so, i want to see more punk shows and dj sets in basements, houses, abandoned factories, record stores, garages, gyms, schools, churches - anywhere you can set up and play, and people can bring their own drugs and be willing to have a good time in an autonomously run, non-policed space until 6:00 or 9:00 in the morning.

there really seems to be a general aversion to "loud music" opening up in detroit, and it's actually kind of hilarious. in fact, it might work out for the better, if this movement away from "loud music" takes out some of the more conservative elements of the scene that i'd rather not interact with, anyways.

i'm sick of there being fucking pigs everywhere, and everybody acting and thinking like a cop. the underground has turned into a fucking preschool parking lot. it's bizarre - and, of course, i'm the person that gets targeted because i'm queer. you give anybody any kind of authority at all, and the queer people get attacked first. never fails.

i'm also sick of this aversion to drunkeness, like the bars are being taken over by this coalition of christians and muslims that want to clean the space up and send people to work. i'm not interested.....

so, if the aversion to "loud music" amongst the bourgeois or hipster crowd leads to a separation of venues, that's probably a good thing. not every venue has to be a safe space for grown up children to feel secure from the scary, outside world in; i want to hang out in the dangerous bars, where these hipsters don't want to go to. so, let's let the "loud music" move to the dangerous bars that don't have pigs at the door and these scared, sheltered children inside, then - and let the hipsters define their safe spaces. let's partition the city, i love lucy style - and i'll hang with the anarchists and rebels and drunks and other scary, unsafe folk on the side of the line that says no cops allowed.

on that note, let's list the things that i would be interested in, would definitely not be interested in and might maybe be interested in.

- films. never. not a chance. ever. boring.
- poetry, spoken word or reading events. nope. never. pretentious & horribly lame.
- book clubs. maybe. if i really like the text.
- democratic party, liberal party or ndp sponsored political events. never. ever. ever. i'd feel dirty, after.
- anarchist or environmentally themed political events. i haven't lately, partly because i haven't seen anything i'm actually interested in. it's a remote possibility. my politics are completely off the spectrum nowadays, and i'm just not likely to find like-minded people much of anywhere. i need to be operating in a completely post-capitalist abstract space as a starting point, or i'm really not interested; i'm not into reformism, or incrementalism, and i've become so radical that it's hard to even express myself in english. i would actually love to find the right kind of anti-capitalist collective, but i don't think one exists, really anywhere. i'm more likely to stay aloof until i stumble upon the right messaging, and it might never happen.
- religious or charity events. (laugh track).
- comedy events. not a chance. fucking boring...
- hip-hop shows. nope. i wouldn't like the people.
- acoustic or folk shows. nope. i wouldn't like the people.
- dance parties. i would rather be at a techno club than an acoustic show, or even most rock concerts, but i would like to see more experimental types of techno in detroit.
- soul, reggae, funk or motown. i would need to be more drunk than you're used to seeing me in order to dance to this; there's no possibility i'd go to a place like that on purpose.
- jazz. yeah. i like jazz, but i like it to be complicated.
- classical performances. sure. the weirder the better.

these are just some of the things i'm seeing pushed into spaces that used to hold live music, and i'm disappointed, but it's perhaps for the best, if it leads to a proper segregation between the gentrifying areas (they can have their safe spaces and their cops at the door) and the more underground areas (which should be kept free of authority, and open to maximizing fun and expression).

i'm not going to list the venues that are changing, but you can figure out where they are by the neighbourhood they're in.

and, that's fine.

let us go our own ways, rather than pretending we're in the same space, ideologically.

how can i just smoke like that and then not smoke at all after?

i've broken the habit.

it helps that i tend to sleep so much when i come in, as it breaks whatever physical addiction builds up. but, i'm not feeling it because i'm used to not smoking, again. i haven't had after meal or early morning or late night smokes in 3.5 years. so, that part of my routine is cut out, and i'm making sure i don't bring it back.

my new routine is that i come in, get something to eat, take a shower and then go to bed. and, i make sure to stay out of the bedroom until i get out of the shower.

i do suspect that he caught wind of something or other and took it as permission, and it is true that it is going to take 36-48 hours for me to be able to smell anything when i come in, but there's no permission, here. nothing's changed.

if i'm here over the winter, and it comes in early, i could go from oct-mar smoke free - that's 4,5,6 months, easy. and, i'm going to get mighty pissy if i'm coughing all winter.

so, the grace period is ending, here. i just got out of the shower, and i'm going to start getting angry if the smell doesn't lift pretty much immediately.

so, no - i have not started smoking again.

i quit smoking habitually in january of 2016.

since then, i have been a purely social smoker - i only smoke when i am drinking.

and, i am no less insistent that it be kept away from the house.

for the sake of clarity, i have not had a cigarette since i came in on sunday afternoon and do not expect to have another one until i go back to detroit. if that takes two or three weeks, then i will not be smoking in that period. so, i expect my living space to be kept smoke free.

my habits when i leave this space do not negate the lease i signed, and i will not consider it hypocritical to smoke when i'm out and continue to demand the lease be adhered to when i'm in. i am still keeping an eye on the owner upstairs, and still intend to sue if i can prove that he's smoking.

i signed this lease because these are the conditions i want to live under, and i expect them to be upheld.

and, i frankly don't understand why this is so difficult. smoking is not binary; it is not the case that you smoke all the time, or don't smoke at all. i have in fact lived most of my life as a social smoker. and, even when i smoked habitually, i still never smoked inside the house.

so, if you are interpreting my smoking in detroit as a license to smoke at home, you are wrong - i have not been and will not be smoking in or near the house. at all. ever.

i remain asthmatic, and deeply affected by indoor second-hand smoke.

and, i expect all parties to uphold the lease agreement, under continued threat of consequence.

there is no contradiction here. deal with it.

what i want is a place to see good, live rock bands in detroit, and i'm a little frustrated that there's a good venue that is falling into disuse because people decided to be stupid about it.

so, i want the venue to be used to it's full extent.

it's actually kind of a socialist thing, about use-value. i'm not an advocate of property rights, remember - i want a facility like that to be used by the people most able to use it, and have less concern about what the neighbours think than i do about maximizing the use-value of the facility. fuck the neighbours, even.

but, we know this - i'm a leftist and you're a conservative (or a progressive. same thing.).

and, i don't have to actually care about you. really. i have no obligations, here - it's enough to care about myself, in context.

i'm not a politician.

i'm not a celebrity.

i don't have any wealth.

i'm not even an american.

who cares what i think?

i mean, i guess i don't care about them any less.

but i certainly don't think they're special or something.

but, i mean, i'm just some white woman from canada. why would you care if i care about you or not?

but, i don't actually have any obligation to care about black people, though.

this is something from the early 00s that i actually did listen to.

more.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2015/07/its-typical-rock-star-baddassery-kind.html

fwiw.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2015/07/excellent-production.html

that wasn't an argument i felt like having, at the time.

there is simply not and never has been any substantive art produced in the genre of hip-hop. that's how it is.

ok, i need to get up and eat.

but, what am i doing, now?

i'm back to where i was, but i need to catch up more quickly.

this stupid argument, again.

listen. i'm not an american; i can't vote in the american elections. there are good privileges attached to being a canadian, but being able to vote for the most powerful person in the world is not one of them.

i endorsed her under the argument that you're better with the devil you know, and i'm actually not convinced that that was actually the right choice, but there was no serious possibility that i was ever really going to actually vote for hillary clinton, and there's likewise not any real serious possibility that i'm going to vote for biden, warren, harris or any of the others.

so, there's this false understanding that i'd be basing my choice on sanders or one of the other democratic candidates, and that is simply not true. and, i want you to look at the history of this.

- in 2016, i endorsed clinton, but i wouldn't have actually voted for her, myself. i would have voted for stein.
- in 2012, i endorsed the green party. i did not feel that obama was a lesser evil when compared to mitt romney; they were completely identical candidates, in almost every way.
- in 2008, i endorsed the green party. i did not buy into obama. at all.
- in 2004, i endorsed john kerry. i felt that he was a lesser evil. but, i may have endorsed an intelligent capuchin monkey. bush was a total disaster.
- in 2000, i endorsed the green party. i did not feel that al gore was a substantially better choice than george w. bush, and do not think i was wrong, either. nader was the best option, and i would make that endorsement again, even knowing the outcome.

in 2020, i will either endorse bernie sanders or endorse the green party; there is no possibility that i will endorse one of the other candidates, and there was never going to be a possibility that i would have.

so, don't blame my disinterest in the field on bernie sanders. my disinterest is longstanding, and a consequence of the fact that they have shitty policies; blame them, it's their fault.

bernie is in truth opening up new voters such as myself that would have never otherwise considered voting democratic at all.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/no-spoilers-bernie-sanders-better-not-throw-2020-to-trump

we now have a completely unelected body that is both dominated by industry money and has no official ties to the government acting as a despotic oversight committee.

we now have to get our legislation rubber stamped by the oil industry. what's next? the pharmaceutical industry?

so, welcome to the petro-state. it's here.

i mean, i pointed out from the get-go that the purpose of trudeau's senate reforms was to turn it into a lobbying institution, and here we have it - legislation written by the petroleum industry, and introduced via the unelected senate over a fake bill.

these people have no oversight, by design.

my analysis is naive; i know this is being done intentionally, and i expect the government to accept the amendments. this is the whole point.

but, we can't accept this. it's essentially a bloodless coup, done under the cover of corporate language like "independence" and "bipartisanship". the fact that it was obvious and transparent, and i saw it coming, doesn't make it acceptable.

all of the work that the chretien government did to try and take money out of politics, something that harper, to his credit, did not unravel, has now been obliterated by the creation of these "independent bodies", both inside and outside of the senate. this is total industry capture, and it happened without so much as a debate.

it seems to me like the liberals ought to be rejecting all amendments to the bill on principle and sending it back as it was initially written. this will spark a standoff, which is necessary to assert the absolute supremacy of the house of commons.

legislation in this country is written by the lower house, not by the upper house.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/theyre-trying-to-take-the-whole-enchilada-environmentalists-cry-foul-over-industry-inspired-changes-to-bill-c-69

just to be clear on the tanker ban bill.

i actually don't think that the outcome of the situation resolves the constitutional crisis that was created by trudeau's monkeying around with the senate. we still have a bill that's been cut up and watered down by an unelected body, and i haven't had a chance to look into it to see if it's acceptable or not.

i expect that, in the end, i'm going to call on the government to reject the senate's changes and send the bill back. the senate still has no democratic mandate to do what they did, and accepting undemocratically watered down legislation is still probably not going to be good enough. and, if the government accepts the watered down bill, i'm not going to stand up for them but am rather going to attack them for it, as they set this stupid situation up themselves.

but, i'm getting ahead of myself; i haven't read it yet.

yeah. this needs judicial oversight.

you expect the deep state to try to overreach, which is why we need the courts to step in and put them back in place.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5370873/canadian-military-spies-information/?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Outbrain&utm_campaign=2015

should there be a nuremberg-style international tribunal?

https://globalnews.ca/news/5346883/crimes-against-humanity-charges-canadians-syria/?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=EditorsPick&utm_campaign=2015

this will be immediately thrown out of court, and the cop should be fired for wasting everybody's time.

we really are on a one-way path to a third world country in canada. the people that live here now don't care about our laws, our traditions or our rules - they just want to live in a fascist dictatorship where everybody is kept in proper order and the trains run on time.

we are dying, up here. it's a matter of time...

but, for now, this is still preposterous, and i hope the person charged prosecutes the officer to the full extent of the law.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5360729/ayesha-curry-vulgar-comment-charged-toronto-police/?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Outbrain&utm_campaign=2015