Hi Ron.

Back to work tomorrow. Can't wait to get back into the fray.

In the meantime, the universe is trying to tell me something. What do you think?

I turn on the TV to watch Movie Central. Hellboy and the Golden Army. I turn the channel. Sons of Anarchy season 2 is premiering (never seen or heard of this before, didn't know it was popular). I turn the channel. YTV is showing Looney Toons: Back in Action with Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman. Juno wants to watch it. We watch it.

Later, another channel. Alien Resurrection. Horrible addition to the franchise. I turn the channel.

It goes on. It has been going on for a few days. The common denominator? Ron Perlman. Different networks, different shows, different movies... I just can't seem to get away from that big wierd looking guy.

What does this mean? Is Ron just really busy these days? Or is someone trying to tell me something? Don't get me wrong. I think he's not a bad actor. But why is he always in my face these days? I always considered him a character actor, recognizable but rarely getting top billing in any project - apart from the recent Hellboy stuff in which makeup makes him barely recognizable. But now he seems to be everywhere. How did this happen?

Hmmm.

Perhaps its a sign. Perhaps Ron is a Prophet of the modern age. Maybe I should be paying attention to how often he seems to crop up in TV and movies. Perhaps the statistics derived from his appearances in film and television reveal patterns of numbers that can be interpreted by numerological cabalist heiromancers in order to reveal secrets of arcane lore.

Perhaps there is wisdom to be gained by studying this.

Perhaps I have eaten way to much left over turkey. Surely it is going bad by now. I need to throw that stuff out.

Happy New Year!

Keep Your Ties to Yourself

Even though my job calls for a certain amount of professionalism, I cannot bring myself to buy a suit.  

The pressure to do so is increasing.  I moved from a little school to a big one.  A small community to a bigger one (not really that big but still...).  All sorts of arguments in favour of a shirt and tie scream through my mind:

• You are the Principal of a school.  Look it.
• You will feel more confident as a professional.
• Staff will take you more seriously
• Your superiors will take you more seriously.
• Parents will show you more respect.

But I will not cave to these arguments.  They are shallow and I will not even engage in discussion regarding the merits of this case.

I don't want to dress in a suit.  I don't want to wear a tie to work.  I call for an end to fashion tyranny - the vagaries of conformist social forces determining what we should look like.  I don't want to live in a world where your garb shouts to people what you do and how seriously people should take you.  I call for it all to end, God Damn it!

I feel a little rebellious and sensitive about it.  I want to yell:

"I AM SPARTACUS!"

Except I know that no one will call out after I do.  I will be revealed and crucified as a rebel and a runaway slave.  That's right, a slave to my profession and to the norms of society I will perish.  The way in which I approach my work will be swallowed by the expectations of the world and I will cease to love my job.  

Call it out people.  Though the Romans post us every mile along the road to die in the sun, call it out.  End it.  It is way past time.

...And Happy New Year.  In case I don't see you.

Things Were Better When... a Christmas Message

Christmas come and gone.  School concert, turkey dinner, trees and family.  All that it should have been.  

And our furnace is out.  This is a good thing.  We have a wood stove and lots of fire wood.  I spent enough time out there splitting and stacking it that to be warm and not have to worry about the broken furnace is strangely gratifying.  

I am nostalgiacally attracted to work that has tangible, utilitarian and direct results.  Perhaps this is because most work, including the labour of my chosen profession, is abstract and is somehow disconnected from the food on the table and the walls that keep us warm.  

Cut wood = have heat.  Simple.  

Provide behavioural support to difficult classroom = 1 unquantifiable facet of my responsibilities, the total of which = 1 paycheque which must be managed in order to pay for a variety of things, one of which = groceries.  Not quite as simple.  

I know its not realistic but maybe we should all consider this.  

• Wake up
• Get fire going
• Get water
• Make and eat simple breakfast
• Dawn breaks
• Tend to critters (chickens are simplest)
• Tend garden (no flowers or unnecessary pretty stuff, just food)
• Forage for local wild foodstuffs (bear root is particularly good)
• Eat lunch
• Perform seasonal/as needed work (cut fire wood, mend fence, till soil, shovel snow...)
• Relax by the fire

I'm not talking about a farm life.  Not as we kow it today.  I'm not talking about selling crop for profit.  I'm not talking about cultivators, tractors, grain elevators, or massive herds of factory slaughtered cattle.  

I'm not naive.  I know what this simpler lifestyle would entail.  It would mean lots of hard work.  It would mean we would not be able to support current levels of population.  It would mean we could no longer spend energy and resources generating elecricity.  It would mean... no more blogging.  

That's OK.  Moving toward a modern version of a log cabin lifestyle would also mean that our population would be under control.  It would also mean that we wouldn't be ravaging watersheds in order to power our refrigerators and TVs.  It would mean we'd all have to read books.  It would mean that human endeavour would be geared toward the support of our families.  Not toward economic expansion, toward war, or toward amassing the largest amount. 

We all need to find joy and contentment in what we need, not in what we want.

I can't think of a better Christmas message.

Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go play the Wii with my daughter.  She loves Mariocart.

Copenhagen Convention

So... there was this big meeting. Obama was there, Harper... some other people from various countries and...

Yeah.

Nothing legally binding. Nothing that sets out any real authority to enforce compliance or punish non-compliance.

Like it matters. Face it. If there is going to be real change, the standard of living for most of us in Blogolopia (my name for our new nation) will have to be drastically reduced. There is no way around it. Not because it will be good for the environment. But because we live high on the hog at the expense of 96% of the population of this planet.

Case in point:
I was watching TV - against my will, I might add - and I saw a commercial for "Dollars for Gold". You take all the gold you've got just "laying around" and put it in an envelope to mail off to the company. They weigh it, melt it down and send you a cheque.

What does this mean? It means there are several nations full of people out there who are sitting around watching TV... who have spare gold just... laying around?

Do we realize what that makes us in a historical sense? Rare. Bizarre. Outlandish.

Take a step back from it and think about how many people in history have ever had the luxury of spare wealth just laying around with which they might get some extra Christmas cash if they had the foresight to be watching TV at the right time.

Sometimes, I think we deserve economic and environmental ruin. Cleansed from this Earth by the very seeds we planted.

But I don't want to be too dreary. I did say "sometimes".

Happy Holidays everyone. Spend it with loved ones. Buy nothing.

We have TV again.

With the move, setting up in a new place and with paying for our new cargo trailer, I was hoping to not have TV. Our new home is in another community with limited access to amenities. A vast improvement from my last posting, to be sure, but satellite is still our only option for TV services.

Sugar wanted it. Juno wanted it. I caved. I was shocked at the bounty of crap TV churned up for my disgust. I can sum it all up with one example:

Steven Seagal - Lawman.

Yes. Seagal is a real policeman and works the streets in some US town - which is really a good thing, because I can't imagine Seagal trying to do martial arts wearing the red Serge of the RCMP.

Anyway, we get to follow Seagal around on the job as he busts criminals and incorporates the "way of peace and harmony" into that thin blue line. Pure unadulterated crap.

Sadly, there is no real bookstore in my new home community. Internet access is still a challenge. I'm going to have to fall back on Archie comics to keep my brain from stagnating any further.

Please. Please save me.

Songs are not entertainment, people.

A rock song is three verses, two choruses and a bridge. My baby loves me. I'm the greatest. I couldn't be more blue. My baby doesn't love me. Rap and Hip Hop, no better. Dilutions of what a song is. Four chords and a simple four-four beat thrown together in all of their various computations in order to produce a limited, collective, half drugged, cathartic event. In a way, the music most people listen to today is a sad parody of what a song should be.

The older I get (and I'm not that old, you know), the more its all just noise. Re-filtered crap we've all heard before that changes nothing in the long run. You can have it. I used to love it but I'm close to done with it.

But, as I think on it, even this shadow we call rock music is better than the alternative. The alternative would be nothing. A world without song is a world devoid of anything joyful or meaningful. Gray, dismal, failing, ground in the gears of industry with no avenue for recourse or expression.

My mother once told me I was not a spiritual person. I'm still not sure how to properly respond to that. I am not a religious person, to be sure. I claim no special knowledge of what lies beyond. Nor do I claim to have insight into the natures of good and evil, chaos and order, joy and despair. So maybe I am not a spiritual person.

But a real song... If I feel like I've showered after hearing it, is there not hope for me and my poor, listless, brain-damaged spirit?

A song is not for me. Not for you. It is for us. We sing it because we need to be bound together. It should remind us of who we are, it should make us remember what is important. It should tell us all of our stories and teach us the important things. We should lift our drums and hands high when we dance backwards together because if you don't know the song, you will continue to move forward against the others as they change direction. This will encourage you to pay attention to the music.

Listen for the subtle changes.

Anticipate the next beat and how you will respond.

Nothing else matters right now. What could possibly be more important?

So shut up.

Just sing with us.

I think I'll post weekly from now on. I'll give that a shot anyway. Saturdays, if the wife lets me out of the house. Meantime, that is where I live.

Well, actually I live a five minute drive up the road from this picture, but you get the idea. The most beautiful - and wet- place on this planet.

Hope to see you Saturday.