Category: Culture

I’m An Optimist (2018)

optimist

I’m an optimist.  I don’t believe life is “short, brutish and cruel” or whatever the hell Thomas Hobbes was going on about.  First of all, life is not short: it’s the longest thing you’re ever going to do (aside from eternity, and that doesn’t count.)  Secondly, nothing that offers over 20 different kinds of breakfast cereal (from super-nutritious to practically poison) can be called “brutish and cruel.”  Perhaps, at one time, Hobbes was money in the bank, but these days the poor guy isn’t even spare change.

The truth is, the only reason a lot of people think pessimism is such a profound philosophy is most of the great thinkers we hold so dear to our hearts (like Hobbes) wrote it that way.  Unfortunately, they were doing their writing (and their thinking) in a time when scullery maid was a legitimate occupation, a bad cold could kill ya and public executions were entertainment – for the whole family.  Not all that relevant in the 21st century!  And, quite frankly, neither is their dim view of the world.

We live in a world that is full of promise.  Okay, sometimes we get our priorities screwed up and try to feed the homeless, clothe the starving and tolerate the intolerant — but at least we’re workin’ on it.  And the fact is, we do feed a lot of people, we do clothe them, we educate them, offer them medicine, employment and safety.  We allow a cornucopia of gods, politics, ideas and opinions all equal billing in the intellectual feast that is Western society.  We show mercy, generosity and benevolence — even to those who wish to do us harm.  We do not live in a dark world because — quite frankly, folks — when our biggest problem is the Internet is slow, we’ve got nothing to be pessimistic about.

Big Dick Energy

cool

I think of Popular Culture as this great huge lake — and I’m a smooth, flat stone, skipping across the top of it.  Every once in a while, I touch the water and get a little wet, but by the time there are any ripples, I’m already back in the air.  Great analogy, right?  And this explains why, by the time I got around to Big Dick Energy, it was already passé.  However, after I saw it a couple of times in my Internet travels, I hit The Google to discover just what BDE was made of.  Total disappointment!  It turns out, according the Beeb (BBC) BDE is merely that intangible confidence exuded by the uber-cool.  Trust millennials to concoct a smutty genitalia description for something that’s been around since Cleopatra took one look at Julius Caesar and said, “I’d like one of those, please.”

No, for all their tweeting about Rihanna, Cate Blanchett, Idris Alba and Harry Styles, millennials didn’t invent Big Dick Energy – they just think they did.  However, it’s impossible to explain this to them because nobody has an answer for “What is cool?” and every generation has its own frame of reference.  Back in the day, my generation actually named Steve McQueen the King of Cool because – uh – he was.  Unfortunately, these days, poor Steve wouldn’t be considered the king of anything — way too much testosterone and too little angst.  The guy probably never had a panic attack in his life.  Believe me, his brand of man just doesn’t fit — in the land of the metrosexual.  Meanwhile, on the other end of the gender scale, my generation had a ton of uber-cool women – Julie Christie comes to mind, as does Diana Rigg and, of course, Ann-Margret.  These women didn’t have drama; they had hairstyles and sunglasses.  And they wore their sexuality like a tailored dress: it just fit them.  All of these women were simply too self-possessed to be “cool” in the 21st century.  For example, I don’t think any of them was ever slammed up against the wall in a fit of uncontrollable passion (a la Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith) in any movie they ever made.  No man would have dared.

So, sail on, millennials!  There’s no doubt Cate Blanchett and Idris Alba have Big Dick Energy, but so did James Dean and Ava Gardner and before that Bogie and Bacall and before that … So you should remember that, in 50 years, your Big Dick Energy is going to be just as old- fashioned as I am, skipping across the lake of Popular Culture.

Summer Thoughts

summer

We’re approaching the halfway point of summer.  It’s hot.  I’m grouchy.  The guy down the street still believes everyone in the neighbourhood loves classic hip-hop.  And I wish there was an Advent Calendar for the Autumn Equinox – but there isn’t.  Anyway, here are some random thoughts to occupy your mind while Mother Nature tries to broil us in our own oil — again this year.

Life is not a bowl of cherries, a river, a journey or a process – life is a ski jump.  You start off slowly, gather momentum and just when you reach maximum velocity and think you’ve got it all going on – oops! – you’re sailing fifty metres in the air, and there’s nothing underneath you but the cold, hard ground.

Isn’t it totally convenient that most of the people you know — from the woman you see on the bus every morning to that best, best friend you’ve known since university — go into suspended animation when you’re not there?

Even though Winnie the Pooh did his own stunts in the new Disney film, Christopher Robin, China has still banned it.  Why am I not surprised?

One of the coolest things about getting older is that, when people talk about you behind your back, you can’t hear them.  And this works on so many levels.

In fashion, sometimes the only difference between faux pas and faux posh is about $500.00.

This is the best way to explain the difference between movie audiences in Europe and North America.  In North America, people want to see Michael Fassbender play Macbeth.  In Europe, people want to see Macbeth played by Michael Fassbender.

In the small town of Union Bay, Canada, a 95-year-old woman, Anna Stady, chased a bear out of her kitchen.  This says a few things about wildlife in Canada and a whole bunch about Canadian women.

And finally:

Young people spend so much time using their phones to “interact” with their friends on Social Media, one would think that teenage pregnancies should be somewhere around zero.