Thursday, March 16, 2017
the music scene in ottawa seems to have really died after i left. wow.
see, i knew i had a window, and that it would then go back to what it was...
to be fair, the thing with ottawa is that it doesn't actually have it's own music scene, the nightlife there is just driven by what's happening outside of it. so, if we end up in a situation where the broader music scene hits a low point, which is where we're at right now, it just can't weather it - it falls apart. venues close. shows end up in basements. and, when shows end up in basements, you have to deal with a strange sort of democracy that refuses to acknowledge that beethoven is more interesting than a recording of your mom vomiting up your dad's sad attempt at making a meal, last night.
"it's ok....AAAAAARRRRRRFFFFF....you tried, hon-AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRFFFFF-ey....no, i'm ok...what i mean is AAAARRRRRRFFFFF to get the fuck away from me right now, before i accidentally ARRRRRRFFFFFF miss in purpose...."
it's a type of democracy where mediocrity wins every time, and the rare interesting show gets booked on a monday during exams, and nobody promotes it.
"what do you fucking mean that loma prieta played here last night? why didn't you tell me?"
"who cares? they're from out of town. i'm doing a guitar effects noise set tomorrow, you're in, right?"
no. ottawa needs people transiting around it in order to avoid being boring. and, then it needs somebody standing on the 401 near kingston, yelling at people that there's venues in that direction.
detroit was never my first choice. but, it seems like i got out at the right time.
see, i knew i had a window, and that it would then go back to what it was...
to be fair, the thing with ottawa is that it doesn't actually have it's own music scene, the nightlife there is just driven by what's happening outside of it. so, if we end up in a situation where the broader music scene hits a low point, which is where we're at right now, it just can't weather it - it falls apart. venues close. shows end up in basements. and, when shows end up in basements, you have to deal with a strange sort of democracy that refuses to acknowledge that beethoven is more interesting than a recording of your mom vomiting up your dad's sad attempt at making a meal, last night.
"it's ok....AAAAAARRRRRRFFFFF....you tried, hon-AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRFFFFF-ey....no, i'm ok...what i mean is AAAARRRRRRFFFFF to get the fuck away from me right now, before i accidentally ARRRRRRFFFFFF miss in purpose...."
it's a type of democracy where mediocrity wins every time, and the rare interesting show gets booked on a monday during exams, and nobody promotes it.
"what do you fucking mean that loma prieta played here last night? why didn't you tell me?"
"who cares? they're from out of town. i'm doing a guitar effects noise set tomorrow, you're in, right?"
no. ottawa needs people transiting around it in order to avoid being boring. and, then it needs somebody standing on the 401 near kingston, yelling at people that there's venues in that direction.
detroit was never my first choice. but, it seems like i got out at the right time.
in actuality, this sounds more like what clinton promised, especially the part about the judges; it really just sounds like a continuation of existing policy.
i would have expected trump to come in high and congress to gut it. but, he's not even putting 2 billion down for the wall, when he himself was lowballing it at 4-5 times that - and experts were suggesting 10-20 times it.
i told you to wait for the budget to see if he's serious. the budget is here, and he's not serious.
the extra money on enforcement will likely end up in private contracts, too - private contracts that can avoid serious oversight.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/politics/donald-trump-border-wall-budget.html?mabReward=ACTM3&recp=2&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action=click&contentCollection=Theater®ion=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article
i would have expected trump to come in high and congress to gut it. but, he's not even putting 2 billion down for the wall, when he himself was lowballing it at 4-5 times that - and experts were suggesting 10-20 times it.
i told you to wait for the budget to see if he's serious. the budget is here, and he's not serious.
the extra money on enforcement will likely end up in private contracts, too - private contracts that can avoid serious oversight.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/politics/donald-trump-border-wall-budget.html?mabReward=ACTM3&recp=2&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action=click&contentCollection=Theater®ion=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article
i'm only doing this because it actually demonstrates that i haven't changed a lot.
this is a picture of me from a period where i identified as male (it's from 2004 - so i'm 23 in the shot):
i've had at least shoulder length hair pretty much consistently since the mid 90s. i shaved it a few times, but there really aren't very many pictures of me with short hair in existence (because i've basically never had short hair). the few i've seen look like mug shots. i've never styled my hair in any kind of short-haired male fashion kind of choice: never used gel, or anything like that.
there certainly aren't any pictures of me without my shirt on. i wouldn't even take my shirt off to go swimming. and i never went swimming, anyways. over the course of my entire adult life, i'm pretty sure that there's only one person in the entire world that's seen me without a shirt on. the idea that i'd take a picture of myself without a shirt on, let alone upload it to the internet, is insanity.
but, i never developed any kind of muscle mass on the top end of my body (or anywhere else, for that matter). the fact that i smoked aside, i was always in very good shape due to the large amounts of bicycling (2-3 hours a day at points) and walking i did, but it always came out in terms of toned arms and legs and never in terms of muscle mass.
the point is just that there aren't really "guy pictures" of me because i wasn't ever really much of a guy. the reality is that i spent my entire teens and 20s looking like i never really went through puberty. i never weighed more than 120 pounds; i was always stick thin. i always had long hair, often died blonde or orange or red. i tended to wear really nerdy button-ups, or plain t-shirts (or band shirts, but not much after about 2002). if you ever saw me in an outfit that was more bourgeois than that, there was a struggle to get me in to it.
why? because i just didn't want to. i was an outcast by choice: a nerd, a loner, a loser. i both found the idea of expressing masculinity to be boring and to be a poor reflection of how i felt.
the fact that i wore a tie on that day is really, honestly about as manly as i ever got. and i'm sorry if that's disappointing, but it's the truth of it.
this is a picture of me from a period where i identified as male (it's from 2004 - so i'm 23 in the shot):
i've had at least shoulder length hair pretty much consistently since the mid 90s. i shaved it a few times, but there really aren't very many pictures of me with short hair in existence (because i've basically never had short hair). the few i've seen look like mug shots. i've never styled my hair in any kind of short-haired male fashion kind of choice: never used gel, or anything like that.
there certainly aren't any pictures of me without my shirt on. i wouldn't even take my shirt off to go swimming. and i never went swimming, anyways. over the course of my entire adult life, i'm pretty sure that there's only one person in the entire world that's seen me without a shirt on. the idea that i'd take a picture of myself without a shirt on, let alone upload it to the internet, is insanity.
but, i never developed any kind of muscle mass on the top end of my body (or anywhere else, for that matter). the fact that i smoked aside, i was always in very good shape due to the large amounts of bicycling (2-3 hours a day at points) and walking i did, but it always came out in terms of toned arms and legs and never in terms of muscle mass.
the point is just that there aren't really "guy pictures" of me because i wasn't ever really much of a guy. the reality is that i spent my entire teens and 20s looking like i never really went through puberty. i never weighed more than 120 pounds; i was always stick thin. i always had long hair, often died blonde or orange or red. i tended to wear really nerdy button-ups, or plain t-shirts (or band shirts, but not much after about 2002). if you ever saw me in an outfit that was more bourgeois than that, there was a struggle to get me in to it.
why? because i just didn't want to. i was an outcast by choice: a nerd, a loner, a loser. i both found the idea of expressing masculinity to be boring and to be a poor reflection of how i felt.
the fact that i wore a tie on that day is really, honestly about as manly as i ever got. and i'm sorry if that's disappointing, but it's the truth of it.
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