I’m looking forward to it. ScaryClown calls Locus ‘oh so trendy’ and I just love pulling down the tone on places like that. A slender 20-something MainSt hipster I am so not; although, candidly, Keith and ScaryClown could pass for that if they wanted to.
PARTAY
We saw Brian C off to his new job in fine style – and I used the opportunity to record Buy me a Beer in front of a live audience. Yes, I got permission from Party Boy and the management of the Golf Course first, so I may be a self-involved putz, but I’m not entirely without a clue. Also, I distributed neck rubs all round, except for the people who said NO, and it’s amazing how many of them I just said, “I know YOU’RE passing” to, and they just looked at me… then the next person would openly mock them and thank their good fortune. This happened more than once, so the cumulative effect was quite funny. One of the people I worked on had been shit on by a crow, but I worked on her ANYWAY because the crow was considerate enough to let fly along her spine well below her shoulders. Also recorded Housewife’s Lament. There were forty people there at the height of the festivities, largest turnout I’ve seen in 11 years of employment…. Maybe 45. There was a LOT of people there. I was going to do a guest list. LTGW gave me, Jeff, Keith and Patricia rides home, or roughly home- the 25 bus was waiting for us at Brentwood, as if it was meant to be.
Another NCIS blowout day. I made waffles for breakfast, unbelievably good meatloaf for dinner, wiped off the back deck table, wiped off the kitchen counters, folded some laundry (which Jeff did, and thanks cats! for urinating on Keith’s bedclothes!) and otherwise did squat. I’m having a lazy day.
Tomorrow Scary Clown and Keith and Jeff and I are going to eat brunch down on Main St. Then in the afternoon I hope to see daughter Katie, who really is a very nice woman to talk to on the phone. And I talked to Peggy, and I talked to my mother, and Mike called to tell me that Bounce’s clone, in the form of a 5 month old male kitten, has cruised into his life. He’s been adopted. That makes him happy. Happier making still is that it’s Jerome’s stag tonight. Mike vaguely quoted the email saying something about how Jerome didn’t want anything too stupid or strange, but uh, anytime I’VE ever gone drinking with those guys, magically delicious, improbably fun things happen, so seeing as how they will be drinking AND the Dalai Jarmo will be there, I suspect a good time will be had by all.
Jeff bought an elcheapo camera to record the antics of the cats in the living room, as time without number one of the cats has done something unutterably cute and we’re blocks from a camera. It lives in the living room now.
I watched my newly posted video a couple of times, and about halfway through the video (deleted as being pretentious bushwah, with a side of smug).
The air conditioner is running. A Kenyan took gold in the marathon. The world is okay.
New Youtube video, Revelation, etc.
No link – it’s not like I’m ashamed of it, I just think it is not exactly… well…. I’m having WAY too much fun singing it, and that is kinda sorta a bad thing. It really should be sung with as close to a straight face as possible, and I just can’t manage that.
Keith and I read my version of Revelation last night and we ended up giggling like idiots. Then it occurred to me… this just plain isn’t respectful to people of faith. In my defence, I’d like to point a couple of things out.
Martin Luther, one of the greatest theologians who ever lived, didn’t like Revelation and wanted it yoinked from the Bible. John Calvin, one of the biggest dickheads who ever lived, and also a good theologian, did a commentary on every book of the New Testament except Revelation and very very rarely referenced it. There was argument among the church fathers right up until the 6th C whether it should even BE in the Bible (so much for Biblical inerrancy…) and the Eastern Orthodox church dislikes it so much that it grudgingly accepted its inclusion in the scripture but refuses to use any of it in its liturgy, an excellent compromise, and exactly the kind of thing a syncretic church should do. After all, that’s exactly what contemporary American Christianity is doing when it ignores the thousand or so references to assisting the poor that occur in both Testaments to focus its mascaraed eyes on the handful of references to queerness. In other words, ignoring what is actively repellent to it, or politically murderous to it, without reference to What God Wants.
So I will continue to Play with Revelation, but I’m only going to be sharing it with those individuals who demonstrate interest.
I note that a Democrat is suing to have Barack Obama’s name stricken from the rolls of Presidential candidates because it turns out he was born in Kenya. Nice. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if they did the same for the lovely and talented John McCain, who was born in the Canal Zone (note to self, aren’t we all, except for the folks delivered by caesarian).
yet more ranting
after the cut… Continue reading yet more ranting
More ranting
After the cut….
Today I’d like to rant about….
Hypocrisy, but my spleen started gnawing on my left eyeball in protest, so I had to find another subject. For a minute I considered a rant about Paul’s driving, a subject that just never gets old, but I decided that is a) too easy and b) not respectful enough. Then I thought of writing about the 100 things I would do if I was the benevolent dictator of my work; and no, it doesn’t involve public humiliation, bondage and urine, although if I was the malevolent dictator of my work that would all be up for grabs, so to speak.
I reviewed the many, many things which can set me off, and as my pulse pounded and my blood pressure started to look like a gauge on a hydraulic actuator, I thought that maybe I should reconsider this whole ranting thing. Ranting is just loose lipped emotion stuffed into a nice subject matter casing and done to a good brown. How does it help a weary and degenerate world? Apart from being entertaining if it’s done right. I mean, my homilies are rants, but prettified, all the cuss words taken out.
Then I thought about… the crush. How can I fail? That, friends, was a rhetorical question. Maybe some other time.
Ooh. I thought about Revelation. You know, the book in the Christian Bible. Continue reading Today I’d like to rant about….
Well hang
The hang drum (pronounced hung) is a Swiss technological breakthrough in musical percussion. Now, thanks to the beauty and glory of the internet, you can virtually play one.
This is not a musical instrument which is available in stores. You literally have to fly to Switzerland, prove yourself worthy, pay up front and wait six months for delivery. Needless to say I covet one badly.
Fearless prediction
We haven’t had a lot of that ‘terrorism’ in Canada.
But I predict that the first bombing by Afghan freedom fighters or Sa’udi/Egyptian/Brit born fundies will be on Canadian soil within a year from today. I’m also predicting that it will either be in a bar or in a shopping district.
Dog owners will find this no surprise
Thankful Thursday
One of the MANY LJ memes is Thankful Thursday.
You make a list of things to be thankful for.
In no particular order:
Lighting candles at Stef and David’s wedding. Unitarians and fire, I tell ya.
Seeing Keith last night and Katie on the weekend.
Friends’ voices on the phone.
Jeff got cream for my coffee.
Jeff is doing my taxes (sing yip and likewise aroo!)
The bus driver who asked me what day it was. (That was also funny).
I don’t have to work shifts.
Fresh bread.
Chris and Kyi and Zari (the kitchen staff at work, and they are NICE and they can COOK).
The sound of spoken Farsi (it is a very cool sounding language).
Finally getting the hang of the barbecue.
Eddie has forgiven me my role in pilling him every morning for five days. Man, that was gross.
The rain is filling up the reservoir and making it less likely that this is the year we lose Stanley Park to a summer wildfire (because, unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time, friends.)
Mark Harmon’s smile.
Nid de guepes
Saw the movie on Jeff’s recommendation, with Keith and Jeff, and LOVed it. Great great action film about an endlessly resourceful group of human beings. Also fed the boys dinner, barbq pork chomps and corn and tater tots (man, if there’s a whiter meal it’s hard to imagine what it would be). Also watched Jeff’s character in Assassin’s Creed assault a beggar woman by rhythmically hip checking her into a building alcove (the sound effects alone had the three of us practically in tears). Also kicked around in discussion some story ideas Keith has been having.
pleasant evening….
How bigotry plays out in the courts
I had met one transgender person in my life before the welcoming congregation process at the U*U church. Then I met two and it was quite startling. There’s no one standard transgender person. You can SAY all women are alike, but you know they’re not. You can SAY all black people are alike, and that’s another damned lie. I can understand the hiring authority being confused, but not staying confused…..
Anyway, it’s a good article and quite thought provoking.
Maybe I shouldn’t record Buy me a Beer after all!
This seems a painful way to encourage alcohol consumption.
I am still recovering from the cavalcade of cheese, but I’ll be in to work as normal this morning, or as close to normal as my inconstant weirdness ever gets.
However, I’m going to poke around and look for another venue, possibly the Heritage Grill, if they’ll let me.
Weeknight
All I’m gonna say about my evening at Patricia’s – I’m home now, it’s 11 pm – is that it was a cavalcade of cheese. Quite literally – some of the finest cheeses for sale in Vancouver were there. Om nom nom. To bed, alone, sigh.
Oh almost forgot Buy me a Beer must be reshot. Now thinking caps of on-ish-ness are put.
Teaching the children to swear
Jeff says he likes it when I rant. Not in person, of course, that’s yucky, but the written rants are okay.
Today I’d like to rant about teaching children to swear.
Now, in traditional child rearing, parents don’t swear and so…. children don’t swear. If they do swear, they get paddled, or grounded, or whatever the traditional punishment method is. Paul and I were not so much with the traditional child rearing, except those parts that are kinda apple pie, like getting them immunized and taking them to school and feeding, clothing and housing them adequately. But we did a lot of non traditional stuff, like nursing until they could talk and cosleeping. And, not to put too fine a point on it, we both swear. Paul is less pungent than I on most occasions, but he can certainly let out a beaut from time to time, and so, we had a dilemma.
The child rearing books frown most creasingly at hypocrisy on the part of parents. We were essentially left with two options; scold the children for imitating us, or – and this was not an easy decision – TRAINING them how to swear. On the face of it, this is nuts, but this is how it works.
About the time the kids start swearing – usually around four but you could probably profitably do it until the kid is about eight – you sit them down with all of the words, and you go through them all. FIRST. Do not assume that children know what the words mean. Make sure they know. This took almost an hour, because the kids got right into the swing of things, and also there were many side trips… kike, paki, chink and nigger took a long while to explain especially to kids who were in racially balanced daycare from the time they were tiny, and went to equally racially balanced schools. SECOND. Having defined the words, EXPLAIN WHY THEY HURT. The blasphemy words hurt people who are religious, the bodily function words hurt people who are squeamish, the slurs hurt real people ‘Fag” being an example, even if partly recovered by Dan Savage – anyway, you get the idea. You don’t tell kids that the words are bad, you tell them that they have varying effects on different people, and that some people would rather be slapped than listen to foul language. THIRD. You tell them – and this is really important – that there is not a single word on that list that they can’t say, in or out of context, at home. You also give them a list of adults they may swear in front of. In other words, you kinda sorta keep a secret – that there are people who know, and people who don’t know. There are people on the inside, and people on the outside. There isn’t a four year old on the planet who isn’t familiar with this level of mild social hypocrisy but you’re also providing a safety valve in case the kids need to talk about something important with a family intimate – who isn’t you – thank you Jan and Soon and Catherine. FOURTH You give them the Canonical List of people NOT TO SWEAR IN FRONT OF.
- Grandparents, font of all prezzies. Why? Because when little kids swear, it’s not their fault, it’s the parents’ fault, and you don’t want the grands to think we’re bad parents, right? I know you aren’t going to believe this, but this is precisely the kind of reasoning you can use on a child that age. Then you casually mention the prezzies again. Kids aren’t stupid. Also, we mentioned older folks, as having a higher standard of behaviour than the rest of us.
- Babysitters and babysitters’ children. Why? Because babysitters can hire and fire us, and if we make life difficult for them or are ‘bad influences’ on their kids, out the door we will go. Kids got that one in a real hurry.
- Schoolteachers and schoolmates. Why? It’s not worth the hassle.
- Anything in a uniform. It can be a busdriver or an escalator repair mechanic, but if you get out of the habit of swearing in front of uniformed individuals, you will be in good shape later.
At the end of our dialogue – imagine keeping the attention of a four year old girl and a six year old boy for two hours, which we did, and many times Paul and I were blown away by the observational skills and emotional savvy both kids demonstrated that day – the kids had a working knowledge of swearing and they didn’t break training until Katie was 11. After that I didn’t really care – nobody was expecting me & Paul to have ‘control’ over their behaviour at that point anyway.
YMMV. Blessed be!