1132 Years A Slav

I've avoided writing about Ukraine thus far, but too many people have chimed in with wild theories - and too many of those with no facts to back their points of view up - that I had to at least mention it...

The city of Kiev was officially founded in 482. That's not a typo. Founded mostly by Slavs, the settlement was also inhabited by Finnics (ancestors to modern-day Finns, among others), and Khazars (think Turks, Kazakhs, Tatars and Bulgars) very early on.

The first agglomeration to consider Kiev as its capital was Kievan Rus', circa 882-1283 (that's where I start considering it the capital of a 'country', hence the title of this post). Mostly Slavic, modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia all claim to descend from that federation.

With wars and power struggles a constant in Europe, Kievan Rus' made way for the kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia (a.k.a. Kingdom Of Rus). Like J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, the Kingdom wasn't a united country per se, more like autonomous provinces each with their own capitals within a loose border; Kiev was not a capital, but three other now-Ukrainian cities were: Volodymyr-Volynsky, Halych, and Lviv.

By 1283, the Grand Duchy of Moscow had come into effect, and though its leaders and official name came to change many times (Tsardom of Russia in 1547, Russian Empire in 1721, the USSR in 1922 after a few turbulent years of the 1917 Revolution, The Russian Federation of Independent States in 1991 and the current-day incarnation since 1993), was essentially the beginning of what is now Russia. Russians share the British taste for imperialism, as well as the ''father knows best'' mentality of many Eastern cultures. They like owning a large plot of land (currently occupying an eighth of the world's land mass though they are barely 2% of its population at 145 million people), and they really dislike opposition.

And so, Ukraine has shared countries, ownership or administrations (or been under the influence of) with Russia for over 1000 years. They only declared their actual independence in 1918, and though they tried to refrain Russians from formally entering and claiming ownership from then on by themselves being a socialist state (kind of like Canada signing on NAFTA with the U.S. in 1992), Russians took advantage of the turmoil caused by World War II (and a deal with Germany) to invade Ukraine in 1939, made easier by World War I-era territorial delimitations where the Ukraine was basically split in three.

There was another, short-lived declaration of independence in 1941 when the Soviet troops went back home, but the Nazis made sure to render that useless by jailing, torturing and killing the government in place, and when Germany fell to the Russians, the movement became nothing but a footnote in History.

When the USSR collapsed and became the Russian Federation, most Eastern European subject-states decided to assert their independence, and a lot were allowed to do so. Some chose to remain part of the Russian whole, others were forced to (see: Chechnya). Ukraine chose to proclaim its independence, if only for political reasons: the Russian version of communism/socialism/sovietism  was collapsing, and it was going to change political systems; Ukraine wanted to remain communist, so in an effort for self-preservation, decided to opt for a referendum asking its population if they wanted out of the union. 82% of the population voted, and 90% voted in favour of seceding.

Ironically, Canada was the first country to recognize Ukraine as an independent state, the minute the votes were in. Russian President Boris Yeltsin did the same in the evening, proving there were no hard feelings.

Fast-forward to 2014.

Ukraine was offered to enter the European Union - or at least enter into economic accords with them first, with a promise of future consideration - though many of its constituents (Spain, The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium especially) took issue with that, mostly for political reasons (how it treats its political prisoners chief among them). As a means of negotiation, some of the terms of the deal weren't as advantageous as those of other countries, with the underlying message being ''if you play nice, we'll be nicer with you later''.

President Viktor Yanukovych, rightly, refused to sign the deal because it wasn't advantageous for his country. He then signed a trades agreement with Russia, mostly for natural gas purchases, which could have worked in addition to a deal with the EU. Protests started as people demanded closer ties to the rest of Europe and European integration, and like scared leaders do (and like we saw here in Québec in 2012), the government passed anti-protest laws, which just fueled the violence.

Also, like here in Québec, the protests soon included anger towards the perception (and fact) of widespread corruption. Ironically, though, in Ukraine, a lot of that can be traced back to Yanukovych's opponent in the last election, the country's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is among the imprisoned that the EU is demanding better treatment for; Tymoshenko owns a bunch of gas companies, which made her one of the richest people in her country (Forbes ranked her as the third most powerful woman in the world). And though her arrest and eventual mistreatment when she was found guilty were undoubtedly politically-motivated by a direct adversary, the fact remains that she was convicted of embezzlement and abuse of power, two facts that point to the sense that she at least participated in the corruption of the State.

And as the protests gained traction and Yanukovych resigned and political pressure mounted, she was released from prison - but she wasn't acquitted or even pardoned: the actions she was found guilty of were instead decriminalized. That's a big fucking difference, folks.

That is to say that all is neither all black nor white.

Except that Russia didn't have to send troops in Crimea, though it claimed it hadn't at first but eventually will/did. (of note, under international treaties, if an elected official asks another country for military help, that country is allowed to step in and intervene on a local level, which is what Russia claims Yanukovych has asked.) And while I'm not one to blindly trust Vladimir Putin, I will contend a point Jon Stewart hammers on daily since first reporting on the story a month after it had started, to wit: Putin claims the groups in place are local militias (or ''self-defense forces''), ''but they speak Russian, support Russia and have Russian weapons - so they have to be Russian''.

Dear Jon,

pretty much everyone in the area speak Russian, and they have for over 1000 years. Also, most Finns speak Swedish, a shitload of European countries have German as a first or second language, and most Quebecers understand English; surrounded by imperialists and conquerors, borders change, wars are started, people are annexed and/or assimilated. Until they no longer are... until they are again. Anglo-Saxons and Russians are expansionists and imperialists; one day they wake up and feel the need to own other people and/or their land and/or their toys and/or their food; it's what they do, whether it's to feel like Kings or to spread their ''superior'' culture (or race). Or to sell their sub-par fast-food culture. Or to ''spread democracy'' (still laughing at that one more than a decade later, by the way).

As for the Russian weapons, weren't those all for sale at discount stores in 1991? Doesn't the Russian mob own more nukes than the Russian Army? Why wouldn't a bunch of people buy some AK-47s and military garb, don't you guys have a right to purchase M-16s even with a criminal record and mental health issues, and can't you buy military clothes at both Army Surplus stores and The Salvation Army? And if you can, why shouldn't they?

'Cause to me, equating people who kind of wear military uniforms with no specific designation with the official military kind of makes it seem like your Bible-belt gun nuts and anti-Obama armed militias would then be a representation of your Army, and I guess that would make the Tea Party an actual political party, not just a fringe unrepresentative proportion of your political debate.

Thanks.

Seb

As I said, neither black nor white.

The whole world is going to shits, because the worst people have been in power for so long that they have instituted corruption as a rule rather than an exception. And those who lose their elections (or get ousted by the population) are only replaced by equally-minded career white-collar criminals, so the wheel keeps turning and, in doing so, always finds newer and better ways to keep its rhythm going.

Money needs out of politics. It needs out completely in everything, but especially in politics. And leaders need to feel they are liable for their crimes; I've long proposed their sentences be double those of civilians' when found guilty of crimes, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, because those fuckers are usually so well connected that they rarely even get prosecuted. They only lose their friends in high places when the shit has completely hit the fan and there is no longer a way for them to hide and melt back into the general population with their golden toilets and billions of dollars. They are but a small minority.

But, uh, yeah, Ukraine. How that turned into a battle of wits between Putin and Barack Obama is beyond me (and further proof that Americans don't view their own imperialism as such), I will never truly get it, but here's a novel idea: why don't we let the people of Ukraine decide for themselves? It worked in Iceland (where was Fox then, by the way?) recently, though there is something to be said both for and against how they made it impossible for foreigners to withdraw money out of the country (for: promotes re-investing within the country, which even foreigners can take advantage of, i.e. you cant leave with your millions but you can buy millions' worth of stuff; against: detracts foreign investors from coming in to invest for profits that would leave the country - theoretically, though, what it is meant to do is keep the economy rolling and increasing).

Rich Kids Of Instagram

You may - or may not - have heard of the website Rich Kids Of Instagram; it is exactly what you have in mind: a blog-type site compiling the ''best'' (i.e. the worst, if you're in your right mind) Instagram pictures of trust-fund young adults spending way too much money on futile things and living the life of luxury you wouldn't even think a rock star would have, 'cause, you know, rock stars are busy touring making that moolah.

Among which:

But my favourite of all, because all the questions you might have regarding it can be answered by ''because I can'':

''That's right, bro: put the lion on the 'rari.'' We're assuming he's already had the car and cat race, that the feline's name is 'Rocky' or 'Rocco', and that a pound of cocaine will go through this asshole's nose by the end of the month.

Every single one of those pictures (and the hundreds more on the site) will lead you to wonder in amazement: if the money spent on what is in this very picture - not on that day, just right there - would have gone to a good cause, how little would it have hurt them financially, and how much of a difference could it have made in countless needy people's lives?

And then... reality kicks in.

Reality TV, that is.

Because the site's been so successful, E! is producing Rich Kids of Beverly Hills, a show that will feature many of the site's over-indulgers, though the site itself will not be a part of it nor compensated for inspiring it.

I'm kind of appalled that those fuckers be glorified exactly in the manner they'd wish to be (on TV, doing what they do, as if their behaviour was to be condoned and encouraged), yet as we have seen with TV's highest-rated show, Honey Boo-Boo, it could serve as a warning on how not to raise your kids.

Who am I kidding? No one over the age of 5 learns anything from TV, except that if you behave badly enough, you'll get on there. If you're poor, Cops and Judge Judy will be there if you act in a criminal manner and Maury will be there if you've merely displayed illogical behaviour; and if you're rich, you can start flashing all your money on programs like this one and Meet The Kardashians, and move on to Celebrity Rehab when you start your descent into the inevitable.

Cash-Making Punks

About  a month ago, the D.I.Y./punk/music website Dying Scene ma a list that showed the ''10 Punks Who Are Richer Than You Think''. Here it is:

10. Marky Ramone: 2 million
9. Lars Frederiksen (of Rancid): 10 million
8. Tim Armstrong (founder of Rancid, Transplants, Operation Ivy, and label Hellcat Records): 13 million
7. Davey Havok (of AFI): 20 million
6. Ian Mackaye (of Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens and founder of Dischord Records)
5. Billie Joe Armstrong (of Green Day): 55 million
4. Dexter Holland (of The Offspring): 65 million
3, 2 and 1: Blink-182, who have two members worth roughly $60M each, and drummer Travis Barker (also of Transplants) who would be worth 85...

Notable absentee were Henry Rollins (whose worth is etimated at $12M but includes revenue from spoken performances and film work) and Brett Gurewitz, co-founder of both the band Bad Religion and the biggest punk label Epitaph. Then again, the list was about those you didn't expect, and you sure as hell expect those two to be on it.

Also, Green Day, The Offspring and AFI haven't been ''punk'' in a long time, and Blink-182 might never have been...

I've had many an argument with some folks about the veracity of these estimates, particularly Tim Armstrong and Ian Mackaye.

Let's start with Mackaye. As owner of Dischord, who not only sold their CDs to stores worldwide (mom-and-pop shops as well as huge surfaces) but also by mail at $10 a cassette and $12 per CD. They have released nearly 250 titles, some of which sold very well. Fugazi themselves have three albums that sold over a million copies each.

Of the 12 bucks, say 3 goes to the band, 6 to the label, and 3 to overhead and distribution... the band revenue gets split 4 ways, the label profits gets split in two. Mackaye gets shares of both for all of his projects, plus songwriter revenue (he always writes at least half the songs); he gets label revenue for all the other bands he puts out. Then there's touring revenue - not all that high considering Fugazi played for years with tickets prices below $10 a pop, but it's safe to say they at the very least didn't lose money touring. Just through Fugazi, Mackaye would have made 5-10 million, easily. He doesn't drink nor take drugs, either, so it didn't go up in flames - or down in vomit. Add the rest, you get your 25.

Once that is established, the case for Tim Armstrong becomes intriguing: Rancid are much ''bigger'' than Fugazi, but Hellcat Records are distributed by Epitaph - which means label shares are smaller. Armstrong isn't as clean as Mackaye, so some of the money he's earned did go to, uh, waste. On the other hand, he did venture outside of punk, writing a few songs for P!nk, producing records for Jimmy Cliff and a bunch of punk bands, and collaborating with mainstream artists such as Cypress Hill. Also, Transplants licensed a song to a shampoo commercial that ran for three years - and Rancid's music was in a Gap ad. On the other hand, he did go through a really messy divorce with Brody Dalle (of The Distillers fame, now married to Queens Of The Stone Age head honcho Josh Homme). Those cost money...

Cash Money In The Minimum-Wage World

Have you been angry yet today?

Here is a list of the U.S.' companies with the most minimum-wage workers.

What do they have in common? Right-wing pundits would say ''they are rich because they control their spending well''. The rest of the world would think ''perhaps they could all afford to pay their employees better, what with the insane amount of profits they make''.

Despite the perception that minimum wage jobs are often held by teenage workers entering the job market, numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicate that 49 percent of minimum wage workers are adult women, many of whom have children.

As expected, America’s largest employer, Wal-Mart, tops the list.  NELP’s study looks into the genetic makeup of this dishonorable mention, and notes the majority (66 percent) of low‐wage workers are not employed by small businesses, but rather by large corporations where top executive compensation averaged $9.4 million.

The 50 largest employers of low‐wage workers have largely recovered from the recession and most are in strong financial positions: 92 percent were profitable last year; 78 percent have been profitable for the last three years; 75 percent have higher revenues now than before the recession; 73 percent have higher cash holdings; and 63 percent have higher operating margins(a measure of profitability).

$174.8 billion to shareholders in dividends or share buybacks over the past five years.
The largest companies in America have, for the most part, recovered from the recession while their workers are still feeling its entire effects. It is safe to say that we should soundly reject the argument that raising the minimum wage would harm large corporations. They don’t know harm well enough to claim it.

Yep, it's a good world for profiteering assholes.

With A Dad Like That...

Remember Lindsay Lohan, the young up-and-comer from Disney movies The Parent Trap and Herbie?

Just kidding, I mean the recent, Playboy-appearing Lindsay.

Any way you choose to picture her, it can't be as bad as the way her dad sees her: pretty much as an escort, being ''pimped out'' by her mom.

I'm sure she's thinking ''thanks, Dad, for sharing your thoughts with the fucking world, while I'm on trial and my reputation is already dead beyond repair''.

Kinda makes you think she isn't entirely to blame for being so, uh, dysfunctional, no?

Does money make people act like fucking idiots and assholes, or were they the worst parents in history to begin with?

Killing The Truth

The Republican Convention is over, and many will remember it because of Clint Eastwood's surreal stand-up comedy act featuring an interview with an invisible President Obama in an empty chair. It showed that, should Condi Rice not run in 2016, he could definitely pull a Ronald Reagan and become a two-term, senile, funny, everyday man in charge of the world's biggest economy and army. Would be entertaining, to say the least.

But that moment overshadowed the Republican presidential and vice-residential nominees' speeches - more specifically, the fact that they were full of lies, half-truths, and dangerous innuendos. Many of them were outed by the New York Times in this article, not surprisingly the most of them coming from Paul Ryan, who has made it his mission to see Barack Obama fail and has obstructed everything the President has attempted, even his attempts at compromise and Republican-friendly policies.

Here is but one example:

In his attack on the president’s time in office, Mr. Ryan said: “It began with a perfect AAA credit rating for the United States. It ends with the downgraded America.”

When Standard & Poor’s lowered the nation’s credit rating, it was in large part because of the standoff last year over the debt ceiling — which needed to be raised so the government could borrow money to pay for spending that Congress had already approved. The White House had asked Congress to simply raise the debt ceiling; Mr. Ryan and House Republicans balked at doing so without reaching a deal on significant spending cuts. The ensuing standoff took the nation to the brink of default.

In its statement explaining the downgrade, Standard & Poor’s wrote that “the political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policy making becoming less stable, less effective and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.”

That one's on the Republicans - not Obama.

For decades, politicians have exacerbated the population's cynicism by lying making deliberately false campaign promises, such as ''vote for me and I'll fix the economy'', or ''vote for me and I'll fix the roads / schools / system / healthcare'', and we accepted those because they were pipe dreams told by snake oil salesmen. We knew they were likely to try a little, but never completely succeed, and it's not like we wanted their jobs anyway.

But in the past 15 years, with negative ads becoming more and more prevalent, it seems the speech / ad writers feel the public has assimilated the ''personal attack'' technique and may be ready for the perpetual lying about the opponent's positions. Except that TV ads, usually paid for by a SuperPAC or a lobbying group of some sort, could historically be called out by the candidate it supported, who would just have to say ''I don't agree with what was said in there and apologize to my opponent'' while the message still got across; nowadays, the politician will spew the bullshit himself, live, in front of an audience (and the media), but for some reason, there isn't an entity who can put them back in their place, and maybe fine them (hit them where it hurts, their money).

I guess that's what you get for always demanding a smaller and smaller government: you get a free-for-all party of bullshit and fuckery, and may the meanest asshole win (and fuck up the country).

The Thing With Mitt Romney

Earlier this week, Jon Stewart said smart things about Mitt Romney on The Daily Show. Because Viacom are being jerks, it's difficult to find clips of it online - and the rights to the show differ from country to country, so I'd probably have to find 6 or 7 videos anyway, but have instead affixed it on an image:

I'd like to add this: Romney's running for President of the United States. Chief of the country with the biggest influence on Democracy on earth. As President, one of the things he'd have to decide on is how to spend his people's money - what services to provide, what benefits to give, who to subsidize, what wars to wage.

This money comes from taxes.

Romney (and folks like him) paid 15% in taxes last year, yet is worth roughly about half a billion dollars. His money is and always has been held in tax shelters (previously Switzerland, now the Bahamas and Caiman Islands).

How can he be an authority on - and have authority with - his people's money when he, himself, barely contributes to the pot?

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. As an elected official, he's allowed free health care, paid for by seemingly everybody in the country except himself.

That's what's offensive. Not the ''fact that he's rich'' - everyone deserves a fair shot at life. It's what you do during it that matters, and what he's done is hide his away from the greater good and try to manipulate everyone else's. It's unfait, it's wrong, and above all, it's unfit of a Presidency.

Another Deadly Stage Collapse

No, it's not a metaphor: right before Radiohead's Toronto concert, Saturday night, the stage structure collapsed, crushing one person to death and injuring five others seriously. The show was cancelled.

A lot of that happened last year, notably at the Indiana State Fair, as well as at the Ottawa Blues Fest, as Cheap Trick was playing their one good song massive hit I Want You To Want Me.

Either gravity's pull is stronger than ever, or we're hiring crews who neglect security and cut corners to save money. But as high-end pop shows start to regularly cost over $100 to attend, everybody involved should be making enough money to be content with doing their fucking jobs correctly.

Thanks For The Memories, AIDS Wolf

One of the bands I most looked up to as examples of how to run your career - AIDS Wolf - has just called it quits, via singer Chloe Lum's blog.

They toured relentlessly, designed posters as a side-job/for a living, and electrified audiences on three continents... even if by the end, it was to only 5 people at a time.

In her post, Chloe describes exactly how the ''free market'' in North America actually works - huge corporations no longer have to get their shit through customs, they can close factories in major cities and re-open them in Mexico or other poor countries at a lesser cost, but the proverbial Little Guy has to go through more - and more expensive - loopholes. Especially if He wants to make it all right and legal. It makes no moral sense.

Perhaps a show of love will convince them to not hang the wires forever, perhaps not. I know I've always wanted to sing a song with Lum myself; maybe if AW is on the backburner, she'll have time for it, maybe not. But this doesn't seem like a decision they made lightly, nor one they're thrilled about.

It's pretty much a mourning, for them and for us.

Picture below from suburbanalist.

picture below from Chloe's tumblr

The memories and recordings remain, though.

Think Disney Will Stop Making Bad Movies?

I don't.

Because their market researchers will likely blame the movie's name, the director will blame the lack of high-end acting talent, the screenwriters will blame the director and no one will admit to having spent $250M on a shitty movie, a re-hashed Gladiator with bits of Ghosts Of Mars incorporated into it.

But John Carter is, officially, the biggest flop of the year. Maybe the biggest in years. It lost $150M by itself, and brought the whole Disney empire in the red by $80M for this quarter.

But that won't make Disney re-evaluate its position in the field, nor how it spends its money, nor the types of movies it funds, when it easily could take the opportunity to look into funding low-cost, high-gain indie films, which can be filmed for anywhere from $5-10M and with DVD sales alone are guaranteed to re-coup, making dozens of people from all film jobs work, rather than one of each.

Freudian Slip Of The Year

Mitt Romney can't spell. Or at the very least, can't concentrate on anything other than money. He even makes his children out to spell the word itself when they should be spelling his name.

This guy's really making it way too easy - it's like he wants to enter the history books as the guy who spent the most money to not get a nomination for the party who's going to lose an election.

How hard is it to sort the fucking kids by height? And we're to believe this guy was successful in business? That he's in touch with ''normal people'' somehow?

He just might be the ultimate proof that Charles Darwin was wrong...

Billion Dollar Baby

While I'm not partial to Paris Hilton's looks nor ''talents'', you've got to give it to her for moneying her assets into always more and more public exposure. And money, considering she's now officially a billionaire. (Yes, you read that right.)

This time, she's on the cover of FHM magazine. Here, she's pictured spray-painting... something? The whole thing makes no sense whatsoever...

But the pièce de résistance is clearly these four facts ''learned'' from her interview:

FYI 1: Recently Paris found a stray dog on a beach in Bali. It looked hungry and made her sad, so she spent £50 on a filet mignon steak for it.
FYI 2: Paris was robbed five times by Hollywood gang The Bling Ring. It wasn't until the fifth time when she lost $2 million in jewellery that she reported the robberies.
FYI 3: Paris went to the same school as Kim Kardashian, Chandler from friends and the guys who wrote the theme song from The O.C. (''Phantom Planet'')
FYI 4: Paris used to date a guy called Paris.

Check Meat

While Morrissey famously sang Meat Is Murder, it seems fake (i"e. 'processed') meat is even worse: cancer-inducing.

I particularly like this paragraph:

Processed meats include bacon, sausage, hot dogs, sandwich meat, packaged ham, pepperoni, salami and virtually all red meat used in frozen prepared meals. They are usually manufactured with a carcinogenic ingredient known as sodium nitrite. This is used as a color fixer by meat companies to turn packaged meats a bright red color so they look fresh.

They later make sure to not lump fresh red meat into the same categories, but still, in many supermarkets, frozen food and crap meat are just about the only affordable shit available.

And the list of shit meat is actually really extensive: beef jerky, manufactured sausages, hot dogs, bacon, sandwich meat, frozen pizza with meat, canned soup with meat, frozen meals with meat, ravioli and meat pasta foods, kids' pre-arranged meals with meat, and:

Nearly all red meats sold at public schools, restaurants, hospitals, hotels and theme parks

I like that it includes hospitals, of all fucking places.

So: check the ingredients on everything you purchase, and don’t buy anything made with sodium nitrite or monosodium glutamate (also known as MSG, that salt-like ingredient in chips and many buffets that tricks your brain into craving the food).

Or don't. We all need to die of something.

Not My Month

From back pain to frozen bank accounts to being out of work to finding work for a week but having it be useless for the first day to it being the coldest month of the year, it just hasn't been my month.

Just sayin'. There's been no recess.

All Bankers Are Vampires

Bankers. These fuckers lie so much for a living, they make lawyers seem righteous. They walk crooked with their legs forming an ellipse because they are genetically incapable of doing anything that has to do with either definition of the word ''right''. It becomes problematic when they get into their cars, because doing nothing but left turns empowers them, makes them feel like NASCAR drivers, and so they speed in school districts and buy off the cops when the time comes for tickets or prison time.

They only work half days, close shop at 3, because they don't want anybody with a job near a computer or a camera to know what's going on inside their establishments, while they bleed their customers dry and suck out their life force. Literally. And that's the point of this whole thing - they are modern-day vampires, only instead of looking like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, they are decrepit bald men that only come out after sunset. They let the barely younger overweight mothers of five to deal directly with customers as long as they can sustain paying for the bank's front, but as soon as their accounts are dry, they are taken to the back room where they're hung at the ceiling by their heads and their blood sucked from above through metal straws by the bankers on the floor above them.

It is a savage sight to see, and they figured I was too overweight to run away, but they didn't count on my brute force to knock them out one by one and find my way back home to expose their dirty little secret. But it's not really a secret, is it? It's just that the metaphors we used are, in fact, not images but the actual truth of what happens behind the appearances of legitimate business.

Retribution is a word they only understand during tax season. But we're smack-dab right in the middle of it, aren't we? The vultures need to maintain the erection tax season gives them... they need fresh blood. They'll get restless and reckless soon enough.

Money (That's What I Want)

Banks. from their very inception, they were conceived as a means to steal from people. ''Hey, let me watch over your money!'' quickly became ''pay me to watch over your money'', and the interest they charged was way more than the interest they received - and i was all normal, because it's the basis of our capitalist system.

Then capitalism ran amok, and we gave banks the rights to also charge us fees for handling our accounts, because more-than-doubling us on interest on our own money wasn't enough, so now we were happily also giving them $5-20 a month for them to store our cash and give us 0.1% interest, while they lent others our money at a 5-10% rate. ''Financial institutions'' which weren't actually banks, on the other hand, started charging well over 30%.

But that wasn't enough. We also had to let the bastards gamble our money away, which made way for the financial crisis we're currently in.

And it seems that also wasn't enough. On Friday, my bank froze my bank account, not giving me any reason for it. Of course, during the day, it was fine, but as soon as my bank closed, the funds weren't available. And, of course, as banks have a way of fucking things up, it was nearly impossible to get an answer from anyone concerning anything after hours.

Three phone calls got me to a lady who could ''see the account is locked, but there's no other information as to why of what transactions are prevented''. Can I still pay my bills, write checks - pay my creditors, at least? Or will they have to starve just like me? No answer, just a vague ''there is someplace you can call on Saturday where they might have more answers for you.

Come Saturday, and it turns out this number is for an open bank branch - same bank, different branch, so they can't unfreeze the account, but at least their supervisor can tell me it's a ''governmental lockdown''. So, it's narrowed down to three things: provincial taxes, federal taxes, or that dude from Florida who thinks I scammed him started procedures and the cops froze it.

I should know on Monday. I still had to live off of other people's money for the weekend, which really sucks. And without knowing the actual reason why, either - which sucks even more. And the money I borrowed, I used on groceries for myself and the cats - which means I'm late on mailing Ebay DVDs I sold (Galaxy Quest, The Big Lebowski and Lost: Season Two - Season 1 still available if interested).

One Of Those Days

It's one of those fucking days, right?

When I came in to work, yesterday, 24 hours ago, it was sunny and warm, a beautiful Thursday mid-day. I've been in the same office for 25 hours straight, working on the same report - but now it's raining outside and I'm almost done.

Yesterday was also Pay Day. But because my company still functions in the 12th Century - I like to say they're Ye Olde School - we still get paid via cheque rather than direct deposit. And guess what happened to my bank this morning, the one place where I can bring my cheque in and they'll put the money in my account without freezing it? Wait for it...

A. Fucking. Car. Smashed. Through. It. A fucking car. Smashed through it. Someone put a motherfucking car through the window of my motherfucking bank, ripping away both ATMs, then smashing its way through more glass right into the fucking lobby, injuring a poor woman who was at the ATM. And, of course, closing the teller-part of it for the day.

Which means public transit will also be slowed down in the area where I reside.

And that's fine, because despite having been working for over 24 hours and up for 30 - I'm in no hurry to get home, because I'm not even sleepy yet. I'm probably tired, exhausted - I just don't feel it because I'm on 3 liters of Pepsi and a can of Rockstar - probably enough caffeine to kill a child or a couple of elderly people.

All hyped up and nothing to do.

I Think I Need A Drink

I dunno, man - I haven't had money in something like three months, been restraining myself in that timespan.

I feel like going out, partying.

Then again, the playoffs start again tomorrow night - Habs versus Flyers - that can be reason to leave the house and celebrate.

It doesn't happen a lot, but I'd kinf of almost want to end up like this: