i've pointed this out before: if i were to go back to school today on a serious basis, my interest would neither be in art nor in science but in financial markets. but, i wouldn't be looking to get a job in the industry, so much as i'd be looking to find a way to live off of a small investment - stocks, bonds, etc. and, i wouldn't be looking to actively trade to maximize profit, so much as i'd be looking for a way to properly finance my activities as an artist.

i never planned to end up on disability, but, once i ended up on it, i realized that it is, in fact, what i wanted - with the caveat that it could always be a little more. and, it could always be a little more. it's the nature of it.

at this stage in life, i would be looking towards the education system as a way to emulate my existing living situation, rather than to abolish it or transform it. where i am right now is a lot better than where i was, but my only real concern about living in low income housing is trying to avoid the second-hand smoke. but, see...i don't think this is limited to low-income housing, at least not in this city. buying a house probably wouldn't resolve the issue - i'd just end up with neighbours smoking on their porches.

if i had a larger nest egg, a modern condo in a newer building would be a way out. hopefully.

but, do i want to change my lifestyle? my thrust of existence? what i do? no. this is exactly what i want. i just need to catch up and get back on track - and hope the government doesn't ruin it.

is the simpsons "problematic"?

well, i'm going to flip the situation over: perhaps the reason that the stereotypes it uses resonated with people so dominantly was because they accurately reflected their lived experiences, at the time.

now, these things are subject to change. i don't want to create a linear model, here, or think that trying to understand social progress through representations in prime time cartoons is very useful (i think the gender streotypes in children's programming today are far more offensive than anything i've ever seen in a simpsons episode, and that we've broadly moved very far backwards on gender since the mid-90s), but i can recognize that people have different experiences, both shared and individually. so, if you're younger, it's ok to look at a simpsons episode and say "this was created before i could walk, and i don't understand the social context around it.". i don't understand harry potter, or miley cyrus, or any of the other things that define the generation of people younger than me - nor do i understand archie bunker, or three's company, or mash, or the effects that this programming had on people older than me. i don't even understand south park, to use a somewhat worthwhile comparison. so, we're all going to have some difficulties understanding each other, and that's ok. it's when we say "i don't understand this. therefore, it's wrong." that we start turning into self-righteous, moralistic zealots that deserve to be laughed at. and, you know who was always really good at taking on self-righteous moralistic zealots, by laughing at them?

that said, as it is the case that things change, one wonders why this show is still on the air. i haven't watched it in over 15 years. you will find that the people that identify with it the strongest are also the loudest voices for cancellation, and that has been true for a long time.

so, is the show "problematic"? i guess it's all relative, isn't it?

but, it's mostly an irrelevant question.

i mean, it might feel good to get a result like this, but it's not really what i'm angling at.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-cop-pot-charges-1.4899645

again, i'm kind of struck by how forward thinking that last track i posted was.

i will get back to posting music asap. i promise. life took an unexpected turn, and i think i'm back on track, now. but, there's a process, and i need to have it done in sequence. i have an absolute deadline of the end of '99 to finish this period disc, remember.

you may listen to the track and hear something that is foreshadowing something like this:

but, it is probably better to see it as a missing link. the alpha document is here:

otherwise, i guess i've been in a down swing over the last few days - i didn't really wake up yesterday, or finish the last parts of the august rebuild. the day is now done, so i guess we'll have to put those things off until monday.

it's dry in here, but i doubt that is the reason i've been tired. more likely is that i'm behind on my eating - i just had my scheduled tuesday meal, this morning. but i also have a habit of getting unfocused between projects. otherwise, i'm still a little concerned about the pollution in the neighbourhood, even if the direct issue of second-hand smoke seems to have largely disappeared, for now. or, maybe i can't tell.

the first half of the airwalk order came in yesterday - the red ones. these appear to be decently constructed shoes, but we'll find out over time. they may have been returns, but there's a sticker for $80 on them. again - it said they were new shoes. but, they were marked right down to $30. i don't see anything obviously wrong with them, besides a little bit of dirt on the bottom. so, i guess you mark returned shoes down when they're like this, but it would have been better if the store was honest. we'll see what the second pair looks like. if the second pair is brand brand new, i think i have an argument to replace the red ones, but it might not be actually possible - everybody else was out of stock, and it doesn't seem like they're going to keep doing this.

listen, i get it - the brand name is unpopular. but, i was always the kid with the cheap shoes. i'll wear the unpopular shoes if they're more comfortable, and happily call you stupid for buying into the marketing.

i guess the weekend is now here, so i just need to get to the list of stuff and get to it.

i should get through the bureaucracy first. one thing at a time.

so, i seem to have succeeded in getting the file pulled from the windsor police. we'll see where it goes from there. it's the conflict of interest that is at the crux of this, because i suspect it has to do with the property owner.

i can't talk like this in official communications because i can't prove it yet, but it's pretty obvious to me that what is going on is that this property owner tossed me in jail to prevent me from suing her for discrimination in housing. the conditions on the recognizance are that i'm not to communicate indirectly or directly for a year - which technically means i can't file, but i'd like to see the cops bring me before a judge and argue i should be imprisoned for filing a discrimination lawsuit, against the recognizance terms. that would be so outrageous that i might even be willing to go through with it for the benefit of the discrimination case - it would just help the case. and, the reason i'm holding off is to wait until more information comes out - although what i really want is the "victim impact statement" that was read to me, where the property owner literally stated "you are not welcome here". that is the smoking gun i needed to file.

so, i suspect that the conflict of interest has to do with the cop's relationship with the property owner. getting this in some kind of writing is fundamental to the various claims i'm going to be pursuing. but, we'll see what kind of information comes up through the official investigation. and, if i can get a good, unbiased investigation from the oiprd, i should be able to use it in multiple contexts.

so, i'm pushing for the possibility of charges against the cop, and i'm not unserious - i think what he did was harassment in the literal sense, and he should face some kind of punishment for it. but, what i really want is that report.

it's similar to the issue with the woman smoking drugs in the last apartment. i never expected anybody to arrest this woman. however, i was hoping that creating a paper trail would help with an eviction process - and, in the end, it did help with the court process that gave me a rent reduction and got me out of the lease. so, it worked. but, i was explicit over the call - and it is actually in the report - that when i called the police to the apartment, it was not because i wanted this person sent to jail, but because i wanted documentation to use for the housing tribunals. it is obviously the case that i had no interest in this woman's well-being in any way at all - that i was perfectly willing to drag her through the mud for my own purposes. but, i actually made it clear to the cops when they showed up that i wasn't seeking criminal charges, i was just building a legal case.

i don't really care what happens to this cop - which means that i don't care if i have to get him fired to get what i want, in the end. i mean, he clearly doesn't understand what harassment is, in a legal sense, and needs some training on the topic, sure. and, he clearly should have gone to a judge to get a warrant. the sum of this is probably legally harassment in itself, but can a cop plead ignorance over malice? my concern is more related to getting the documentation required to seek compensation.

like i say - we'll see what the director says. but, i don't know how he could put the police in charge of this investigation, given that they've already declared themselves in conflict. i'm not sure exactly what the next step should be, but that the cops themselves can't be in charge of this is really a no-brainer.

if it goes to a different office, it probably shouldn't be the chatham office, either.

as mentioned, it's probably the case that i would have horribly disappointed her and she'd have cried all night and never spoken to me again...although, she had never really spoken to me in the first place, so i guess it would have been a minimal loss, on a purely conversational level.

i also suspect that i may have been in some kind of physical danger from her father, if i were to have actually gone within a fifty foot radius of her house. and, i wouldn't have really blamed him - at the time, even. i had no business being in that neighbourhood for any reason other than to mow the lawn, not even on his daughter's invitation.

worse, i don't know how many years of imagining the future came into this, or what kind of completely off-base projections were put into it. teenage girls with 99.5% averages are still teenage girls, after all. obviously. maybe she thought i wanted to be an engineer, or something. who knows. really.

but, if we had hit it off that night, due to some fluke, would it have changed my future path? this is one of those alternate history games, i guess.

i would have to assume that deciding that i enjoy spending time with this girl would require me to actually take my schooling seriously, for once. but, see, here's the twist on that - if i had decided to take my schooling more seriously, i would have probably transferred into an arts program. my whole way through university, i always saw it as some kind of back-up plan. i spent years in a math program, but i didn't really want to be a mathematician, whatever that means - i never intended to work for the government, or to be a professor, or to even be a high school teacher, or at least not seriously. the key point is that i really didn't know what i wanted to study, or if i wanted to study anything at all, so i just stumbled through it, without any real desired end point - and then, when i got to the end of it, the only reason i bothered finishing it was just for the sake of finishing it. i haven't looked at a math text book since.

because i've never been interested in dating or starting a family, i've never been incentivized to do well in school or get a good job in order to make me more attractive to potential mates or partners. i've actually made the opposite argument - that because i'm not interested in dating, it follows that i have little interest in climbing up the hierarchies in the labour force; my disinterest in labour is a consequence of my disinterest in relationships. but, this is all an analysis from a distance, so to say. there is a possibility that i may have had a stronger incentive system open up in the presence of a concrete set of options, rather than an abstraction of possibilities.

the truth is that it's more likely that i would have become intimidated by the bourgeois nature of her lifestyle and retreated, or that she would have grown impatient with me for being lower class, but there is some possibility that it may have driven me - and that even if it didn't work out, it may have had a longer term effect on me.

if the encounter would have been effective in altering my incentive system, the flip side of that is that i would have no doubt spent much less time on music over the next few years. i'm not convinced that would be a net positive in the broader arch of my life, even if others think it might be - the sum of it may have been a more normal path through these years, at the expense of a deeper level of depression.

so, would i be better off today if i had had stronger incentives during my university years to actually participate and perform? on paper, perhaps. but i think i'd have ended up miserable, in the end, and not despite it but because of it.

yet, this is all very speculative, and i think little would have been accomplished outside of me smashing down her preconceptions and false projections of me - and that would have been difficult for any teenage girl to go through on prom night.

so, if i didn't want to go to prom with the valedictorian, where was my head in the early summer of 2000?

i didn't work that summer. it was a part of a bribe to get me to go to school, because i wasn't otherwise interested in going. at that point in my life, i would have been perfectly happy to work 30 hours a week at the wendy's and spend most of my time in my basement creating art, so i actually didn't even initially intend to go to the pre-university year at all - i intended to just graduate grade 12 and be done with it. because i had never really had a conversation with this girl, i suppose she had no idea of what my longterm perspective on life really was - but it certainly was not to go to school and get a good job at that particular point, and the fact is that it really never was. but, my dad had decided quite some time before this that i ought to be an engineer (something i at no point in my life ever expressed the slightest interest or inclination towards), so he bribed me into going to grade 13 by giving me spending money on an as-needs basis.

it was over this summer that i picked up the classical guitar for the first time, but i think that would have been after prom. july, i think.

what i was doing that night was probably working out parts for this track, and i was probably very immersed in it, and disinterested in doing much of anything else:



there is also some possibility that i may have spent some time in a friend's basement smoking marijuana with a group of kids in the neighbourhood from low income families, but i don't have any explicit memory of doing so.

like i say - it caught me off guard. she wasn't my type; it didn't really make any sense. and, i never really worked through what she was imagining.

but, yeah. that's true - i turned down the valedictorian for prom, and stayed home and played guitar, instead.

to be clear: i'm not technically a virgin.

i've had sex something like 350 times, all with the same person, in the period from 2002-2006. it was actually a lot of sex, in a short amount of time. but, she seemed to be enjoying it more than i was.

she liked sex. a lot.

but, it was never "heterosexual sex" in any kind of understood way. which is perhaps hard to grasp without getting graphic. you know the way you imagine boys and girls having sex, when you think of it? not necessarily missionary, but the general idea, anyways. well, it was never anything remotely like that. ever. at all. she seemed to want that, but realized it wasn't coming from me - and the mutual dissatisfaction just rendered the thing pointless, after a while. she used to complain that i was very good at getting her extremely worked up, like crazy aroused, but that i had no ability to finish the job - that i wasn't able to do the thing boys are supposed to do in that situation, and that we all imagine sex is like when we think of it. but, of course i wasn't able to do that - because i didn't want her to interpret me as a boy at all. i had a penis hanging there the whole time, but i was continually making a very conscious effort to avoid using it. she had to pin me down.

i've sworn off of it since. entirely.

so, i can say i'm a virgin in the sense of never really having sex in a male role - of never actually having intercourse in a masculine way. and, i haven't. but, i'm not a virgin in a technical sense, and i may have had more sex over those three or so years than a lot of people have in a decade.

got a letter from the cops.

I am currently in receipt of your OIPRD complaint, received by the Windsor Police Professional Standards office on November 5, 2018. If at all possible, I would like to discuss with you your wishes regarding this complaint, and how to resolve it and or investigate further. I am under the impression that you were informed by the OIPRD of the Informal Resolution program, which I would be happy to discuss with you further.  It has been my experience that the Informal Resolution program is an excellent measure to resolve public complaints about the police and most often leaves both the complainant and the involved police officer with a better understanding of each other. If you wish, you may speak with the officer directly or I can shuttle your concerns to the officer involved as well. If this is not something that interests you, I would be happy to explain the investigative process, and arrange a time to conduct an interview with you in regards to your complaint.

Please feel free to contact me by email or at the phone number below.

Kind regards,

this is my response:

i do not have confidence in the windsor police to conduct a review of
this matter, as you have already declared yourself in a conflict of
interest on this file. this is in your own omission, and i expect you
to excuse yourself, as you already have.

i am not interested in an informal resolution process; i want a
thorough review by an outside body.

i will follow up with ======== by phone in the morning.

===

i meant to say admission rather than omission. i apologize; my
"morning" coffee is just kicking in.

i want to be more explicit as to why i'm rejecting an informal
resolution, and why i'm pushing for an outside review.

i made a complaint about what was essentially police harassment on
sept 14th. on sept 24th, i was arrested without a warrant on a hybrid
charge and held without cause for nearly 24 hours. on the day after my
first appearance, i was told that the case would be being moved to
chatham due to a conflict of interest in the windsor office. the
chatham office is not seeking jail time but a year of probation on a
summary conviction; i claim that there is no evidence against me in
the case, and i expect the charges to either be dropped or for the
case to be dismissed.

i do not know details regarding the conflict of interest at this time,
however i believe that the reasons i was both arrested and charged on
behaviour that i claim is not criminal are due to the nature of this
conflict of interest. at the least, it does not make sense for the
department to excuse itself from a prosecution based on a conflict of
interest, and then carry out an investigation of the circumstances
leading to charges around that prosecution. if it feels that the
conflict is serious enough that it cannot prosecute - as it has
already stated - then it must also feel that the conflict is serious
enough that it cannot investigate. nor could the results of such an
investigation be taken seriously, if presented in a court of law - and
you should expect that the results of this investigation will be
presented in a court of law, in time.

i feel that i was harassed by the officer, but it will not be clear if
the harassment is substantive enough to press charges until the
investigation is completed, including a full understanding of the
nature of the conflict on the file. i do, however, believe that there
is a very good reason to think that charges against the officer will
eventually be laid.

i am a model citizen with a clean record, advanced university degrees
and a nexus card, and am not going to just go away. i don't want this
dealt with as quickly as possible, i want the officer held fully
accountable in as lengthy and as thorough a process as is necessary.
this cannot happen again.

so, i will repeat the following:

1) the windsor police have already declared a conflict of interest on
this file and are consequently obligated to excuse themselves from
investigating the matter further.
2) no reasonable person would be able to express confidence in the
ability of the windsor police to carry out this review, nor would the
findings hold up in a court of law, as they must, eventually.
3) i claim that there is a reasonable possibility that charges may be
led against the officer, and that an independent investigation is
required to get to the facts of the matter, before doing so.

please excuse yourself from the file, ======.

and, i will follow-up with ===== by phone in the morning.