Jan 08
Thirty-three million people roared in unison as the country’s collective heads swell with pride and hearts sent aflutter. Three straight gold medals at the World Junior Hockey Championships and once again Canadian wombs continue to assure our dominance at this elegant sport.
“Elegant?” one might ask. Consider the goalie’s pinpoint hand-eye coordination needed to catch a puck hurtling at speeds of up to 100mph. Or the balance required to burst down the ice and stop on a dime, supported by only a thin steel blade. Basketball may have showboating slam-dunks, and soccer fancy footwork, but nothing quite compares to a dazzling deke. Pure poetry in motion.
“But, but, the violence!” you protest. No doubt there is a brutish element – we’ll never forget The Bertuzzi Incident. And the fighting – the only professional team sport where fisticuffs is somewhat condoned. On any other playing field, players land in serious ca-ca, but in the rink, you get a 5-minute major penalty for dropping the gloves.
Like all organized sports, hockey is a perfect example of a moral absolutism in play – strict guidelines and appointed zebra-clad judges to call fair or foul. This particular ethical system succeeds not only because it is organized and happens within a contained environment, but mainly because when you step on the ice, you acknowledge said laws and acquiesce to the system.
(In the heyday of my career as a student of philosophy, my stock answer about my personal ethical system was that “Ethics is a sham.” To be honest, this frivolous response stemmed from the simple reason that I disliked my ethics classes. When pressed to elucidate, I would rely on two key weapons of mass distraction: Olympian language and convoluted logic. Usually sooner, but sometimes later, I would have confounded my opponent such that they forthwith declare to eschew abstract discussions…)
Unlike the world of sports where participants accept their lot, the game of life is a little different. Without a overarching moral scheme in place, humans will endlessly debate over what is good and evil, what one ought to do and what one ought not. In this empty void, many feel compelled to fill it with religion – as many as 75% of the world’s population. Religion is rife with moral absolutism; the paramount example the Ten Commandments. Which George Carlin promptly shreds to pieces…a spectacle I had the pleasure of witnessing in Montreal.
So where does that leave us? No closer to the truth than before. Everyone makes their own choices and reacts to situations differently. Still, from the pulpit I preach this two-word maxim:
Be yourself.
Dec 13
The police sedan blisters down the one way street, sirens piercing the once silent night, shattering an already fragile paradigm. This used to be a safe neighbourhood, she said, and now every night there’s a domestic disturbance, a drug deal gone bad, a break-in in progress.
T-Dot’s practically balmy. Half-expecting Missouri-force snowstorms, he’s greeted with relatively tropical weather, so much so that it warrants island dress. Scores of meteorologists, legions of tree huggers and Al Gore may be correct, but it still boggles the mind.
This is the bane of human existence; when presented with a situation so utterly unexpected, something so inane that our 3 pounds of spongy matter does a double take. It may have been Creation’s little trick: in giving us thought, we were also gifted (or cursed) with a hunger to satisfy murderous attitudes towards felines. Whether it lies in religious tomes, scientific pursuits, spiritual meditation or symbolic art, we seek the ultimate answer to the ultimate question: Why?
While many have struggled to provide rational explanations, the late great Douglas Adams once wrote in his five part trilogy:
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something more bizarrely inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Flippant? Perhaps, but within those two sentences lie a kernel of truth that cannot be ignored. If there is anything that is certain and constant in this universe, it is that things change.
Our very lives are dictated by changing states. The smell of a moist roast unleashes a Proustian flood of memories. The price of gasoline drops 12 cents in 2.5 hours. Time is the linear measurement of the difference between Point A to Point B. Civilizations rise and fall, cities prosper and fail, economies boom, bust and echo.
And of course, uncluttered has changed. In my first post, I was advocating evolved thought, confident in my ability to proselytize to the masses. Now, the soapbox has been placed in storage, the lights dimmed. In this post, I’m one vote shy of being charged guilty of meandering. As 2006 draws to a close, and 2007 raises even more questions, my cliché answer to that burning question is simply:
Why not?
Nov 15
The latest Tool album is terrible. Actually, all Tool albums are terrible aside from the moments of ‘how the hell did they get that sound??’. The fact is, Maynard is the real tool….Adam Jones needs to start a band with Billy Howerdel, get Melissa Auf Der Maur to play bass, have Liam Howlett do drum loops and get Femi Kuti doing voice-overs about demo-kraaaaayzee….
So why am I losing it? Probably has something to do with the crappy dep wine and reading endless accounts of the Piedmontese silk industry in 1860…did u know it was a natural oligopoly?!? thrilling….
Still, there’s always the trusty old Ibanez that I can strum at moments like this…oh wait….someone stole it while I was out of town….fuck….well I guess I’ll just play air guitar with my tennis racket…it has more strings too…
At least the cold hasn’t started biting yet…and Nick’s birthday should kick ass…
and now the guy down the hall is saying that something is ‘incroyable’….
