Category: Culture

A Real Conspiracy

conspiracy1Hang on to your bonnet, baby, because I’ve uncovered a massive international conspiracy.  Unfortunately, I’m such a total coward I’m too scared to name names, but I have evidence that powerful covert forces are at work — even as we speak.  These shadowy figures are grimly determined to totally suck the joy out of every aspect of human life!  Their nefarious goal is to turn every one of us into miserable Neo-Puritans, just as riddled with guilt and apprehension as they are.  And the problem is it looks as if they’re succeeding.  Check it out:

Remember when holidays were a time to take a moment, have some fun, relax and recharge the batteries?  Buckle up ’cause those days are over.  These days, holidays are a battleground.  Look at Hallowe’en!  Every costume comes with a ferocious debate.  Columbus Day?  Chris would have been better off sailing the other way.  Valentine’s Day is a minefield of who got missed in the sexual orientation parade, and Christmas?  Just forget it — between the Christmas-is-too-commercial crew and the anti-Christian lobby, even Santa Claus has tossed in the towel.  No, special occasions are a good time to keep your head down, and, just to be on the safe side, lie about your birthday on Facebook.
Celebrations?  Gone!

Have you ever wondered what happened to junk food?  Think about it!  One minute we’re chowin’ down on cheeseburgers, fries and a Coke, happy as clams. The next thing we know, it’s all 90 calorie, gluten-free, low sodium, Tai Chi chicken salad.  Whoa!  The point of junk food is … it’s junk!  It’s supposed to be bad for you!  Going to McDonald’s for a salad is like going to a whore for a hug — why bother?
Junk Food?  Not gone, but smothered in guilt.

Did you know there are historical records which categorically prove that sex is supposed to be messy?  That’s right!  It involves all manner of mouth-breathing, involuntary twitches and tensions, grinding, groaning, gripping and sticky stuff.  Orgasm, for most of human existence, was a noun not a verb (the verb was a lot more folksy) and for thousands of millennia, humans had body hair — and it wasn’t icky.   The antiseptic procedures most people practice these days are designed to tear the soul out of sex and make it just one more hyper-allergenic reward challenge of “the relationship.”
The Joy of Sex?  Replaced by I’m not sure what. . . .

And we all know what “relationships” are — they’re the long-winded workaholics idea of love slowly drowning in an ocean of issues and dialogue — until finally, totally fed up, even the dog’s had enough and wants to end it.
Love?  Dissolved away like sugar in the rain.

It was the original Puritans who banned Christmas, discouraged poetry, art and music.  They also got rid of theatre, dance and comedy.  They believed that life was a grim business and that they knew what was best for everybody.  Our contemporary puritans are a lot sneakier but just as grim — and just as certain of their own infallibility.  They’re definitely dedicated to stomping out fun, excitement and humour.  They scare the hell out of me and I tend to keep a low profile whenever they’re around.  However, on a totally unrelated matter, have you ever noticed that hipsters, university students and new parents never smile?  I wonder why!

Big Word Day

big-wordWhat this planet needs is Big Word Day.  One day a month (I suggest the first Monday) when we’re allowed to use those big godawful words that make us all sound like pompous asses.  Then, at midnight, everybody has to go back to talking (and writing) like regular people.  Big Word Day would not only clear the air of pretentious language, it would shorten business meetings, reduce government bullshit and keep corporations from drowning us in doublespeak policies, warranties, guarantees and disclaimers.  (What’s the difference between a warranty and a guarantee, anyway?)  I know big words are tempting and I’m as guilty as the next person, so I understand why we like to sound as if we just stepped off Oxford Common — but it’s getting out of hand.  We don’t buy things anymore; we purchase them.  We don’t help; we facilitate.  We don’t think; we conceptualize. And — horror upon horrors — we don’t talk; we verbalize.

The big problem with big words is people don’t think that way.  We think in broad abstractions that get translated into words when we speak (or write) so we can communicate meaning.  For example, when I write “John saw a girl” unless you’re a Himalayan holy man who’s lived alone in a cave for 50 years, you see the girl, too.  Your girl and John’s girl might not look the same, but the meaning is clear.  This is because my words are a direct translation of my thoughts.  However, when I write, “John observed a girl” things get a little muddled.  Suddenly, because of nuance and connotation, John isn’t passive anymore.  The girl is still the object of the sentence but John is definitely more involved.  He’s deliberately doing something.  Hey!  Wait a minute!  Who is this guy?  What is he, some kind of stalker?  You see, the meaning has changed.  This might be a bit of an exaggeration (after all, I haven’t clarified whether John had binoculars or not) but my point is it’s more difficult to translate words into meaning when they’re carrying extra baggage.  And big words all carry tons of baggage.

Don’t get me wrong; big words are important.  English is a precise language with surgical accuracy, so I don’t want to get rid of big words altogether.  I just think, these days, they’ve slipped the leash and I want to corner them and get them under control again.  Big Word Day would do that.  It would force us to quit utilizing big words all the time and only use them when they’re necessary.  Plus, and this is the good bit, jerks with an intellectual chip on their shoulders would have to shut the hell up most of the time — and that alone would be worth it.

Bob Dylan — Nobel Laureate?

Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.  I’m not sure what to think about this.  It’s difficult for me to be objective about Bob Dylan.  So much stuff gets in the road.  I remember Bob when he and I were both kids, so there’s a lot of old man nostalgia going on — and my hindsight isn’t even close to 20/20.  I’m not suggesting he shouldn’t have won  — poetry shouldn’t be confined to the rhyming couplet and the quill pen.  Singer/songwriters are still writers, after all, and of all the Rod McKuens, Leonard Cohens and Joni Mitchells my generation produced, no one deserves a Nobel Prize more than Bob Dylan.  But I can’t help thinking that if he’d been toiling away with pen and paper instead of guitar and harmonica — well — regardless of how good Bob Dylan really is, I’m not sure The Swedish Academy would have come calling.

But here is the music with the lyrics — you decide.  And then I’ll let Joan Baez speak for me because, like her, if the Nobel Prize people are offering me nostalgia — I’ve already paid.