it had been some kid who thought he was the shit and died sledding down a hill and hit a lightpost, we would laugh and say that he got what was coming to him. The difference is that we told him to do it. We dared him. We egged him on. Maybe we're the ones responsible for his death and that's such a bitter pill to swallow that we keep looking for someone to blame.

I had a dream...

Last night was all sorts of crazy. It was about death, in three parts.

Part 1
I'm on the river rafting with my first girlfriend. I didn't really want to be there, but it seemed like such a great day for rafting that I might as well enjoy it. We rafted down the wide, winding river lazily; we soaked in the sun and the sights. But before we knew it, the river picked up speed and we started to collide with other deserted rafts. I should mention that when I say "raft" I don't mean an inflatable dingy, but a traditional planks-and-logs kind of thing. I was sure I could navigate us through, but my ex was worried and sceptical. What's really strange is that we came out to a labyrinth of aqueducts and waterways. The raft became a hover-raft (don't ask 'cause I don't know) and I simply flew over the whole system toward the lake on the other side. My ex insists that we're skipping over the best part, so I land it in the waterways. Turns out they're part of the zoo/amusement part and are those water-type rollercoasters. Our raft gets picked up on the unreasonably fast conveyor and brings us up to the top. We whip around a corner and are plummeted down towards the waterways again. I'll admit, while there was an element of fun, there was also the absolute terror in the fact that we were not attached. The raft was not designed for this track. We were taken up another ramp, but we hadn't lost much momentum. We round the corner at the top and, with nothing to hold onto, I am cast off the edge. From a wide angle shot from the shore I see my body fall seventy feet towards the water with speed and grace like I fell out of the back of a pickup truck. Just before contact, I wake up.

Part 2
I went back to sleep A) to see if I could resume and save myself (with the brilliant plan of pulling myself into a dive and cutting through the water like a dolphin in a show. I did not. The ending was cut from when I last woke up. But soon after, I start a new story.
It's me and the love of my life. It's the holidays and her parents (who are actually another girl's parents, I just know and like them better) are having their friends over constantly. I suggest to the girl that we get away from it all and hide away in my treehouse, which is literally a modern cabin built in a tree. Before I know it, there are two men at the door (of my treehouse). The girl opens the door. They don't say a word. They shoot her and walk quickly through the house. I duck out a side door and and call the secret service (again, don't ask. I just know them, I guess). I scream and panic and threaten the men.

Part 3
My sister's boyfriend (the love of her life) who lives across the street from the treehouse came to investigate. He opens the door and before he gets a chance to even speak, the men kill him too. I could try and stop them, but I've already died in my dreams once today. I would barely step in the room before I was shot dead too. Though, given the rest of the dream, it may have been better to have died.

Epilogue
I return to the parents' house. It all happened a minute ago to me, and is years ago for them. The same holiday party. The same people. The livelihood is superficial, but they're trying. I remember a line to a song:
"Love of mine, someday you will die, but I'll be close behind to follow you into the dark."
I've almost got myself convinced to kill myself, but I knew she wouldn't want that. If she was waiting there for me, she'd wait for me until my time came. But she wasn't waiting. There was no sense dying. No real sense in living other than you can't change your mind about it later. So there I was, the world around my moving while my life had ground to a stop under the burden of a lost love and the guilt of the loss of another's love. I don't know what I could have done to stop him from being killed, but I feel like I could have done something.

-

I'm on that old raft again, drifting down the river. The world lacks even the indication of colour. I look at the shore and there is her mother driving her car on the road along the bank. She looks at me and I stare at her. She's drained, somewhat emptied, but hopeful at the same time. She is who the girl would have been. She is who the girl will never be. She is the woman I will never know.

Desensitized

I've come to the conclusion that people are twats and desensitization is a good thing. This is not to be confused with bastardification.

Let me give you an example. We eat me, or at least a lot of us do. That meat comes from a living, breathing, and yes, thinking and feeling animal. It wants to live and hurts when it is killed. This is a fact of life. It's the food chain. We kill things and we eat them. Being humane isn't about not doing what we're designed to do because something gets hurt. Being humane is about being respectful for the life that ended to keep yours going. Look at most wild animals. A dog will shake the bejesus out of its prey to break its neck. A cat will go for the jugular to bleed it out as fast as possible. Given the tools that they have, this is a very good way to do it. It is the humane way to do it.

So understanding that animals are killed, bled out, cut into pieces and shipped to your grocer is something that I think is positive quality. Being able to see it and watch it and understand its necessity (for what portion of the process is entirely necessary. I do understand that a degree of slaughtering animals is a cost/time analysis) makes us better people because it keeps us from being ignorant. Enjoying it is another story. That's being a bastard.

That being said, if watching that sort of thing turns you off meat all together, then you're appropriately sensitive. What bothers me is the people who are bothered by killing animals but are comfortable eating them. It's the cold truth about the world that allows us to demand to make it better. If you disagree with killing animals but want to eat them then I urge you to tell someone how to kill animals without it being uncomfortable for you. The fact is, you can't do it. And if you say, "oh, just wait for them to die on their own" be prepared for less meat to cost way more. Animals that die on their own die in one of 4 ways, in order of likelihood:

1. killed by another animal
2. get sick and die
3. die in an accident,
4. or die of old age.

The maximum yield of meat from these events is thus

1. none (another animal ate it)
2. none (it's diseased. Unless you want to eat "we think we cooked what killed it out of it" beef)
3. variable (depends when you find it)
4. about half of what it could be (ever notice how old people are a lot skinnier than younger people?)

So stop whining about how we have to kill animals while you're busy grilling up another delicious steak. It's the circle of life.

If you don't like the meat debate, how about the encouraged desensitization we go through constantly? What about war? You can't watch an animal be killed for food but you can support the slaughter of a nation of people who aren't even necessarily fighting a cause, but are defending their country? How about our desensitization toward our fellow man? We hear about countless violent crimes every day and all we do is lock our doors. If you gave a shit about "humanity" you'd do something to stop it. If you cared about every life you wouldn't only be looking out for yourself. Start a neighbourhood watch. Investigate the crime. Make sure these criminals are put away. Feed the hungry. House the homeless. Hell, start small and give those cold bastards waiting for the bus a lift in your toasty 8 seater SUV.

Oh, I forgot you're doing your part by having a "fuel efficient" SUV. You're a real humanitarian.

Time Makes Fools Of Us All

I wish I had some evidence to back this up, but I couldn't risk it.

We all know what happens to eggs when they get old. They go off. Well, what happens when you let an egg go off for an eighth of a century?

That's right, twelve and a half years.

Okay, that's an estimate because truthfully, I don't know how old it was. How did it not stink horrifically and decay over the years? A protective layer of decorative glue and tissue papers; the kind that would be applied by a young child at Easter.

Yep, that was me, from an Easter many years past. I discovered it while going through old things recently. So what happened to it? The inside rattled, as if it contained a ball. The yolk, but with nothing left surrounding it.

But what the hell was I going to do with that? So I threw it away; and some more junk too. One item hit the egg and cracked it.

Oh Christ, the smell.

So I tied off the trash and chucked it. But what I did see was a charred black ball splitting to expose the chalky yellow yoke that once was.

Part of me wants to redo the experiment.

Rest In Pieces!

So, Micheal Jackson died today.

What's up with that? More importantly, why does everyone care so much? Are all our Facebook statuses wishing him to rest in peace because we are mourning the loss or because we're guilty that we spent so much of his life making fun of him? It's as if now that he is dead it's no longer appropriate to have him on your celebrity death list (other than for the obvious fact that he is already dead).

Quite frankly, this is the best publicity that he's received in a long time. I'm sorry that you're dead and all, Mike, but your time had come a long time ago. You have caught up to your career and I'm thankful for the closure.

The world is less worse off because of the death of Micheal Jackson than it is for thousands of people who die every day to which we don't even bat an eye. I probably sound like an asshole, but if I'm not going to "pay my respects" to all these more tragic deaths, then I refuse to for someone on the basis of his celebrity status. Sorry, Micheal, but at least you got a blog post. That's more than most people get.