Category Archives: rants

What if Wonder Woman Were a Disney Princess?

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Wonder Woman kicks ass, takes names, brings home the bacon, and fries it up in a pan. And no you can't have any.

Wonder Woman kicks ass, takes names, brings home the bacon, and fries it up in a pan. And no you can't have any.

Now THIS is an avatar of feminine power we can all support. Sure, she may have taken jobs away from the odd dashing prince or fairy godmother, but now they can find new, rewarding careers as ghost writers for her autobiography, fan club presidents, or personal assistants. Win/win/win!

Besides, it’s not like those off-the-shelf Disney Princesses turned out so goddam well.

Hipster Ariel will self-harm if she doesn't get a goddam beer already

Hipster Ariel will self-harm if she doesn't get a goddam beer already

Which brings me to a slight rant, not for the first and surely not for the last time.

Have you been to the GA lately? No? Been to any populist movement of any kind recently? Even a City Council meeting? And seen? These girls? (and they’re always girls, you know?) Who really, really want to make the world, like, a better place, and, huh, oh, just want everyone to FEEL oKAY about it, okay? Okay?

You know?

“In case you hadn’t realized, it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you’re talking about? Or believe strongly in what you’re, like, saying? Invisible question marks and parenthetical ‘you know’s and ‘you know what I’m saying’s have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences? Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? Declarative sentences, so called because they used to, you know, like, declare things to be true, as opposed to other things that are, like, totally… not?” –  Taylor Mali

Yes, our movement is a tentative one. It is conditional. It is not sure it should be out so late on a school night, and it doesn’t want to run into its boss at the GA. “If there ever was a time it would be now,” says Third Eye Blind in their Occupy anthem, and that’s as conditional a statement as was ever shoehorned into a revolutionary theme. Ambivalence is the precondition of all Occupiers, but we needn’t let it paralyze us. Let’s get okay with uncertainty, with backlash.

Kids, girls, poke your heads out of your scarves for a moment, unturtle thyselves, and listen to me:

If everyone feels safe and supported and comfortable about what we are doing then

WE ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Hipster guys for whatever reason don’t seem to insist that everyone feel okay about things, so I’m leaving them out of this rant although I’m sure to rant on them sometime or other, if only for their choice of novelty facial hair. It’s the girls (and yes, only some of them but enough that it’s led me to conclude this is a problem with the hipster worldview per se and not just two or three girls who bug me) who really want to change the world, who realize that to do it you need to step up into a position of action and power and who, once there, turtle themselves into their scarves, stare at their pigeon toes and hold up the GA while everybody gets “okay” with things.

Girls, you’ve got halfway there. Once the spotlight is on you, remind yourself this isn’t a photoshoot for Tumblr. This isn’t an audition for Suicide Girls (think about that name).

This is your chance to change the world, our REAL chance to change the world, and it requires more courage than anything any of us have ever done before. It is okay to fear. There is plenty to fear. But fuck “fierce.” Become fearsome.

Hold your heads high when you facilitate a GA. Shut down the randos; empower the change artists. When you’re stacking, own your power, because the power of the GA flows through you; you are a vessel of democracy at that point. Feel it. Live and breathe it.

And then lay it on an unsuspecting world.

GPOY: OccupyEverywhere Edition

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Power to the People

Power to the People

Ever have one of those days where you’re all, I GAVE Peace a chance and ten years later we’re still in Afghanistan? No? Just me then?

OccupyVancouver

OccupyOttawa

OccupyToronto

OccupyVictoria

OccupyEverywhere

October 15.

Expect us.

George Carlin on OccupyWallStreet

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George Carlin on Politicians. Reminds me of the joke Second cousins twice removed, once forcibly

George Carlin on Politicians. Reminds me of the joke Second cousins twice removed, once forcibly

For those of you who are aural learners rather than visual, here it is in video:

And for those of you who are more cerebral and/or don’t have your glasses with you right now, here is the transcript:

There’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the REAL owners, now. The REAL owners, the BIG WEALTHY business interests that control things and make all the important decisions — forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON’T. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own EVERYTHING. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they’ve got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They gotcha by the BALLS. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying — lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want — they want MORE for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They DON’T want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that, that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting FUCKED by system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re comin’ for your SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it BACK. So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it ALL from you sooner or later — ‘cuz they OWN this fuckin’ place. It’s a big CLUB. And YOU AIN’T IN IT. You and I are NOT IN the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe — what to think — and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-workin people — white collar, blue collar — doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-workin people CONTINUE — these are people of modest means — continue to elect these RICH COCKSUCKERS who don’t GIVE a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you, they don’t GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU. T HEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU — AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care … that’s what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth — it’s called the American Dream … ‘cuz you have to be asleep to believe it.”
George Carlin’s Final Words To The World…

George Carlin on “The American Dream”. The greatest 3 minutes of his career, and the final 3 minutes of his career. The PTB are aggressively trying to keep this video off YouTube and Google, so I thought I’d upload it so it can’t get deleted as easily. Everyone needs to watch this! “It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Any questions?

Welcome to Yellowknife

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and believe me, I NEED that Flak Jacket lately

and believe me, I NEED that Flak Jacket lately

Keep your shoes on. You’ll see why.

In Vancouver, when we go into someone’s house, we generally take our shoes off; it’s something we probably picked up from Asia, and for those of us who don’t enjoy vacuuming, which is all right-thinking people if you axe me, it makes a great deal of sense.

Not in Yellowknife.

Judging completely by my own experience, for I cannot judge by anyone else’s, not being anyone else (except for icecoaster) and thus not having had their experiences, I would say not only don’t take your shoes off, but you might want to keep that jacket handy as well, and not just because it’s getting chilly lately.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the history of my Great Yellowknife Adventure, here is some background which should fill you in, right up to the present moment. You may want to keep a sick bag handy as well; I don’t make up the facts, I just report them.

So…in Vancouver I live in a co-op, which is both extremely well-situated and extremely affordable, my earnings since I got sick last fall being of the minimal variety, and co-op rates being tied to income. When people ask why my earnings have been minimal, I explain that being self-employed and having to take several months off for health reasons, then, while recovering, jumping back into a market where social media trainers outnumber social media students by a ratio of about two to one is precisely what I believe Forbes defines as your basic “challenging business environment.” So, earnings being minimal, and Vancouver being somewhat less enchanting of late for various and sundry (although, alas, not tawdry; that would be more entertaining) reasons, I cast my eye abroad. Or along. Or above.

And ended up in Yellowknife. My friend Nancy, whom I met on Twitter, sent me a message that Kellett Communications was looking for a digital project manager. We chatted via Skype, they checked me out on LinkedIn, and after a few back and forths they came back and said they’d hired someone with more direct project management experience, but would I be interested in coming up and learning it while they built up the social media side? Well, given the chance to start basically the first social media agency in the NWT, I said Yes! Well duh, of COURSE I did. There’s nothing someone who’s good at something hates so much as not doing that thing, and god knows, I wasn’t doing it in Vancouver, but Yellowknife was like stepping back to, say 2002 in Vancouver in terms of social media: everything was just about to start happening. An awesome opportunity, and while I was up there, I could get involved with a nonprofit or even start my own, bringing the power of the digital revolution to remote communities just as I had to the homeless and the marginalized on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

I got a start date (which I managed to miss by a day: my own damn fault for not allowing enough time at the airport, yes, even at 5am) and a sublet; the sublet was amazingly handy. Four blocks from work, fully furnished, and (for Yellowknife) a good price. I should explain something: a good price for Yellowknife is approximately what a Yaletown condo would cost. This is not a place that one could describe as “reasonable” by any means. Or on any level: read on.

The sublet was courtesy of a commenter on Crasstalk, and she’d be gone from June through to the start of October, which was perfect, as I’d know by mid-September whether or not the job would be a go; after you’ve been self-employed since the last century, going back to working for someone else is a big adjustment, and so it proved. Over and over and over again, but more of that anon…

All was going swimmingly for a couple-three weeks, or as swimmingly as anything can go when it involves me waking up before the crack of noon, when I got an email from the woman from whom I was subletting: things weren’t working out down South, she was coming back. Hokay then: we briefly considered her subletting my co-op in Vancouver but:

  1. I’d left it in No Sublettable Condition, having recently taken delivery of a bunch of extra furniture I was supposed to sell (guess what I didn’t have time to put on Craigslist before I left?) and me being at the best of times no great housekeeper; when you add being seriously ill for a period of months and then in recovery from surgery, you have one epic hell of a messy apartment.
  2. My housing agreement (indeed, ALL co-op housing agreements) specifically outlaw subletting, to discourage profiteering.

So. Back she was coming and what was I going to do about it? Well, as it happens I stayed on the futon in her living room till, with Nancy‘s help, I found a shared house with a sympatico-seeming hippie type at a wicked good price for Yellowknife, and arranged to move in August 1. When we parted I said, “So, unless I hear something from you that everything’s gone sideways,” for lo, I am way cautious, verily dudes. For that carpet has been pulled out from my feet already here in YZF, as you can conclude from the above and if you can’t, take some smart pills and read it again, but where was I? Oh yes, “we’re on for the first of August, right?” She nodded and said, “right,” and we were in business.

Cut to August 1.

There I am, trundling up the walkway to the door. There Nancy is, leaning against her mother’s car, ready to help me with my things. And there the hippie is, walking out the door towards me with a shit-eating grin on her face…take it away, icecoaster:

Who YOU calling a tramp, buddy?

Who YOU calling a tramp, buddy?

Oh, guess what. Sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’ve been offline. Camping, actually. So you couldn’t have gotten in touch with me but, anyway, when I didn’t hear from you I just, you know, sort of figured I’d just go ahead and change my mind. Sorryyyyyy. So, yeah.

So.

It’s a good thing I’ve been scouting out charities to volunteer for, because at least I am well-informed about homeless shelter options in Yellowknife.

Cut to August 2.

There I am, beavering away (does not mean what you think it means; you have a dirty mind. That’s why I like you) at Kellett, doggedly learning that Project Management isn’t my favorite thing in the world but oh well, it must be done. And there I am, doing it. Right there on the lunch table. Because I don’t really have a desk, but that’s another story; well, I have a desk, but it’s in the boardroom, which is down the stairs, down the sidewalk a couple of doors, up some other stairs, and down the hall, but that’s neither here nor there, not either desk which I have.

Make that had a desk.

I get an email from the boss: could I come and see him for about 15 minutes? Sure, of course I can; I may be newish to this “employment” thing, but if there’s one thing I know it’s when the boss says, “could you” you say YES. So I said Yes and was even on time when I got there and when I got there he laid me off.

“Not enough social media work, sorry.”

Imagine my joy.

And then he clarified that, no, he wouldn’t be getting me a ticket back to Vancouver.

Being efficient-like, I went back and packed up my lunch supplies and papers and such (although dammit, I did forget that fresh new case of mini-yogurts in the fridge, and when you’re homeless anything you don’t have to heat up is bonus points) and went back to the place I was couch-surfing until I found a house-sit, and emailed the co-op, figuring, not unreasonably, that they would revise their estimation of the housing charges.

No such luck: because I was employed on August 1 (the holiday) I had to pay over $700 for the Vancouver place. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t also had to pay $1400 for the Yellowknife place in July. Between the two of them, my housing charges for the four weeks I was employed exceeded my net pay by a significant amount. And that’s why I can’t just buy my own ticket back to Vancouver.

Today I got an email that because they don’t yet have the ROE from Kellett proving that I was laid off, my housing charges for September are also over $700.

Ah, but there’s more, if you’re still with me. And if you’re not with me, you’re agin me, as old people with single tooths in their heads are wont to say. Why would anyone wont to say that, though? I ask yez.

So. Thanks again to Nancy, I got a really good house-sitting gig for most of August: handy to stores, three stories, jacuzzi, cushy sofa, big tv, lynxes walking down the driveway. Sweet. After that gig ended, the deal was, I stay with Nancy a few days, house-sitting while she was down South, and then on September 1 I crash on my friend’s futon; this was the place I’d originally sublet. She felt bad enough for me to let me crash there for a few weeks until I fly back to Vancouver on the 18th for Social Media Week.

Cut to today.

I open my email and there, in #000000 and #FFFFFF, it is: the email that says Sorry, you can’t stay here.

Indeed. Apparently I cannot.

But wait, I just thought of something...Teepee for me

But wait, I just thought of something...Teepee for me

nothing to see here, move along

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Big Browser is Watching You

Ah, so this is the writing box. Just testing Windows Live Writer, which I note is an “offline blog editor” which HAS TO BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET IN ORDER TO SET UP.

I’m just sayin’.