Why Writers Write

Oftentimes when I'm temping as a proof-writer or copy-writer, I'll be asked why I choose such an unstable job instead of a career where I can be guaranteed hours and a wage, such as the times I've spent as a market research analyst / marketing consultant (2006-2011, and 2016, give or take), and I guess the best answer is the last line in this piece by The late Show with Stephen Colbert:

I basically live to write words that resonate, even when they're obvious like here. And I am far from alone.

R.I.P. Carrie Fisher

Fuck, 2016 is a killer.

Today, Carrie Fisher was the latest esteemed member of the entertainment and arts community to pass away, the result of a heart attack suffered last week while flying from London to Los Angeles.

She was 60 years old, and is survived by her beloved puppy as well as her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds, and daughter, actress Billie Lourd.

As Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars movies, she was my first silver screen/celebrity crush. I had always dreamed of writing her into a screenplay. In terms of film writing, she, Demi Moore, Rebecca De Mornay and Deborah Kara Unger were my muses when it came to female parts; I tried writing strong, smart parts for women so that one of them would one day play in one, giving me the credibility I needed to keep making and writing movies.

My most mainstream screenplay - for lack of a better word - about a guy who loses it and starts sending dill pickles by mail, had parts for all four of them as his co-workers and bosses in a call center. It was never sold nor picked up, of course, because I am terrible at selling myself.

She will be missed.

She had recently released her autobiography. It's a fine read.

What Colour Dressed Him Best?

Blue and black, or gold and white?

(yes, that's a dress joke).

But it leads me to Leonard Nimoy, who died today due to complications from COPD (chronic pulmonary disease, something that runs the gamut between severe asthma and lung cancer).

He was an actor, of course, but also a writer, poet, film director (including two of the Star Trek series and Three Men And A Baby), and an inspiration to many. He struggled with his Spock character for a long time, but seemed to come to terms with it in the 1990s, concluding decades of soul-searching with his second autobiography, 1995's I Am Spock (after 1975's I Am Not Spock).

I'll watch Galaxy Quest (in which Alan Rickman's character is a clear homage to Nimoy himself) tonight, to mix some laughs with my sadness.

Live Long And Prosper, concluded the 83-year-old man, in his final tweet earlier this week, publishing his last poem at the same time, for the whole world to ponder:

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.  LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

Free Fappy

With so much fake news around nowadays, and with real news sometimes less believable than any fiction possibly could be, it's increasingly hard to tell which is which. If anything, though, we can praise this piece for either being an unreal piece of double-dipped irony or a well-executed, multiple-tiered work of fiction...

It's a great and hilarious story when told via this post about Arizona Governor Jan Brewer granting a pardon... but I'd rather start chronologically instead. Just because.

So, for starters, there appears to be a Christian anti-masturbation group called Stop Masturbation Now (the website's humour-meets-racism tone should cue us in about this being fiction, but 'Murca bein' 'Murca, you never know). You may laugh at there being such a thing, which is said to be ''federally funded programs designed to teach both children and adults about the dangers and consequences of masturbation.''

Secondly, Stop Masturbation Now apparently has a mascot, Fappy The Anti-Masturbation Dolphin. Hes, Fappy, as in ''fap fap fap'', the noise the internet says it makes when you self-indulge. Or, as Fappy puts it:

They need to stop playing on the Devil’s playground, stop pounding their Devil stick or ringing the Devil’s doorbell - See more at: http://nationalreport.net/fappy-the-dolphin-arrested-for-public-masturbation/#sthash.KAAkxYWM.dpuf

They need to stop playing on the Devil’s playground, stop pounding their Devil stick or ringing the Devil’s doorbell.

Or so he was screaming... when he was arrested for jerking off in public. (Irony #1)

He didn't mind going to jail, though, because:

I want to apologize to all my amazing fans out there, I love and miss you all. You have my word that I will make the most of this bad situation. Jail is just a hotbed for self-rape and immoral acts. I plan to do everything in my power to stop the masturbation currently happening in this jail.

That's kind of where they lost me, but at least I still found more humour along the way, such as this quote from Lonnie Childs, his boss at Stop Masturbation Now:

Thanks to your tax dollars, Fappy has helped tens of thousands of adults and children learn to live a masturbation-free lifestyle. During his visits to schools around the world, Fappy has collected thousands of signatures from children promising to never masturbate; he has done great things. (...) He’s passionate about his work, he loves being Fappy, he loves the kids. They even have a nickname for him, they call him the tickle monster. (...) I have activated my prayer app and I ask each and every one of you to keep Fappy in your prayers until this incident is resolved. Praise Fappy!

Of course your tax dollars would go to a religious organization whose main point of contact with kids would, uh, well, make physical contact with kids! That's never led to any trouble - ever!

And so, as a double-dose of irony, comes the story about the Governor's pardon, in a state that rarely gives any. And her comments on the case:

I did a lot of soul searching before making this decision. We all make mistakes in life. When it comes down to it, we must ask ourselves, would a person like Paul Horner be better for society locked up behind bars or outside helping the children of this great country learn about the dangers of masturbation? I think the question answers itself.

Again, in a country where Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann can get elected, perhaps some people and elected official really think masturbation is dangerous, and we should really ''think about the kids''...

Also, Horner? Really? And here's what Mr. Horner had to say upon his being pardoned:

This makes Fappy® very happy. To be honest I would have been fine either way, in jail, out of jail, it doesn’t matter; my message always stays the same. The prisons in Arizona are just a hotbed of self-rape, that I had planned to fix. Maybe I’ll get a chance to do this the next time I get arrested.

Yes, THE NEXT TIME.

Stay tuned for the sequel!

Agreeing With Affleck

My Playboy subscription ran out a month or two ago, four years or so after first joining (after the Tara Reid issue, and after I was told I might have a shot at writing for them). I let it run out because it hadn't gone anywhere for a while - the writing was no longer up to par, and the girls you can surely get off the web anyway. I miss the one-square comics, though.

But I would probably would have liked a hard copy of this recent Ben Affleck interview, which had this interesting tidbit about my city:

I met Morgan Freeman, which was great because I was able to ask him to work for free when we did Gone Baby Gone. We shot The Sum of All Fears in Montréal, and it almost killed me. That town never closes. The food is amazing, the drink is amazing, the girls are gorgeous. It’s not a place to focus on your work.

As a guy whose three books are stalling and whose debut CD is still unreleased (though I've added singles for Rumours and All Round Us to the ever-expanding web music offer), I can vouch it's a hard city to concentrate in. It's also quite inspiring. Catch-22.

My Life Is A Thrill-Kill

Life. It's bigger. It's bigger than you, but you are not me. (from R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion)

Meaningless words to some, words to live by for others. To me, words that pop up in my head when I'm going through confusing, exciting, or troubling times. Words that entered my mind again as I sit in the wee hours of the morning, nary a whimper of light in the night sky.

Today will be Wednesday. Hump Day - as if the road we travel meets a hill, and we're curious to see what's on the other side. More often than not, though, our measly excuses for an existence is just looking to bypass any surprise and satisfy itself with the mundane for the little rest we'll get to forget what we've become. In the words of Loverboy, ''Everybody's working for the weekend''. But the second part of that chorus also rings true to the vast majority: ''Everybody's going off the deep end''. Like they require extreme behaviour to justify their week-long confinement to a cubicle.

Our ancestors made the most sense. They actually journeyed from one place to another, and over that actual hump was an actual event waiting to happen.

I was already tired of the weekly drag, but playing Grant Theft Auto 5 (GTA V) of late, the latest installment from my favourite video games series that doesn't compare to some of the better titles, has made me hate the world we live in even more: spend 70 bucks to end up pretend-driving cars in traffic, and execute jaw-dropping tasks and missions such as parachute diving, jogging, riding bikes, manning a tow-truck and carrying cars from their location to the impound, driving a garbage truck... or just driving around listening to an annoying, poorly-scripted character whose sole use is to get you to your next ''mission''.

Ha, ''mission''. Might as well resort to spreading the word of Jesus door-to-door and only have sex in one position. If there was sex to be had.

My Life was on the upswing. Seems like it's stalling now. No time available, yet no time to waste. Something's got to give.

R.I.P Nicolas Plamondon

I had to write about Expozine recently for someone involved with it (he participated from 2007 to 2011) to go through enough hell to alter the life experience of everyone who knew him...

Artist Nicolas Plamondon took his own life a few days ago, unable to cope with a world he never quite fit in. Ever searching for his place in it, recognizing himself always only in part in what was offered, even his art reflected his dazed outlook:

The above picture was taken from Théâtre Des Souffrances and reprinted in the last edition of Four Minutes To Midnight, which I also occasionally contribute to.

Because life and art often intersect, he participated in the Spring demonstrations to support striking students, getting arrested multiple times. They weren't his first times behind bars, as he wrote about his 10-hour detention for the G20 demos in 2010 here.

The world loses one sensitive young adult who thought the world we live in doesn't make sense. The status quo loses an opponent and rolls on that much closer to victory.

Expozine Last Weekend

I was hit with a flu this weekend, which stopped me from doing many things I had planned, including attending this year's edition of Expozine, the annual get-together of independent publishers in fields as varied as poetry, graphic design, calligraphy, comics, fanzines and many others.

A lot of my friends were there on both sides of the tables - selling and buying, learning and meeting new creative people, including the sometimes illustrator of my music singles AMM (Anne-Marie Martino), whose recent comics collaboration is this:

Also there was whiz designer Kevin Lo, who displayed his famous Wu-Tang Clan C.R.E.A.M. diptych, letterpress printed in gold ink on thick black cardstock:

Now that's postmodern genius.

Writing

Writing; it's a hell of a beast. Yes, I meant writing, not writers. Writers are a disparate bunch, but most of those who consider themselves to be writers have this idealized preconceived notion that it's a glamorous way to kill oneself through poverty and acclaim, when it is often one and rarely the other, and almost never done in the spotlight.

The spotlight kills, always has, always will. Not just writers, but thinkers too. Very few revel in it, and most who do do so fort such short periods of time hat it's irrelevant. From a three-movie career (hello, James Dean) to a decade of high-level sports success (Patrick Roy, Wayne Gretzky), they are shooting stars in a world of dead planets.

So, no, this won't be about writers.

The action of sitting down to put thoughts into words drives a few of us to the brink of (in)sanity, usually because it causes us to exist on a parallel plane, one in which we have time to ourselves, one in which we can afford to take a moment and not make a living for a while. Time is often more an enemy than inspiration, which can be triggered. You can't invent hours, make them up from scratch when you've run out - if so, one could harness that skill to create immortality. And yet some dedicate their lives to this... but, of course, I digress. Which I do so often I'm probably an evil mastermind in a poor sci-fi movie.

Where I meant to go was here, to a blog post by Kelly Kay, a friend-of-a-friend I met at an UnPop show I put on three or four years ago, someone I would have liked to get to know better but probably scared instead. Which is fine, because I already have all the friends-I-don't-have-the-time-to-be-around that I can handle.

Like myself, Kelly's a film grad who loves music, particularly of the live variety, and who, in an ideal world, would get paid to write whatever's on her mind. except her mind is twisted, violently, because she spends way too much time over-analyzing stuff like Lana Del Rey as a fictional, built-up character personalizing America; it's at once mesmerizing, compelling and haunting - not the subject matter, but the depth to which she dives into it. It's a heck of an interesting read.

1000 Posts (!)

I can't believe I used my 1000th post to write about a dumb story about humans preferring sex and alcohol to religion and work.

I started this blog about six years ago, and have witnessed a shitload of stuff. I saw a bird committing suicide; I broke my back and farted in someone's face; I went to Cuba and had the best time of my life; did nothing - not even move - for 15 straight hours; went on 3-to-5-day sleepless stints more times than I can count; challenged Murphy's Law and lost - time and time again; and again; I've been let down and got back up; I almost fucking died.

I played solo shows, shows with my band, with experimental projects, with ''bands made of friends''. Even played in a Velvet Underground cover band. I even stole the show by just being a guest on one song.

I could have written about anything old, anything new, and I chose a bottom-drawer story.

What I should have done is thank you, anyone who would read this, whoever you are.

America Versus Poutine

So someone at BuzzFeed is angry that Americans can't do poutine right, and explains how and why in much detail...

Source: midnightpoutine.ca

Let me tell you something, Henry Goldman, sir, most of Canada can't get it right either. In Toronto, most places use mozzarella or regular cheddar rather than cheddar curds; in Manitoba or Saskatchewan, you can get a severe beating just for ordering one - and my fist was sore from defending myself (and cops were coming), so I had to leave before it even got to my table.

Truth is, while the Rest Of Canada has shown a bizarre love for poutine in particular but Québec foods in general (the current debate is figuring out which between poutine and pea soup is the country's official dish...), it's pretty hard to find a decent fries-brown sauce-cheese meal outside of La Belle Province. Heck, there are probably as many good ones as there are God-awful ones even in Québec.

What we need is a list of decent places, pictures, and a how-to list that we can print out and carry at all times and take out whenever we crave one, and force restaurants to make us one on the spot whether it's on the menu or not - it could become the ''order off the menu'' of our generation.

Fries, cheese curds, warm gravy on top.

Paradise.

The ''S'' Stands For... Stoned Out Of His Mind?

Ever notice that Hunter S. Thompson wrote as if he were talking while high on cocaine? That's because he had a habit of being very high on cocaine...

The picture above is an actual Associated Press-published rendition of a day in the life of, as witnessed by his biographer.

Then again, no surprise, we're talking about this guy:

Relationships

It starts with wisdom about relationships and ends in bittersweetness, as most things do.

My friend Yan's at it again, writing a heartfelt open letter to the void that is human existence. You can't ever go back, get back what you had, because the only constant is change, and you can't unsee what you've seen, unhear what you've heard, unsay what was said, unscrew who was fucked.

There is only, always, moving on. From things, but also from nothings.

Daniel Weinstock's Open Letter (To English-Canadians)

I don't know this Daniel Weinstock character, but his Open Letter To English-Canadians on Facebook is pretty much right on the money, for the most part:

An open letter to my English-Canadian friends. Please circulate in your networks as you see fit.
You may have heard that there has been some turmoil in Quebec in recent weeks. There have been demonstrations in the streets of Montreal every night for almost a month now, and a massive demonstration will be happening tomorrow, which I will be attending, along with my wife, Elizabeth Elbourne, and my eldest daughter Emma.

Reading the Anglo-Canadian press, it strikes me that you have been getting a very fragmented and biased picture of what is going on. Given the gulf that has already emerged between Quebec and the rest of Canada in the wake of the 2011 election, it is important that the issues under discussion here at least be represented clearly. You may decide at the end of the day that we are crazy, but at least you should reach that decision on the basis of the facts, rather than of the distortions that have been served up by the G&M and other outlets.

First, the matter of the tuition hikes, which touched off this mess. The rest of the country seems to have reached the conclusion that the students are spoiled, selfish brats, who would still be paying the lowest tuition fees even if the whole of the proposed increase went through.

The first thing to say is that this is an odd conception of selfishness. Students have been sticking with the strikes even knowing that they may suffer deleterious consequences, both financial and academic. They have been marching every night despite the threat of beatings, tear-gas, rubber bullets, and arrests. It is, of course, easier for the right-wing media to dismiss them if they can be portrayed as selfish kids to whom no -one has ever said "no". But there is clearly an issue of principle here.

OK, then. But maybe the principle is the wrong one. Free tuition may just be a pie-in-the sky idea that mature people give up on when they put away childish things. And besides, why should other people pay for the students' "free" tuition? There is no such thing as "free" education. Someone, somewhere, has to pay. And the students, the criticism continues, are simply refusing to pay their "fair share".

Why is that criticism simplistic? Because the students' claim has never been that they should not pay for education. The question is whether they should do so up front, before they have income, or later, as taxpayers in a progressive taxation scheme. Another question has to do with the degree to which Universities should be funded by everyone, or primarily by those who attend them. So the issue of how to fund Universities justly is complicated. We have to figure out at what point in people's lives they should be paying for their education, and we also have to figure out how much of the bill should be footed by those who do not attend, but who benefit from a University-educated work force of doctors, lawyers, etc. The students' answer to this question may not be the best, but then it does not strike me that the government's is all that thought out either.

And at least the students have been trying to make ARGUMENTS and to engage the government and the rest of society in debate, whereas the government's attitude, other than to invoke the in-this-context-meaningless "everyone pays their faire share" argument like a mantra, has been to say "Shut up, and obey".

What strikes the balance in the students' favour in the Quebec context is that the ideal of no up-front financial hurdles to University access is enshrined in some of the most foundational documents of Quebec's Quiet Revolution, in particular the Parent Commission Report, which wrested control of schools from the Church and created the modern Quebec education system, a cornerstone of the kind of society that many Quebeckers see themselves as aspiring to. Now, it could be that that ideal is no longer viable, or that we may no longer want to subscribe to it. But moving away from it, as Charest's measures have done, at least requires a debate, analogous to the debate that would have to be had if the Feds proposed to scrap the Canada Health Act. It is clearly not just an administrative measure. It is political through and through. Indeed it strikes at fundamental questions about the kind of society we want to live in. If this isn't the sort of thing that requires democratic debate, I don't know what is.

The government has met the very reasonable request that this issue, and broader issues of University governance, be at least addressed in some suitably open and democratic manner with silence, then derision, then injunctions, and now, with the most odious "law" that I have seen voted by the Quebec National Assembly in my adult memory. It places the right of all Quebec citizens to assemble, but also to talk and discuss about these issues, under severe limitations. It includes that most odious of categories: crimes of omission, as in, you can get fined for omitting to attempt to prevent someone from taking part in an act judged illegal by the law. In principle, the simple wearing of the by-now iconic red square can be subject to a fine. The government has also made the student leaders absurdly and ruinously responsible for any action that is ostensibly carried out under the banners of their organizations. The students groups can be fined $125000 whenever someone claiming to be "part" of the movement throws a rock through a window. And so on. It is truly a thing to behold.

The government is clearly aware that this "law" would not withstand a millisecond of Charter scrutiny. It actually expires in July 2013, well before challenges could actually wind their way through the Courts. The intention is thus clearly just to bring down the hammer on this particular movement by using methods that the government knows to be contrary to basic liberal-democratic rule-of-law principles. The cynicism is jaw-dropping. It is beneath contempt for the government to play fast and loose with our civil rights and liberties in order to deal with the results of its own abject failure to govern.

So that is why tomorrow I will be taking a walk in downtown Montreal with (hopefully!) hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens. Again, you are all free to disagree, but at least don't let it be because of the completely distorted picture of what is going on here that you have been getting from media outlets, including some from which we might have expected more.

Daniel

It would be nice if he'd added the list of scandals Jean Charest and his Liberal Party has been associated with, but a good start deserves to be noticed.

Obsolete Words

Ever get bored with the words currently being used in the English language?

Ever get scared that our vocabulary will soon be reduced to merely one-syllable words, or worse - single consonants or vowels?

Maybe it's time to resurrect obsolete words, such as these ones, twenty of them.

I, for one, cannot fathom going another day without expressing my need to deliciate on some massive jumbo shrimp, but chances are I'll brannigan for St. Patrick's first.

R.I.P. Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel was a poet, playwright, writer and cultural leader in Czechoslovakia; eventually, as a respected and known dissident, he became a political figure as the regime changed. He was the tenth and last President of Czecholslovakia, during which time Slovakia seceded from the Czech Republic - a move he thoroughly opposed - and became, de facto, the first President of the Czech Republic.

He is vastly considered the leader of the Velvet Revolution, which turned Czechoslovakia from a U.S.S.R.-led-and-owned one-party Stalinist state to a multi-party democracy without the use of physical or military violence.

He died today, at age 75, in his sleep. His health had been an issue since the days where he had been imprisoned by the Communist Party for his writings and ideas, which spoke of a Czech identity, freedom and liberty, and the right to independence.

Lack Of Gonzoisms

I'm at my best when I write angry, or in total fucking pain. I know that.

When I'm only mildly in pain - as has been the case in the past few months - my writing becomes more static, more common, it loses its edge, part of its meaning, and most of its personality.

That's why I've been keeping away from the keyboard a bit, because I don't feel like submitting (all 4 of) my readers to sub-par writing. And because I haven't drank in over a month.

My best friend Alex, from Mexico, has been trying to encourage me to write at least one post a day, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'll try, for realz, but I don't want this once-pride-worthy blog to dip below the Mason-Dixon line of what I can stand to have my name attached to.

But worry not: the (Federal) Tax Man has come asking me for $7500 I don't have, so I'm bound to get pissed off soon enough...

The Year's Coming To A Close

November's ending, and the year's coming into its last throes - and what do I have to say for myself? What have I done this year that merits attention, that makes it worth havin spent 365 days in it?

I've remained in country (unless you consider Toronto to be another country - I don't yet, but I did feel rather alien in it, as always), I've played 15 local shows and hosted UnPop yet again, but without an actual Finale to speak of yet, few outside shows.

My book is still not out (although it's pretty damn close at this point), I'm expecting news in a matter of days and already have approved the texts, fonts and bar code.

I'll soon be living alone with my two kitties in an apartment that was made for two humans and maybe an extra tiny one...

I'll get to redecorate, though, that should be fun, sports and music memorabilia everywhere.

My grandparents celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary; I like that people who have trouble getting out of couches get more accomplishments done in a year than I do.

I wanted to exercise and walk, that didn't happen. I think I need to buy myself some skates and start playing outdoors hockey again - except for the fact that I hate the fucking cold. And I likely can't afford new skates, especially since I've been using goalie skates all my life and those would be the ones I'd need - and they're fucking expensive.

Oh well, we'll see what the new year brings. Either way, I still have a shot at ending 2009 with a bang.

Writing Screenplays

It seems easy enough a concept, really. Especially when writing is just about the only thing you can do and you studied in film to boot. It combines regular writing with regular storytelling, but it's never just so a reader can take it and imagine it their way in their heads and more about having a specific type of reader get a better idea on how to make it look better than it already does so it can sound like a regular situation and less like something you read.

So, really, it's all about being vague enough in your details so that others can set it better than you, but with enough natural flash to elicit that same person, who reads half a dozen screenplays a day, to keep reading yours until the end.

And that's where it gets tricky, because the stupidest or most mundane story with barely a couple of good dialogue lines can look really cool on screen (see Shoot Em Up or Get Shorty), while very well written films can fall into near obscurity because a big-name director (Charlie Bartlett) or big-name producer didn't take care of it (The Chumscrubber), or a bigwig executive didn't have the balls to release it properly (The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys).

So, in my opinion, there is a fine line that must absolutely be crossed depending on where you want your idea to be headed: smart and little chance of commercial success but likely international recognition, or typical formulaic fare that could make you rich if you know the right people to sell it to. But most people aren't plugged in with the Hollywood bigwigs, so I'm left to wonder why there aren't too many potentially amazing ideas running around in recent film releases, and I'm stupefied at the rate of remakes, sequels and adaptations hitting the big screens and video store shelves in recent years. It's downright scary.

Which leads me to what I'm writing now. Two screenplays dealing with customer service - an issue that hits home in more ways than one in my case. It's not like it's a new subject,a nd it's not like my take on it is revolutionary. So I have absolutely no idea how it would fit with the categories I've described in the previous paragraph.

Maybe I'm just fucked.