My new drag queen name

You know how it goes. That thing.

That thing we used to do, remember, where you take the name of your first pet and the name of the street you grew up on? Trouble is, a lot of people grew up on streets that were numbered, which did not sound very drag-queenish.

Some people's PETS might be numbered, too - Uno comes to mind, and he did OK with that handle. But in any case, mine came out pretty good: Skippy Victoria, which has just the right note of androgyny, and a sassyness contrasting nicely with Victorian propriety.

Pretty hot stuff.

(I'm working up to it, I'm working up to it!) Tonight I got thinking about obsolete products, things that were wildly popular just for a little while, and how lame and ridiculous they seem now. As I always do when curious or perplexed, I turned to YouTube, and voila - 

I found the original ad for something that took the pop-guzzling world by storm in the early '90s, before plummeting into permanent oblivion.

The ad, a true classic of obnoxious inspiration, seems to hammer away at a couple of key concepts: how naturalness is preferable to artificiality (? Can't say it any other way), how individuality is crucial in a world that would flatten our unique contributions, about how there's a new world a-coming which is going to blow everybody's socks off, but NOT through technology (because back then in 1992 technology WASN'T the omnipresent monster it is today, though ironically it was still seen as a monster), and. . .

And: RIGHT NOW. Right now, right now, right now, right now, right now.

Yes. Here it is, as exquisite and perfect as the Mona Lisa, every Madison Avenue copy boy's wet dream:

 CRYSTAL PEPSI.

And here at last is the point of this entire inane, silly post: this is my NEW drag queen name! I think Crystal Pepsi is far superior to Skippy Victoria. She's my old, haggard, slatternly drag queen persona, and Crystal Pepsi is my new, wink-y, soft-drink-y, bubbly, clearly crystalline persona, one of those "natural" drag queens that doesn't really wear any makeup or high heels or prosthetics.

Hey, what do you mean they don't exist? Fine name, though.

No guns, no shootings: are you crazy?

I just posted a Facebook comment, and how I wish I hadn't, in response to another comment, and how I wish I hadn't read it, by a guy who was blustering on and on about the Second Amendment and Constitutional Rights, etc. etc. so you knew where he was coming from without asking, and he says at one point, in all-caps of course, SO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT YOU THINK IF ALL GUN OWNERS SURRENDERED ALL THEIR WEAPONS, THERE WOULD BE NO MORE MASS SHOOTINGS?

I answered, well, uh, sir, um. Uh, YEAH, that's the way it would be; if there were no guns, there'd be no shootings. Eh?

"What, what, what," I can hear him (and others of his ilk) spluttering. "That's - that's impossible. That wouldn't change anything! It would just infringe on our Constitutional rights!"

But it would. It would change everything. 

Even though to many, many people, being without guns is unthinkable, it's thinkable. It is. People just haven't realized it yet.

There was a time when most Americans believed slavery was acceptable, if not desirable and/or an innate right. Then things began to change. Certain people began to speak out, people who saw it as an innate wrong. 

Sometimes, when the time is ripe, history lifts up the right leader. So along came that cat named Abraham Lincoln. And then a funny thing happened.

After a long and incredibly bloody war, during which one whole side wouldn't let go of their entrenched ideology and/or their weaponry, - POOF - or (bang!) - slavery was no longer acceptable.

In fact -

In fact, slavery no longer existed. All the slaves were set free. All of them. At once.

That doesn't mean all the problems were solved, but the problems changed. Those former slaves needed/deserved to build decent lives for themselves, with the same rights and privileges as everyone else. The transition was so rocky that some people think it's still being made to this day.

Am I making my point here? Slavery was acceptable - just a given. Could you do anything about it? Of course not. The commerce of an entire country was built on the backs of slaves, so why would anyone want to?

Then someone wanted to. Then a lot of someones.

Then slavery was unacceptable. Then a war was fought, and when the dust settled, it no longer existed. 

New ideas or good ideas or shit-disturbing/revolutionary/incredibly simple and powerful ideas always start off as impossible/impractical or even insane ideas and have to be shouted down. Hey, we can't do that! YOU can't do that! It's - it's, well - we've just never done it that way! Or: it's immoral, or: God doesn't like it. Or it violates my Constitutional rights.

We can't get rid of all the guns!

Then we'd have no guns. NO GUNS? 

(But that doesn't mean we'd have no shootings. Does it?)

Uhmmmm. 

Yes.

Afterthought. I like to tack on things I couldn't work into the main body of my post. I'm not sure how to say this one, but it's been rolling around in my head all day, and even before that - ever since the latest carnage/atrocity that destroyed dozens of valuable, irreplaceable human lives.

There's a lot of talk about the Constitution and the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms, etc., when the wording of the original statement seems so irrelevant to me that I have to twist it into a pretzel before it means anything at all.

But with all this talk of rights and freedoms, what about my right, your right, OUR right to peace of mind? What about being able to go to school or church or a night club without fear of being shot to death? We're beginning to think of these horrors as a fundamental fact of life, something we can't do anything about.

When that happens, we stop trying for anything better.

I have a right, you have a right, they have a right. WE ALL have a right to not have to worry about our kids and grandkids being killed, their future stopped. I remember a time, and it was not so long ago, when these things simply did not happen, when mass murder was so rare as to be almost unheard-of. There was no familiar pattern of groaning and sighing every few months: "oh God, not another one," and waiting to find out the sickening circumstances.

People are starting to act as if nothing can be done.

If they think nothing can be done, nothing can be done.

A gun can be picked up. A gun can be put down. It can be surrendered; confiscated; thrown away. The ammunition can be pulled out of it forever.

No guns = no shootings. Too simple; it can't be so. But how could it be anything but true?

At arm's length from the carnage

I supported gun control in Canada since the 1980s with regular donations that were withdrawn from my bank account. During a couple of decades, in some groups, I dared not admit this bec. 'we're entitled to guns' mentality. I hope my small part along with that of many others, has helped keep Canada at arm's length from the carnage shootings happening with our neighbours. Prayers are not enough - clear action will work better. and soon!!

OK, maybe they mean well, but Americans are speaking a different language here, and it's based on what they know about themselves (and nothing more).

The above is an actual Facebook comment from an American, not a "friend" but someone commenting on somebody else's post. It indicates she thinks Canada has a passionate anti-gun lobby that has worked, and worked, and worked like mad over many decades to keep guns under control and keep them from getting into the hands of its citizens.

What?!

There's no anti-gun lobby in Canada. That's like saying we have to lobby like mad to grow maple trees. There's no gun control. We don't have guns. 

I'm not saying there are NO guns in Canada. Cops have them. Sportsmen have them, though the regulations are extremely stringent. Aboriginal people living in the North need them to hunt for their meals.

Um, people.

I don't see, nor do I hear, nor have I ever in my lifetime heard anyone jumping up and down with signs in Canada saying, "NO! GUNS! NO! GUNS! NO! GUNS!" I don't hear any politicians giving impassioned speeches about everyone putting down their weapons.

Nor do I hear anyone thanking the Americans from the bottom of their hearts for saving us from the scourge of guns with their generous donations.  I honestly don't know what she is talking about, though I guess her heart is in the right place for having those anti-gun sentiments. And her money must have gone somewhere. The Let's Make Sure We Don't Change Our Minds About Guns campaign?

But the plain truth is, we don't need American money (or even our own) to keep us on the brink of the precipice. We don't "think" gun, own gun, rave about gun. Gangs have them, but they're GANGS, ladies and gentlemen, gangsters, criminals! Every country in the world has criminals.

When I hear about some woman on a show like Dateline saying, "I heard something downstairs, so I grabbed my gun. . .", the gulf just widens.

My gun.

Where is "my" gun? WHAT gun?

We don't speak gun.

DISARM

"We are the Champions": Cardinals WIN THE SERIES!

 

And Ryan played so well! His skills have just grown by leaps and bounds this season. Grandma and Grandpa attended the final playoff game and cheered themselves hoarse. He poses with a very proud Dad and Mom, and a cherished trophy and cup.

WAY TO GO, RYAN! GO CARDINALS!!!

Orlando: a total disconnect

I am trying to get my mind off this, because I just got home from a terrific Little League game in which my grandson's team SMOKED the competition and won the trophy. I guess I shouldn't have watched the Dateline I recorded from last night, because the scheduled show had been pre-empted by coverage of what happened in Orlando. 

The show had been thrown together in a hurry and the seams showed, but what really irritated me was the utter, total bafflement and bewilderment everyone expressed at the "causes" of all these mass shootings (not just terrorist-related ones, but ALL of them - the whole litany of them, they kept going over and over them, even showing little flags stuck on maps).

Everyone talked around and around the issue, and there was a lot of hand-wringing as well as a lot of bombast about holding our heads high and not being afraid of evil, etc. etc. (and subtle, though denied fingerpointing at Muslims), but NOT ONCE did ANYONE mention gun control and the fact weapons are so unregulated and ridiculously easy to attain in the USA. They kept droning on and on about America's atrocious record regarding mass shootings, but STILL did not make the connection to lack of regulation of firearms and a "gun mentality" based on the ludicrous notion of a "second amendment". In fact it was a complete and total disconnect. 

What do mass shootings have to do with gun control? Those concerns are for the PBS crowd - rarefied intellectuals who don't know enough to keep a gun in their bureau drawer (and another one in the closet, and another one in the refrigerator, and a few out in the garage and in the basement) for "home defense" and "security". Those concerns are for people who are basically out of touch with reality. The only way to fight gunfire is with gunfire! If all those people in the nightclub had been armed, by God. . . 

I don't know how it is for the average American, if there is such a thing, but I have to tell you that I don't think I have ever seen a gun, not in person. I've certainly never touched one, and the only person I've ever known who owned guns collected antique rifles that he never fired. Thus, to me, a Canadian, guns should be relatively invisible. 

But it's the other way around.

By the end of the Dateline special my head was spinning around and around. Their mentality existed across a very deep, wide gulf of misunderstanding - in fact, a yawning chasm - and these were *news* people, seasoned reporters like Keith Morrison and Tom Brokaw, and terrorism experts who have even written books about the subject (and thus know everything about it). I swear to you, they looked directly at the problem, stared it right in the face, and didn't see it.

How many fucking enemies do you have? (and other questions to ask yourself)

A few quotes from Australian comedian Jim Jefferies. (Are you sure you're not from Canada?)

In Australia, we had the biggest massacre on earth, and the Australian government went: "That's it! NO MORE GUNS." And we all went, "Yeah, all right then, that seems fair enough, really."

Now in America, you had the Sandy Hook massacre, where little tiny children died. And your government went, "Maybe … we'll get rid of the big guns?" And 50 percent of you went, "FUCK YOU, DON'T TAKE MY GUNS."

He hammers home the idea that Americans keep guns just because they enjoy them, not because they seriously think they can protect themselves:

You have guns because you like guns! That's why you go to gun conventions; that's why you read gun magazines! None of you give a shit about home security. None of you go to home security conventions. None of you read Padlock Monthly. None of you have a Facebook picture of you behind a secure door.

And Jefferies also notes that the underlying mentality behind American gun culture, that people are always out to get you, is utterly bizarre:

By the way. Most people who are breaking into your house just want your fucking TV! You think that people are coming to murder your family? How many fucking enemies do you have?

Orlando shootings: things fall apart

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Given the fact that mass bloodletting has become standard fare on the daily news, this viscerally terrifying piece of literature has become eerily prescient. We've all conditioned ourselves to that reaction, the sickening gut-drop that goes along with the revelation that there has been "another one". Oh no. Where is it this time? Who got it, a school, a church, a club? How many? I no longer want to hear statistics because, to tell you the truth, I'd rather not fall into a clinical depression that I might not come out of.

Silly of me, isn't it? That I should care that much? (When I was part of the anti-nuclear crusade in the '80s, I was repeatedly told I "cared too much" and should stop.) Yes, I care that much, because I am tired of denial and playing down the facts, tired of forcing blood-soaked chaos into the comforting box of statistics - and, most of all, tired of the way I view the gun fanatics, yahooing and going "pow! pow!" on their rearing horses while brandishing semi-automatic rifles. "We have the right to bear arms!"

It is the constitutional right of Americans to legally own weapons that allow them to open fire and massacre dozens and dozens of human beings, civilians, for the simple reason that they are having the "wrong" sort of fun in the "wrong" sort of place.

Or, for that matter, for no reason at all.

I am tired of all this atrocity and feel overwhelmed and wrung-out. But I am even more tired of the thugs who claim this is all the fault of those goddamn Muslims. Keep them out of the country, they're clearly a threat! (Somebody has already gotten a lot of mileage out of that one.) No matter if the terrorists, from without or within the country, follow the most twisted, corrupted, even unrecognizable form of Islam ever invented, worse even than the "Christianity" practiced by Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan. 

And I am VERY tired of reading this in the news: "Converted to Islam and joined Isis." "Converted to Islam and became radicalized/murdered/bombed/raped" - and so on, and so on. Though no one will ever listen to me about this, I think it should be "Converted to Islam, BUT joined Isis." In other words, "converted" - though not in any meaningful sense of the word - and then proceeded to violate every law and precept that Islam stands for.

I can't deal with this, so I try to push it away. It's a common strategy. I do this not just for myself, but because I don't want to present a pale, anxious face to my grandkids, who are only trying to experience a "normal" childhood. But this is a new normal, isn't it? What do we say to our children and our grandchildren about the world they are about to inherit?

Somebody keeps posting a stupid meme on Facebook, one of those "hey, folks, it's really not that bad, because people are basically decent and kind" types. In the meme, Mr. Rogers is asking his Mommy why bad things have to happen. "Don't worry, Freddie," she tells him. "You must look to the helpers. In any bad situation, there are always helpers nearby to pitch in and make everything all right again." It's not exactly a lie, but why are so many people being forced into service to mop up all the blood? Yet this is the kind of thing people eat up now, perhaps because they're terrified down to their guts, but more likely because they're just numb.

I've never had much of a gift for numbness, if gift it is. I'm reminded of the Joan Baez song I recently posted (Diamonds and Rust). To paraphrase, "I could use some of that vagueness now, because it's all so clear to me. . ." 

Do we really think that we, here in pallid, passive Canada, can do anything to stop all this? It is escalating, and that fucking asshole Trump continues to congratulate himself for being "right about the terrorists". Score another point for yourself, Donald. He could win, you know. He could. What will happen then, if Donald Trump is President of the United States? Aren't things  bad enough as they are?

I will have to leave climate change aside for now, though Trump is a full-scale denier who has the worst priorities on the planet. The one time I wrote an honest piece about climate change and how I see the future, I lost four long-time followers in the space of a few hours. This had never happened before, and it opened my eyes. For one thing, I never thought I had many steady readers - hey, listen, I do appreciate the ones I have, though I'd probably keep posting if no one read this because I enjoy doing it. I mostly keep this on the side of satire and oddity, because to be honest it makes ME feel better, releases a few particles of endorphins to get me through my long and often weary day.

So I don't write many pieces like this, because they don't really help, do they? They don't make me feel better, don't make ANYONE feel better, and do nothing to alter the situation. The same thing will happen all over again, only I can predict it will be far worse. If I seem like a party pooper and you'd rather not read this, OK, I get it, because my predictions tend to be a little dark. We don't know if these attacks on innocent civilians are organized (though Isis boasts about them whether they are or not), or the act of individual "nut cases" (as people with mental illness are sometimes called - well, it's better than "whack job", isn't it?). But they are having the desired effect of throwing everyone off-balance, especially children who are expected to grow up stable and productive in an atmosphere of wariness and chronic tension. Not just tension, but fear for their lives. The helpers may be there, to be sure, but why, in God's name, do we need so goddamn many of them?

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/06/im_gonna_die_son_texts_mother.html

Mina Justice was sound asleep when she received the first text from her son, Eddie Justice, who was in the gay nightclub when a gunman opened fire and slaughtered 50 and wounded more than 50 others. Here is the conversation she had over text message with her 30-year-old son.

"Mommy I love you," the first message said. It was 2:06 a.m.

"In club they shooting."

Mina Justice tried calling her 30-year-old son. No answer.

Alarmed and half awake, she tapped out a response.

"U ok"

At 2:07 a.m., he wrote: "Trapp in bathroom."

Justice asked what club, and he responded: "Pulse. Downtown. Call police."

Then at 2:08: "I'm gonna die."

Now wide awake, Justice dialed 911.

She sent a flurry of texts over the next several minutes.

"I'm calling them now.

U still in there

Answer our damn phone

Call them

Call me."

The 911 dispatcher wanted her to stay on the line. She wondered what kind of danger her son was in. He was normally a homebody who liked to eat and work out. He liked to make everyone laugh. He worked as an accountant and lived in a condo in downtown Orlando.

"Lives in a sky house, like the Jeffersons," she would say. "He lives rich."

She knew he was gay and at a club — and all the complications that might entail. Fear surged through her as she waited for his next message.

At 2:39 a.m., he responded:

"Call them mommy

Now."

He wrote that he was in the bathroom.

"He's coming

I'm gonna die."

Justice asked her son if anyone was hurt and which bathroom he was in.

"Lots. Yes," he responded at 2:42 a.m.

When he didn't text back, she sent several more messages. Was he with police?

"Text me please," she wrote.

"No," he wrote four minutes later. "Still here in bathroom. He has us. They need to come get us."

At 2:49 a.m., she told him the police were there and to let her know when he saw them.

"Hurry," he wrote. "He's in the bathroom with us."

She asked, "Is the man in the bathroom wit u?"

At 2:50 a.m.: "He's a terror."

Then, a final text from her son a minute later: "Yes."

More than 15 hours after that text, Justice still hasn't heard from her son. She and a dozen family and friends are at a hotel that has become a staging area for relatives awaiting news. Any news.

"His name has not come up yet and that's scary. It's just ..." she paused and patted hear heart. "It's just, I got this feeling. I got a bad feeling."

Updated June 13 at 12:55 p.m. It was confirmed Eddie Justice was killed in the attack.

Capybaras in the news

One of two fugitive capybaras captured

PROVINCIAL

by 570NEWS STAFF

Posted Jun 13, 2016 6:00 am EDT

Last Updated Jun 13, 2016 at 6:00 am EDT

One fugitive caught. One to go.

After a two and a half week taste of freedom, one of the High Park capybaras has been caught.

A High Park Zoo official confirmed the capture on Sunday but has not yet provided any further details.

A video posted by Renda on Instagram shows staff taking the capybara away in a crate.





The search continues for the second capybara.

The two female capybaras escaped from their pen at the High Park Zoo on May 24, as zoo workers were moving a third capybara into the enclosure.

One of them was spotted on June 5, but was not captured. City staff said traps were set the next morning.

Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents. Fully grown, they can reach over four feet in height and can weigh as much as 140 pounds – they also look like large guinea pigs. They enjoy swimming and don’t like children.

The escape led to a parody Twitter account, an online video game, and joking comments from Mayor John Tory about forming a search party.

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The perpetually burning building

A white doe on the green grass

A white doe on the green grass 
appeared to me, with two golden horns, 
between two rivers, 

in the shade of a laurel, 
when the sun was rising in an unripe season.

Her look was so sweet and proud 

that to follow her I left every task, 

like the miser who as he seeks treasure 

sweetens his trouble with delight.

"Let no one touch me," she bore 

written with diamonds and topazes 

around her lovely neck. 

"It has pleased my Caesar to make me free."

And the sun had already turned at midday; 
my eyes were tired

by looking but not sated, 

when I fell into the water, and she

disappeared.