O.K. I’m going to be a bit controversial … so feel free to flame me afterwards!

Don Imus, host of the morning show “Imus in the Morning”, was fired today by CBS after making some racial remarks last week. I didn’t see the segment live, rather I viewed it after the fact on YouTube. I’ve never heard Imus’s radio show, but I do know that his popularity (especially among my gender cohort) is largely due to his humour, usually at the expense of himself or others.

I am not an extreme leftist, I often flip flop depending on the issue … but normally I’d consider myself more left-wing then right. That is my stance … so when I say I found his comments somewhat amusing, don’t call me a racist. Because I also laugh when watching TV and a black man or woman calls me a cracker.

So why is it alright for Dave Chapelle (or countless other black comedians) to call me a cracker or a honky, yet when Imus says that the Ruckers Girls Basketball Team are nappy hair hoes (who look tougher then the Toronto Raptors), ands makes fun of (in his opinion) their manly appearance it because a major news story?

There exists a dual morality that exists (specifically in North America) that is wrong. Either something is right ad infinitum or its not. This mushy middle ground is only making things worse. Maybe that’s a distorted white opinion especially since I’ve never dealt with salary or oppression, but neither would have my accusers.

I think it’s time for people not to take themselves so seriously … let’s take a joke for what it is, simply a joke.

At least then we can stop talking about this issue and focus on those (the genocides, the epidemics, and starvation) that are constantly pushed to the back of the newspaper.

When will the bell toll for me ?!?!

I sit here in an uncomfortable leather chair, sipping burnt coffee, melting in a fluorescent hell.

Yes, it’s 5:00pm on a Friday and while all of my co-workers have grazed to greener pastures (some to the bar, others home) I sit here waiting for the phone to ring. RING dammit, I want to go home. RING so I can swing by the liquor store and forget about admin tools, creative briefs, dockets, estimates, fires, conforming.

It’s 5:04pm and my phone is not ringing. A glance over at it constantly, I check the receiver and dial tone … yup my phone functions. Dammit I can’t get the thought of a nice cold JD and coke out of my head, or a nice glass of chardonnay. Hell even a filet-o-fish from McDicks sounds good right now. But alas my phone does not ring.

My soul is fading, with every breathe in this fluorescent hell my soul aches. It aches and is lost, forever. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily hate my job and in fact I’m rather successful at it. My job is what allows me to lead the cushy lifestyle I enjoy. But my lifestyle comes at a cost … a cost that eventually will be to large to bare.

RING dammit so I can retreat from this hell, so that I leave my cubicle and see the glorious sunlight. A luxury that evades me throughout the day. Sure I’m over-reacting, but there is truth in my words. For every second I am here I am missing out on life, missing out on something more! So my frustration and utter frantic appeals for my beige Meridian phone to ring are extremely warranted. In fact, they are necessary.

I am not a typical 9 to 5 employee. I look the part; my shoes are always shinned, shirts ironed, and I smile at the majority of my co-workers. But I have a problem being managed … partly due to my arrogance, partly because I see a fundamental flaw in corporate partisanship. The problem is (at least from my point of view) that I hate the idea that the reason I need to conform to these corporate ideals is because everyone else is. Does it matter that I stroll into work (Starbucks in hand) at 9:20am every morning? Does it matter that I park my car illegally every day? Does it matter that when someone tells me to jump at work I don’t say “How high” but rather just ask why?

It doesn’t because I still bring in a healthy dose of dirty dirty G.P. (thanks Lingo), establish strong relationships with my clients, and do what I say I do! Isn’t that what’s important. I’d never make someone wait by the phone at 5:13pm on a Friday afternoon. Mainly because I know how shitty it is that it is happening to me.

Alas, what am I to do. As long as I have love in my heart and inspiration around me I find the strength to proceed … I find the strength to continue to wait for that ring!

Oh look, it’s 5:20pm and my phone is ringing … I feel liberated, I feel free, I feel happy. Well at least until next Monday.

In search of hope …

I sit awake at night, fearing the dawning of the sun. I fear that as the moon dissipates into the horizon so does my hope of being happy, and experiencing any substantial joy.

I wasn’t always this way … I was once full of hope. Yet now I find it difficult to wake-up in the morning and face the morning dew. The world has changed, it has evolved. Perhaps I should have done likewise. Perhaps I should throw down my visions of the world and adapt myself whole heartedly into society, into the stereotypical norm that will provide me with a wife, 1.3 kids, a house, several dogs, debt, disease, soccer practices, car payments, and ironically enough compliancy.

Is that so bad? Is that any worse then my current state? Fearing and loathing the sun, worshipping the moon and alienating myself from “normal” society.

Well, at the very least that would be an interesting debate. The trouble is that I want to be happy, I need hope. Hope is a fleeting vicarious emotion that is fundamental to our evolution. Yet it evades us at the most inopportune time.

Well not now, not anymore! I have hope in myself, hope that I am in firm control of my destiny and that no one has the ability to change that. No one has the ability to steal this hope from me. And while I will always continue to worship the moon, maybe Apollo can light my way through this evolved strange enviroment from time to time as well.

In search of clarity…

Well it’s been well over a month and I have yet to update my blog. Not sure why, I always mean to write something. Writing has a soothing effect on me … it organizes my thoughts and provides me with a bit of clarity.

Maybe that’s the trouble after all. Lately I’ve found my thoughts to be scattered and fragmented. Not sure why. I feel as though I’m in a hazy bubble; no telling how long I’ve been in it … nor do I really know when I’ll get out! My thoughts are rampant with various items: sports trivia, genocides, the exploitation of natural resources, political accountability, the backyardigans, the TSX, Green Pumas, Ministry of Sound, and a dozen or more incoherent thoughts that mesh together and flow through my brain.

It’s weird … things in my life are really good. I mean really really good. Obviously there are annoyances everywhere but overall I am thankful for everything I have. I am thankful that I have love in my heart, and strength in my bones.

Alright, I need to get focused; I need to rekindle my drive. I have a poem to write, I have a story to tell. Not sure when it’ll be done … hopefully soon. Until then I will continue to write these entries to express my contemplations, and alleviate my random, fragmented thoughts and hopefully pop this bubble that is hindering my succession towards clarity.

Life is about choices

Do I choose to triumph over life’s slings and arrows,
Or do I wither away?
Do I raise my voice amidst a sea of whispers and be heard,
Or do I wither away?
Do I take arms against those who wish to oppress,
Or do I wither away?

Life is indeed about choices … some we control, and others wither away!

Trying to find truth … a difficult task indeed.

I feel lost today. Happy but lost. Where to begin, I guess that could be a blog entry all to itself.

Let us begin with what I immediately know, well as long as I am not being cleverly deceived as Descartes feared. I’m currently sitting at Starbuck’s working away (surprise, surprise) and I begin, for lack of a better word, analyzing the various interactions occurring within my environment. I do not read lips but I feel engrossed in every interaction merely as a result of the body language of each one of my subjects. Dance my dear friends, dance for my amusement.

One of my subjects, an older man with a white beard and reading glasses, begins to laugh loudly. He smiles at me and others in the environment. Happiness is such a fleeting emotion. One moment we enjoy and bask in it, the next moment it evades us. I suppose it is like any other emotion, temporary and ultimately irrational in nature. I recall my logic professor during my undergrad who attempted to instill us with one pearl of wisdom: logic is the only thing in this universe that is truly rationale, all else is hearsay. I’m attracted to these bold, definite, and rather direct hypothesis. Romantic no, far from inspirational, but nonetheless correct.

But what does this mean. And more importantly what does this leave me, the lost philosopher constantly seeking answers but arriving only at questions? Well it leaves me with a false sense of hope. My Starbucks subjects are a perfect illustration of the errors we all are guilty of, perhaps innately. As our human condition dictates, it is incredibly difficult for us to separate ourselves from our subjectivity, from our beliefs, from our cultures, mores and folkways. Errors they all are, but very meaningful. Do truths need to be universal? Dare I go against antiquity, and state that truths can be subjective and temporal? I’d love to formulate such a hypothesis but I’m modest enough to realize I do not have the faculties to maintain such a thesis. Nor am I sure I totally support such a theory.

I know that the couple in front of me are lovers. They demonstrate many indicators that led me to believe this fact with certainty. But what else do I know? The woman holds up a red paperclip she finds lost beside the fireplace. Interesting, odd, meaningless. Regardless, I remove the headphones from my ears (I’m sorry Sergio Mendes) and listen to the conversation that ensues. Mindless banter, ramblings … I suppose similar to this paragraph. Do I believe that their conversation is mindless because I lack the necessary background to appreciate it? Possibly. Then again that might be a stretch. How am I to know? In this case I could approach the couple and ask them (as awkward as that would be), but there are many instances when this is not possible. Instances when truths (and by truth I do not mean absolute truths) are only know either through inquiry or our use of deduction or, as my dear undergrad professor would state, by logic. Which is right?

Again, I do not know … but the journey to discover the answer is of paramount importance