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.

Platitudes!

preachingNot that long ago, Social Media was being called the greatest gift to democracy since Jefferson.  How the mighty have fallen!  The problem is a) you don’t have to take an IQ test to own a computer and b) statistically, half the people who have computers would fail it if there was one.  The result is Social Media is over-populated by people on the bottom end of the “I’m-just-as-smart-as-you-are” scale, and the rest of us can’t disagree with them because that’s some kind of brain-shaming or something.  Meanwhile, these (for want of a better term) stupid people have reduced the conversation to the lowest common denominator which includes bashing everybody over the head with industrial-strength platitudes.  And, unfortunately, unlike cute cat videos, attaching deep meaning to meaningless clichés digs a deeper hole in the cyber-stupid and that just makes it harder and harder for any of us to get out.  Let me show you what I mean.

Bravery has many forms – No doubt — but not all bravery is created equal.  Somehow, we’ve forgotten that there’s a big difference between running into a burning building to save grandma and finally getting up enough courage to tell grandma we’re gay.  They’re not the same thing, and every time we equate the two, we devalue what courage really means.

Face Your Fears – I’m afraid of grizzly bears and I’m pretty sure that going mano a mano with a large North American land mammal is going to end badly– regardless of my personal growth.  Facing your fears only works when your fears can’t rip your face off.

People Can Surprise You – This isn’t always a good thing.  Like it or not, life dictates that we’re all going to accumulate more than a few substantial scars from getting stabbed in the back by people who’ve – uh — surprised us.

You Can Do Anything If You Try – This is why so many people think they’re creative, don’t want to do the grunt work and spend their entire lives pissed off with the world when they discover they have to.

Money Isn’t Everything – I’m not even going to grace this stupidity with an answer.

It’s Okay To Ask For Help – Yeah, but don’t be shocked out of your socks when you don’t get it.  Don’t believe me?  Ask your friends to help you move!

Don’t Give In To Hate – Folks, life isn’t a Star Wars trilogy!  There is no Dark Side that will suck you in and corrupt your soul.  I hate people who litter, and I don’t care what their motivation is.  Honestly, if it’s morally reprehensible, what’s wrong with a little hate?

And finally:

Be Yourself – These days, everybody’s so wrapped up in being themselves they’ve totally forgotten that there are 8 billion other people on this planet.